"Dead" chimney with oil furnace

[BigLou]

I should mention its a CARRIER normal efficiency 80% unit.

Kim,
RANT
thats a LOW efficiency unit and in my personal opinion they should be out lawed here in the states like there are in so many other countries. nothing normal about running such low efficiency equipment. The only good news is that rules out your chimney its pretty hard to not get flue gasses that hot to vent.
/rant

Remember I have had 10 visits by htis companies tech's some have mention possible faulty heat exchanger??I have the sooting issue in my house;[my filters were black after one month] any help would be appreciated.The last tech was the service manager;he is reluctant to trouble the CARRIER rep, about my problem...after a year I think its time

Kim,
I think its was time after the 2nd or 3rd trip. Now its time to fire this company and get a knowledgeable person in there to fix your problem. Have they charged you for all ten visits ? your local heating supply house should be able to point you in the right direction on who is good. My neighbor is an oil burner tech, he never took more then one trip to fix anything that was wrong with my 60 year old boiler before I replaced it with a new gas unit.
I think your person is afraid to call the rep and admit their incompetence.
When I did find some one was able fix it I would sue the first company for your money back. Seeing as you at least paid them for the first service call and they never fixed your problem. Saying it had a dead chimney is like a mechanic telling some one they have stale air in their tires of they need to change the head light fluid. Really makes me wonder about the ethics of this company and how many other people they are fleecing out of thier money

All oil fired units consist of two seperate parts often manufactured by two seperate companies. The furnace it self and the burner which has the reset button you have to keep pressing. My personal guess is the burner was over firing which overheated and cracked the heat exchanger.

Lou

[BigLou]

Yes ;....the furnace did do bangs..and sounded like a freight train some times at start up;even after some tech work.The furnace is the only thing on the chimney

Kim,
thats almost defeniatly the transformer that sparks the burner which is where the reset button is located. when it fails to ignite for a shot time unburnt oil is sprayed in to the firebox and when it does finally ignite BOOM and soot goes everywhere. Thats oil heating 101. I missed this post when posting my last reply and would like to make this my cause for a damaged heat exchanger

Lou