Flue Gas Analyzers

[JohnCT]

I've always had professionals set up any oil burner I've ever installed, repaired, or replaced, but I'll be experimenting with replacing nozzles in my new boiler. Instead of paying a pro for every nozzle I experiment with, I've been kicking around the idea of picking up an analyzer. For cost reasons, it would be a used one since I would probably use it maybe 10 - 20 times between my own stuff and my mom's house.

So, I've been poking around ebay and there are a lot of them available used between $100 and $150, which is a lot cheaper than a new one would cost. My questions are if a used analyzer would necessarily need to be calibrated. If so, what does calibration cost. Is there a particular analyzer to avoid or one I should consider first?

Lastly, is this plan I would be better of abandoning??

Thanks.

John

 

[Sylvan]

This is the one I used

https://www.mybacharach.com/product-view/fyrite-intech/

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Fitter30]

Pick a name brand, find out what the sensors cost and if they need a calibration gas for set up. Most don't most sensors on newer testers are plug and play. If you buy one this isn't the tool that is easy to use. So play with it with a burner that is running correctly and with baby steps make small adjustments and see how things change. CO can change very quickly and any tester will have a sensor that goes out of range will lock the tester out till it clears itself in room air. Any adjustments made mark where the linkage, air shutter where they were before making any moves.

 

[JohnCT]

Thanks everyone. I picked up a used Bacharach Fyrite wet kit. This one came with the manometer and spot tester (some don't). Not as convenient as the electronic ones but then I'm not going to make a living with it either, plus I won't have to deal with a sensor that goes bad just from father time working on it. I want to see where my old burner was before I pull it and see how close I can get the new one and compare it to what the pro sets it up at.

John

 

[JohnCT]

I shut down my old boiler to let it cool off Thursday night so I could replace it yesterday. Before I shut it down, I did some checking using the Fyrite kit I picked up out of curiosity (long story about a problem I had with the burner a couple of years ago). I set the heat to call and let it run about 10 minutes before testing. My basement door slider was open at the time and it was about 75F outside and about the same inside.

What I found was the CO2 at 11%, the stack net temp 560F, 0.0 draft over the fire and .05 draft in the stack before the barometric damper. The damper would not budge when the burner was on or off, and it swings freely and the weight is set so the damper just closes lightly when the burner is off.

When I removed the boiler, I could see that the inside of the boiler is spotless: zero soot since the last time I cleaned it, which was two years ago, so it's not plugged. I'm going to have the chimney cleaned before I have a pro set up the burner.

I did NOT play with any settings on the burner as it was late when I got home Thursday.

John

 

[Sylvan]

Your stack temperature is slightly above the normal temperature by 60 Deg which is not to bad I have seen some over 700 deg