Maximizing efficiency

Annual maintenance on oil-fired equipment goes well beyond replacing the oil tank filter, burner strainer and oil nozzle. For every 1/8” of soot built up within the heat exchanger you will see an average of an 8% efficiency loss to your system. Every time your fuel oil service technician comes out, they should have a soot vacuum and brush to clean out the heat exchanger. Time and time again we come across systems where the homeowner has an unexplained sudden consumption of fuel oil over the previous years.

Ideally, we will perform an efficiency test before the annual maintenance and again at the end of the service to see the true change in efficiency. There are a number of determining factors which ultimately lead to the manufacturer’s suggest “best” efficiency rating. Every boiler or furnace comes with 2-3 nozzle options to change the heat load, nozzle pattern configurations, air settings and oil pressures. Electronic analyzers provide instant feedback to technicians to dial in a system’s efficiency.

Annual service visits will help identify issues such as bad seals in fuel oil pumps, which will cause excess fuel oil to leech into the heat exchanger causing the system to soot up, not fire or worst case, stay on fire uncontrollably. Other issues include failed capacitors on motors, igniter transformer failure, burner coupling stripping, cracked electrodes and much more!