Oil Burner Problem - Replacement ?

[pocoloco]

Morning

My external Oil burner (18 years old) has been cutting out as late. I've had the tech out and he tells me it is running too rich which is causing the sensor / lens to get dirty - this in turn is cutting the boiler out when it kicks in.
He tried to rectify a nr of times - had the laptop connected etc and could show me where he tweaked the settings and as a result was running clean again.
Within 48 hrs I have the same problem and the only way I can get the boiler running is to manually clean the lens and get it going but that only gets me 6 to 8 hrs run time before it dirties up again.

He is telling me I will need to replace as he can do no more than he is doing and cant explain the reason it begins to run rich and sooty again.

Q1 - any other suggestions apart from replace - apart from the above the boiler is running tip top, no issues and when I manually clean it, it runs fine... its just become unreliable and it failing to kick in at 5:30 in the morning and me having to go out and clean it with the rain pelting down on me is getting old!

Q2 - If I do need to bite the bullet and replace what make / model / spec should I be looking at and what would the approx. cost - house is 2100 Sq foot detached dormer bungalow - A2 rated.

thanks for your help here.

 

[Zenith63]

These things are so simple there's a good chance the right engineer would figure it out, but as I experienced you can spend a fair bit of money on their time and replacing part-after-part and perhaps never find it.

There was an article during the week suggesting the government is shortly going to change the heatpump grant to cover much more of the cost. As your home is already A2 rated it should sail through the SEAI heatpump technical assessment to qualify you for the grant. Might be worth considering, although timing will obviously be an issue in your case!

 

[BlackandBlue]

I have a similar aged boiler.
2 different service technicians over the years have alluded to the fact that my boiler is oversized.
But both over the years have used a smaller (?) jet.

Might help you.


And ultimately my burner is going to need to be replaced.

 

[Buddyboy]

One possible issue/solution if it's a condenser boiler. I had this problem with a firebird boiler. The optical sensor kept getting sooted up. The issue was the flue was exiting into a small side lane down the side of the house, with a wall on one side. Because the exhaust didn't have time to dissipate, it was getting sucked back into the intake. Hence the sootin up. I extended the exhaust up to the boiler house roof level and this solved the problem completely. So, if yours has a combined flue exhaust/intake, diverting the exhaust gasses would help.

 

[AJAM]

detached dormer bungalow - A2 rated.

Go for a heat pump. Cost is roughly 13.5K (assuming no radiator upgrades) but there's a grant for 6.5K so net cost is roughly 7K. It will be cheaper to run than oil. And if you add batteries or Solar later, it will become even cheaper to run.