Its time to start thinking about how you can make your oil burner run as smooth as it possibly can.
Winter will be here for most of us within a month. For some of us who live further north its already here.
Soon you are going to be turning up the heat. And its for this very reason you want to make certain you have your oil burner in your boiler or furnace running as efficiency and smoothly as possible.
I wish everyone could run their oil burner on waste oil like me but the reality is that they are expensive and only a small section of the population are going to be able to afford them.
Heating oil, which most people use to power their oil boiler or furnace, is going up. Its now ranging between $3.50 a gallon to $5.00 a gallon in some harder to reach places. It has been predicted by industry experts that the heating oil prices are set to rise even more in the future due to global economic factors and the overall strength of the US dollar.
Now if you have not had your oil burner and chamber cleaned in several years I highly recommend you do that. They do get dirty over time. Most of you are using heating oil so it will not get nearly as dirty as people using waste oil but nevertheless the combustion chamber is still getting blow by and needs to be cleaned every couple years.
Get a tune-up. They usually cost $200 but the price is worth it. The tune up and annual inspection will usually consists of five parts: visual inspection, cleaning, operation (adjustment and analysis), parts replacement and documentation.
Without going into a lot of detail the technicians have special tools and sensors that allow them to quickly pinpoint any problems or “energy hogs” you might have.
They also usually clean your oil burner and replace its nozzle which gets easily clogged due to moisture and debris.
In addition they clean the flame retention ring, clean soot of the insulators, check oil pump pressure, check for sludge in the holding tank, look for leaks in any lines and valves, and replace the filters.
A good tune up for an oil burner system will take several hours and I would be wary of anyone charging less than $200-$250. Ask them what’s included in their inspection and make sure what I just mentioned is included.
Another way to increase your efficiency would be to get a heat manager which helps control fuel consumption. I bought the Beckett fuel economizer but there are others. I saw a 15-20% reduction in fuel when I did this.
Be proactive. Get these things done before the winter fully hits or something goes wrong. In several weeks heating your home is going to be one of your biggest expenses so do what you can to make sure your oil burner is running at it’s best so that you do not have to pay more than you need to.
