The home heating oil industry has a long and proud history, and Fuel Oil News has been there supporting it since 1935. It is an industry that has faced many challenges during that time. In its 77th year, Fuel Oil News is doing more than just holding
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service The Care And Use Of Combustion Test Equipment by George Lanthier* T his article has been printed a few times and it's always been a very popular piece and answers some questions that constantly come up when doing combustion testing on oil, gas and LP. I like to roll it out every so often since it answers a lot of questions for many people. In addition, after the last article, it will answer a few questions we got. Many thanks by the way! The ability to diagnose and repair oil or gas burners seems sometimes out of our control. Regrettably, as these problems have increased, we have not used all of the tools available to us. It is almost impossible today to properly service "state of the art" burners by the 'let's eyeball it' method. Annoying and costly repeat calls have increased while no one seems to know why. Or do we? Some companies seem to have fewer problems than others do. Why? We hope to answer some of these questions here or at least get you to look over how and why you do it 'your way'. Since almost the beginning of the service industry, we have had testing equipment available to us to analyze burner performance. In the '70s and '80s the combustion test kit was used primarily to test 'steady-state efficiency' and lost most of its credibility as a true service tool. It is as essential as our flashlight for good burner service. Since many of us may not have used the kit as often as we should, we will concentrate on reviewing the basics of instrument use and instrument quality. This material was originally published in The Councilor of the Better 14 Home Heat Council of Massachusetts in 1979 and then in several magazines and stays permanently on my website under an area we call Firedragon Field Notes. It was also published as excerpts in the text, "COMBUSTION & Oil Burning Equipment" in 1995-2000 and in Advanced Residential Oilburners since this information never seems to go out of date. Although originally written for oilburners, most of the equipment covered is also used to test gas-fired equipment. The purpose of this document is, therefore, to eliminate as many discrepancies as possible, which come about due to improper care and maintenance of the instruments used in the field. Many servicemen still do not understand the importance and meaning of steady-state test conditions. For their benefit we will re-define the term NOVEMBER 2013 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com and discuss the proper use and checkout procedures for these tools. Steady-state A condition that exists when the burner has fired long enough to have reached unchanging temperatures. Steady-state is most easily confirmed by the temperature of the flue gas. Steady-state conditions have been reached when there has been no change in temperature for two minutes. Preparing the unit for testing It is advised that two holes be made in the stack to speed up testing, which is especially important with today's smaller units, Figure 1. Location of these holes is very important. They should be at least one flue pipe diameter from the draft Figure 1