Beckett is one of the most durable burners on the market. They rarely require service if maintained properly. Nevertheless, if problems should arise here are some helpful service and troubleshooting tips that should help you.
While there are several brands of oil burners (ie. Wayne Home Equipment, Carlin, Arco, Lanier, Energy Logic, Columbia) Beckett burners seem to be the most popular in use today. They last a long time and most individuals who have them are usually very pleased with their operation.
The following are a few things that can go wrong with them and some tips you can to fix them before calling an oil burner service company out.
Keep in mind that these problems and troubleshooting techniques are unique to Beckett oil burners. Having said that all models have, in principal, the same design so you should be able to use this information for the other brands as well.
Does Your Oil Burner Have Power?
You can check this problem with a tool called a volt meter. A lot of the time when you take a first glance at the breakers and/or fuses they will look in good. Looks can be deceiving (as with all things in life).
When you check them with a volt meter you might find that they are defective.
I was speaking with a person who services burners and he explained to me that a lot of his call outs to fix an oil boiler or furnace ends up being a piece of cake because all he has to do is a) replace a bad fuse or b) turn the breaker back on.
Clogged Oil Filter?
The frequency that you come across this problem will be in direct proportion to the quality of oil you get and how well you filter it. If you are using a lot of vegetable oil than this could happen quite a bit especially when its cold.
It is extremely easy for the filter to get plugged with dirty of moisture. If you get a very dirty batch of oil you would not believe how fast it can plug up your filter.
This is the reason why I recently purchased a waste oil centrifuge to get rid of as many contaminants as humanly possible.
Depending on your filtration method you may need to replace oil filter every six months. Some people say that is overkill and that you can over years without doing that. I say “why.” They are cheap to replace and will take you less than ten minutes to do so.
A lot of professionals say to do this once a year but that might be too long to go for people getting really low quality oil. I stocked up on them when I saw the exact model I needed on sale so replace mine quite liberally.
Are All the Controls Working Properly?
Start with finding the red button on the gray box.
Push it.
The motor should start when you do this.
If not, then check the power to the motor. To do this you need to take the gray box off and check the power of the wires going to the motor.
Please remember to use care with the hot wires and to shut off the power before you disconnect any wires. If there is power to the motor, check the reset button on the motor. You want to look for a tiny red button on the side usually about halfway around the back of the motor.
If the motor makes a noise but does not run then try to turn the blower under the transformer. The transformer is the black box on the top beside the gray box. If the blower will not turn , then take the two screws out that hold the pump and remove the pump. Check to see if it starts.
Could the oil pump be broken?
Does the motor still run with the pump removed? If so, then the oil pump probably is bad and will not turn. Replace the oil pump and everything will most likely work. If the motor still just makes a noise or buzzes but does not run then replace the motor.
Oil pumps do not go out often on oil burners. Quite frankly they are hard to work on and you really need the right tools to do it. I would highly recommend that you get a professional to reinstall a new oil pump if that is what your oil burner needs.
Transformers?
This is the part that actually ignites the oil coming out of the nozzle. If the ignition transformer is not working correctly than oil will just be shooting out and will not be ignited like it should or even at all.
Caution the ignition transformer puts out 10,000 volts at substantial current and will really shock you! Close the transformer before energizing the burner.
With the motor running, carefully rock the transformer back on it’s hinges and look for sparks in the compartment. The sparks should look like little lightning bolts flying around in there. If the sparks are very weak or look yellowish then replace the transformer. If there are no sparks and there is definite power going to the transformer it is bad and you need to get a new one.
Oil Nozzle
Keeping my oil nozzle in great shape is also the reason why I am militant about filtering my oil. They can malfunction very easy if you do not.
Oil nozzles spray the oil into the combustion chamber at an extremely high pressure. It comes out of the nozzle in the form of a fine mist to make it easy to be ignited and burn effectively. The hole that the oil goes out is very small and because of this they are easy to get clogged by small pieces of dirt even though they come equipped with a bronze screen in them.
The oil nozzle assembly is under the transformer and can be removed by unhooking the oil line from the pump. Take the lock nut off and slide the nozzle assembly back and up out through the hole.
