Furnace Fighter!

[Rubycon]

They made the most comforting 'grumbling' noises though.

Yes the sound of a large 25,000 hp water tube boiler shutting down suddenly from high fire sounds SCRAMIFFIC! You don't hear the fundamentals they are felt often 100's of meters away.

 

[DrPizza]

Oil fired hot water (the engineers call it "Domestic Hot Water Generation" or DHWG for short!) is awesome! There is no faster way to recovery (endless hot water) than a Bock oil fired water heater.

She DOES know everything! She even knew what brand of hot water tank I have. Hey Rubycon, how should my electrodes be positioned? What size gap? How far forward?

Oh, and we had a problem today with the new tank: it was difficult mixing enough cold water with the hot to take a shower. The relief valve had started weeping a little bit - I was probably about 2 degrees away from that relief valve opening. Hot enough to make instant coffee or other hot beverages straight from the sink - and have to wait til they cooled because they were too hot. I've since turned the heat down a bit. Now, it's just scalding.

 

[Rubycon]

She DOES know everything! She even knew what brand of hot water tank I have. Hey Rubycon, how should my electrodes be positioned? What size gap? How far forward?

Oh, and we had a problem today with the new tank: it was difficult mixing enough cold water with the hot to take a shower. The relief valve had started weeping a little bit - I was probably about 2 degrees away from that relief valve opening. Hot enough to make instant coffee or other hot beverages straight from the sink - and have to wait til they cooled because they were too hot. I've since turned the heat down a bit. Now, it's just scalding.

Oil burners don't use a spark plug but have wires positioned in front of the diffuser. As long as an arc can strike and it's in the path and not jumping to any other part. It's ac (10,000V 23 mA typical) so it will be flamelike. That current is also quite painful to get shocked so don't touch the wires!

A weeping TP valve means your temps are WAY too high! Sounds like your thermostat needs adjusting. Is it a well mounted bulb? Insufficient thermal conductive grease packed in the well can cause poor sensitivity and overshoot. A water heater turned into boiler is dangerous!

 

[DrPizza]

Nah, not "way" too high - only about 10 or 15 degrees too high. I like knowing that my dishes in the dishwasher are getting sanitized. Plus, at that temp, I can do quicker washes.

But, tomorrow I'll have to spend some time playing with those electrodes. Something's up with them - the oil is spraying better than it had been, but I'm not getting ignition.

 

[Rubycon]

Nah, not "way" too high - only about 10 or 15 degrees too high. I like knowing that my dishes in the dishwasher are getting sanitized. Plus, at that temp, I can do quicker washes.

But, tomorrow I'll have to spend some time playing with those electrodes. Something's up with them - the oil is spraying better than it had been, but I'm not getting ignition.

Do you know what the temp is? Anything higher than 140F is wasting energy and there is a risk of scalding.

Sounds like your oil burner needs to be pulled out so you can see what's happening. How old is the transformer, HV wire and insulator? Carbon buildup can cause a leak resulting in a much weaker (colder) spark causing lockouts or delayed ignition. Delayed ignition rumble sounds neat but you don't want this.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Do you know what the temp is? Anything higher than 140F is wasting energy and there is a risk of scalding.

Sounds like your oil burner needs to be pulled out so you can see what's happening. How old is the transformer, HV wire and insulator? Carbon buildup can cause a leak resulting in a much weaker (colder) spark causing lockouts or delayed ignition. Delayed ignition rumble sounds neat but you don't want this.

And it's crazy how much of a difference on a bill the hot water heater setting can do. When my contractor installed my shower he set the safety valve too low and I was not getting enough hot water. As a temp fix I raised the temp and the bill doubled. I fixed the safety on it and turned the temp back down and it's better now. I like my showers scalding hot in the morning. Probably why my skin is so dry.

 

[bobdole369]

two 45 liter tanks of diesel

Good god, was it uphill both ways too?

The IBM guy said to kick it, so I did rather gently. The IBM guy heard my kick and he seriously said, 'no, you have to kick it harder than that'. So I kicked it as hard as I could with the inside of my foot, imagining it was a soccer ball.

While I was never told this by a big equipment maker for some high priced equipment, I do recall watching Flight of the Intruders when I was younger, and this quote came to mind one day:

Velocities have gone bananas.

It's either the navigational system or the computer.
The manual says to kick the son of a bitch. Get the rotors going.

"State of the art."

It's gone.
We're going to have to bomb by hand.

I could NOT get figure out a problem while I was at a call center working client-side IT. The PC would always lock on the user when he went to lunch. So I went to the desk when the employee was gone, sure enough it was locked hard. On a hunch, and this is something I had never done before, I picked up the front of the unit, and dropped the machine on the desk about 4 inches. I instantly heard the drives heads unstick and the HD spin up!

These were Compaq Deskpro/EN's while I worked at one of the Compaq tech support sites back in the early 00's.

http://www.pcarenahungary.com/pricelist/oriaskep/compaq-deskpro-en-4.jpg

 

[bobdole369]

Yes the sound of a large 25,000 hp water tube boiler shutting down suddenly from high fire sounds SCRAMIFFIC! You don't hear the fundamentals they are felt often 100's of meters away.

How about when the seal on the lift motor goes in the middle of the night, filling the boiler room with steam. Now THATS a helluva sight. Frozen tenants, scalding hot boiler room. They often figure out how to open the door and camp families in the hallway.

 

[Red Squirrel]

These were Compaq Deskpro/EN's while I worked at one of the Compaq tech support sites back in the early 00's.

http://www.pcarenahungary.com/pricelist/oriaskep/compaq-deskpro-en-4.jpg

OMG I remember those boxes! We had those way back in high school until they upgraded to Dell optiplex pizza box/tower P3s which was considered super fast back then. Always fun to look back lol.

People used to always play around with the thing on the side for the fan, a lot of them were broken.

 

[Rubycon]

I could NOT get figure out a problem while I was at a call center working client-side IT. The PC would always lock on the user when he went to lunch. So I went to the desk when the employee was gone, sure enough it was locked hard. On a hunch, and this is something I had never done before, I picked up the front of the unit, and dropped the machine on the desk about 4 inches. I instantly heard the drives heads unstick and the HD spin up!

These were Compaq Deskpro/EN's while I worked at one of the Compaq tech support sites back in the early 00's.

http://www.pcarenahungary.com/pricelist/oriaskep/compaq-deskpro-en-4.jpg

Stiction was fun to fix that way.

Of course I always said that if I saw another deskpro I'd stab it repeatedly through the front with my Proto Number Three Reed & Prince screwdriver.

 

[LTC8K6]

The arrival of the oil truck was always a highlight when I was a kid in PA. Major Oil was the company, I think.

 

[Rubycon]

The arrival of the oil truck was always a highlight when I was a kid in PA. Major Oil was the company, I think.

Nothing like the sound of the screaming whistle as the tank is filling eh?