Boiler won’t stay running

[Matt316]

Hey guys so I’ve been having some issues with my brunham v-14 boiler. It does my baseboard heat and my hot water. So I bought the house on January 4th and the heat has been running fine no problem. Now I know the fire chamber was starting to go so I know that needs repair. But a couple weeks ago it shut off and wasn’t getting fuel. I have an overhead fuel line and I had to prime it every few days. Been doing that fit a couple weeks now. So I eventually found out about a tiger loop deairator. I installed one of those on Tuesday and it’s been running fine no problems. Up until tonight (Saturday) all of a sudden the boiler won’t stay running. If I press the reset button it kicks on and runs for about 10 seconds and shuts down. What could be causing it to shut down? Could it be that the fire chamber needs to be repaired? Not sure if that would cause it to shut down or not. If anyone has any help please let me know. Thank you.



So my real question is will a damaged fire chamber cause the boiler to not stay running?

 

[Sylvan]

NO the chamber has nothing to do with the burner other than keeping the flame inside (hopefully)

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Jadnashua]

IF you look through the viewing port, does the boiler actually fire up? If it does, it could be the flame detector is either dirty, corroded, or disconnected. Don't play much with boilers, especially oil-fired ones.

 

[Matt316]

Ok so what would cause it to run fit the 10 seconds then just shut down. The flame is definitely in there for the 10 seconds and it’s a strong normal flame. But then just shuts off.

 

[JohnCT]

Ok so what would cause it to run fit the 10 seconds then just shut down. The flame is definitely in there for the 10 seconds and it’s a strong normal flame. But then just shuts off.

If the flame is indeed normal, then one would generally investigate the CAD cell first. If that's OK, then the primary control is the next culprit, but throwing parts at it often leads to a lot of new parts and an unresolved problem.

Now, the flame may *look* normal, but it may not be. If a known good CAD cell is installed and it's measured running resistance approaches 1500 ohms, the flame is darker than you realize. The cell is much more sensitive to changes in light than the eye is. Very small changes to the air ratio have a huge difference on the CAD cell running readings.

If the flame is dark, you could have a bad nozzle or pump pressure issues. If the flame is running rich, it will be darker and will be plugging your boiler as well as the flame retention head reducing the light to the CAD cell.. It might also be putting out a lot of CO. A combustion analysis should be done to see what's going on.

Regarding the chamber: if that's failing, if shouldn't affect flame brightness but you risk a burn through on the boiler and a catastrophic oil fed fire.

Honestly, these are nothing to screw with if you don't really understand them.

John