Two wrenches should be used to remove the nozzle. Please use the same exact same nozzle that you took off if you are going to replace it (same angle, size, flow, and spray pattern). I would highly suggest you get a tune up as soon as possible after replacing this piece as all nozzles are not created 100% equal and even very minor differences can affect the performance of the oil burner.
As a quick disclosure this is in no way an “official” complete problem guide for these machines. Its mean to give you some basic troubleshooting techniques to get your oil burner/ boiler/ furnace to work if it stops all of a sudden. Once you fix the problem you might still want to call a professional out to look it over.
I also highly recommend you get a yearly inspection and tune up (unless you know how to do it yourself) even if your oil burner is running 100% problem free. Usually these guys have combustion analyzers that can calculates combustion efficiency, CO air free, and Carbon Dioxide. If they find something off they can make adjustments to make sure your machine is running as efficient as possible and there is minimal soot build up which can cause a lot of problems.
Hope this helps.
Tags: Beckett Oil Burners, combustion analyzer, ignition transformer, oil boiler, Oil Furnace, oil nozzle, oil pump, volt meter, waste oil centrifuge
I did not know that if you used vegetable oil you had to mix it with used motor oil. One of the guys I bought it from told me that you could use straight vegetable oil. I checked on the website of Energy Logic where I got mine and sure enough you were right a 50/50 mix. I was curious about this b/c I have a friend who owns a restaurant right down the street and he said he could get me a full 55 gallon drum of used vegetable oil every other week. So I could supplement my supply of waste oil that I generated from my shop. I wonder how much more if any you have to filter vege oil than waste oil. I know that stuff has a lot of food particles and grit in it.
I tried to use vegetable in my boiler but I live in Minnesota and that stuff can thicken up really quick in the winter time. It was hard to pump. I had no idea how much thicker vegetable oil got than motor oil.
Thats for that info about the fuses. I was having some problems with my oil burner and it turned out that it was the fuse. I checked it and changed it and now its working fine.
I had a local Plumbing and Heating contractor service my home heating oil fired boiler. It is a Crown CT-4 with a Beckett Burner (Model RWB, R7184B, C13504 R11, 060628-77379). The unit was installed new in 2006 and has been working fine until this last service. The technician and helper changed the in line oil filter and the burner nozzle. I am not sure what adjustments they made. Several weeks later I noticed that there was dark brown smoke coming from the chimney. The boiler still seemed to be operating as normal. I assume the dark brown smoke has been happening since the service was done. I called the heating contractor and explained that there was dark smoke coming from the chimney. I also noticed particles of black soot coming from the damper. The service technician came back. He opened the access door on the boiler. I did not see him do this on his first call. He showed me there was a large soot buildup inside of the boiler. He said that this was the problem and quoted me a price of $500 to clean the boiler. I asked him why he had not cleaned the boiler during the service call, as the work order did say clean and service. He said his company does not do cleaning as part of their annual service maintenance. Any other contractors I had do the annual service on the boiler all cleaned the unit. Not wanting to pay the $500, I decided to do the cleaning myself. The Crown CT-4 allows easy access the internal boiler sections. It was a messy job and there was quite a soot buildup. I also took down the smoke pipe and cleanse that also and made sure there was no blockage. When I closed the boiler and started it up I noticed that the unit was still giving out brown smoke. My feeling at this time was that the unit was burning to rich. I noticed that the air input on the burner was set to 3 (out of 10). I observed through the boiler view port that the flame was orange. I moved the air input adjustment to allow more air into the burn. When it was moved all the way to 10 the highest setting the flame was blue, but still looked as it could use more air. I checked the chimney and the smoke seemed clear.
My first thought was that the fuel nozzle may have been too large but I did check and it was a .85/60 as the information that came with the boiler said was correct. I believe that the soot build up was caused by the burn being set to rich, but I am still wondering if there is a problem as I don’t think that the air input should be wide open (10).
Could you give me any advice on this?
Dennis
Denis,
Sounds odd. They should have cleaned it when they did the tune up but that is why you always have to ask them what is all included. They do not always do that as it takes a long time most times and is quite messy.
Anyway, it could be several things. The easiest way to find out is using a combustion analyzer. 10 is way to high and I cannot imagine running it close to that unless the place you lived was really high up there in elevation.
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