HRM Starflow 50/85 won't fire up, serial no 1099/50/299

[oldnick72]

Hi,

Newbie here so feel free to teach me the etiquette of this place, and apologies for the lengthy opening post.

The boiler started locking out on Friday after a long period of faultless running, there was a bit of gunk on the back of the (newish) nozzle (Danfoss Nozzle 0.65 x 80 EH) , cleaned it with carb cleaner and blew it dry. Popped the cover off the pump (Danfoss BFP 11 L3) to check the filter and woah, full (and I mean full) of c**p, cleaned it all out including the channels by the pump gears, oil feed tube, bleed port etc.

Bled it up, fired it up off the boiler and bingo, sparks, little flame, then solenoid opened and whoosh - nice flame.
Patted myself on the back, fitted the burner to the boiler, set the pressure to 7 Bar, happy wife happy life.

It ran fine yesterday morning and night, then this morning it locked out again and when I took the burner out it still has good sparks, the little flame, then the solenoid opens and it gushes oil out of the nozzle but doesn't fire. Blast tube is dripping with oil after one try.

You can't take anything for granted with this boiler, it was "serviced" by the previous owner's son in law, and I have no faith he did anything useful (missing screws, stripped threads, filthy filter in the pump and no other filter in the line, or a stop tap, fire valve, non return valve (top of tank is below the bottom of the burner). These issues will be fixed asap.

Any ideas how to proceed until I can get a grown up out to service it?

Cheers,
Nick

 

[oldnick72]

Looking at the manual, I may have spotted one issue. Does the 50 in the serial number 1099/50/299 refer to the output (Btu/h x 1000)?

Because if so the nozzle should be a 0.5 not a 0.65.

 

[exedon2]

Before doing anything else get issues with oil supply sorted .
Filter on tank remote - fire valve -shut of valve before boiler.
The nozzle could well be correct depending on what output the boiler is set at.
I would strongly recommend a competent oil engineer to set up burner.
You can't make any meaningful adjustments to a oil burner without combustion analysis equipment.

 

[oldnick72]

I agree I need an oil engineer, the two I know are rammed with work at the minute.

Also temporarily inefficient running would be preferable to no heat!

How do I fit a filter to the tank when it is full of oil? Is that something a proper engineer has the kit to do? Or do we pump the tank out?

 

[SimonG]

Wait until you can get hold of somebody with the kit.
The dirty fuel needs sorting, but you have other issues. First one being don't clean nozzles.
There shouldn't be any flame prior to solenoid energising.
The boiler could have been uprated, boilers generally have a range, say 19 to 26kw. The boiler comes preset mid range but you will get the settings to run at the bottom as well as the top of the range and which nozzle is required.
You could have messed with the electrodes.
The photocell could be seeing the small flame.
Could be over aired.
Nozzle may not be partially blocked and not vaporising the fuel correctly.

Best not to fiddle.