Crimped oil line

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deesson

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I need some advice on what can be done to remedy this problem I have.
Last winter when it got below freezing, the burner kept sputtering. I am sure it's from the kink in the oil line coming into the basement. It is only about one inch from the concrete. The tank is buried underground.

I have two questions:
1) Is it possible to ream the line back into shape? If not, what alternatives do I have?
2) I never liked the filter hanging like it is. Is there a better spot for it?

Thanks for your help.

Mike
 
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Dana

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It's unlikely the sputtering is due to kinks in the fuel line. Burners in redidential heating typically draw less than 2 gallons per HOUR. For a kink or compression to be restrictive enough to for the burner to be flow limited it would have to be mashed almost completely flat, and opening the line would only drip at some high rate of drops, not a smooth trickle flow.

Drolets of water/condensation in the tank might cause that sort of symptom, but describe the sputtering in greater detail.

Installing the filter such that it is mechanically supported by something other than soft copper tubing, and easily accessible for indspection & servicing would be a good idea. It's often mounted on rigid pluming right at the burner, but hanging in on bracket mounted rigid plumbing screwed into the foundation walls would be fine. It's always a good idea to have a drip-pan of some sort directly under it (even if wall-mounted), since the filters & associated plumbing are common leak points. See the multiple filter mount pics on this page.
 

deesson

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It's unlikely the sputtering is due to kinks in the fuel line. Burners in redidential heating typically draw less than 2 gallons per HOUR. For a kink or compression to be restrictive enough to for the burner to be flow limited it would have to be mashed almost completely flat, and opening the line would only drip at some high rate of drops, not a smooth trickle flow.

Drolets of water/condensation in the tank might cause that sort of symptom, but describe the sputtering in greater detail.

Installing the filter such that it is mechanically supported by something other than soft copper tubing, and easily accessible for indspection & servicing would be a good idea. It's often mounted on rigid pluming right at the burner, but hanging in on bracket mounted rigid plumbing screwed into the foundation walls would be fine. It's always a good idea to have a drip-pan of some sort directly under it (even if wall-mounted), since the filters & associated plumbing are common leak points. See the multiple filter mount pics on this page.

About the sputtering: the burner would kick on, run for 10-15 seconds, then shut off. After 30 seconds it would start back up and usually complete the cycle, but sputter a lot. Then it would repeat the process until finally it would sputter, shut off and lock out. It would lock out at least once a day without fail. Then I would have to restart it and the process would repeat. This went on all winter. The filter and nozzle were changed twice, additive put into the oil, fuel pump changed. Still did it until the outside temperature rose. It's running fine now, but I don't want to go through this again come next winter. I was hoping it was the bent oil line. I was told the oil tends to gel in the cold temperature so I thought that plus kink would maybe restrict oil flow.

Mike
 

Dana

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This sounds like something in the burner control/feedback, not the fuel line. If it were an above grade tank that could drop well below 20F during a week of colder weather it could gel enough to be an issue, but the symptoms would go away at least by the time the tank temp rose to 30F. If it was going on all winter, it wasn't due to gelled fuel. With a buried tank the fuel probably never got down to anywhere near gelling temperature to the point it wouldn't pass through filters or nozzles easily (about +15F ).
 

deesson

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This sounds like something in the burner control/feedback, not the fuel line. If it were an above grade tank that could drop well below 20F during a week of colder weather it could gel enough to be an issue, but the symptoms would go away at least by the time the tank temp rose to 30F. If it was going on all winter, it wasn't due to gelled fuel. With a buried tank the fuel probably never got down to anywhere near gelling temperature to the point it wouldn't pass through filters or nozzles easily (about +15F ).


Thank you for the advice. I will certainly take it into consideration should the problem arise once again. What can be done if there is water/condensation in the fuel tank?

Mike
 

Dana

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If the problem is/was in fact water, if the symptom has gone away it is an indication that the water has been purged. If the water is/was condensation, having the tank relatively full over the summer period limits the amount of new condensation that can accumulate, since there is less humid air in the tank for it to be condensing out of.

If ground water from a leak you may need a new tank, which can be an expensive proposition for a buried tank. How old is the tank- any idea?

Boiler, or hot air furnace?
 

deesson

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If the problem is/was in fact water, if the symptom has gone away it is an indication that the water has been purged. If the water is/was condensation, having the tank relatively full over the summer period limits the amount of new condensation that can accumulate, since there is less humid air in the tank for it to be condensing out of.

If ground water from a leak you may need a new tank, which can be an expensive proposition for a buried tank. How old is the tank- any idea?

Boiler, or hot air furnace?


The tank is 1000 gallons and is probably close to 60 years old. I usually top it off in the fall each year. I have a hot water boiler system, an old weil-mclain with a becket burner.
 

Dana

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Assuming the tank is compromised, replacing a buried 1000 gallon tank is probably more than the cost of decommissioning it and installing smaller tank in the basement. This has to be assessed by a competent person on-site, not easily diagnosed via internet forum.

If the boiler is as old as the tank, even with an updated burner it's efficiency probably isn't better than 60-65% or so, and could be 50%, a combination of erosion on both the water and fire side of the heat exchanger plates, and the likely large oversizing factor. It's possible to get a handle on the oversizing factor and the appropriate size of any replacement equipment (whether another oil boiler or something else) by running a fuel-use based heat load calculation, which is a lot quicker & easier to perform than a Manual-J or I=B=R load calculation. It's always good to run this BEFORE a forced replacement situation comes up (say, the boiler starts leaking or fails castatrophically), so that the replacement equipment isn't also oversized to the point where it's less comfortable and less efficient. (I see 3-5x oversizing on boilers fairly often, as if people were expecting -150F and colder weather.)
 
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