Good thing for the stove, ran out of oil...

[rkofler]

Decided to go cod with my oil deliveries this year since I am not using as much, was always on auto fill. I knew the tank was getting low, guess I didn't realize how low. We need oil for dhw. My daughter went to take a shower last night, no hot water. Wife not happy, can't shower this morning. Kids ecstatic cause they didn't have to shower last night! (They are 4 and 7, hate showering)
Scheduled a delivery for today, of course. My question is, will my oil burner fire right back up? I read a few articles stating that I might have to prime it to get the fuel flowing again? Hope this is not the case, I don't know much about oil burners. Might have to call in a tech.
The good news, the house is at 72 this morning so at least my wife can't complain the house is cold.
Lesson learned, don't think I will let the oil tank go below 1/4 again...

 

[Ashful]

My limited experience is that you do have to prime, but the oil delivery guy is usually trained to handle this, and it only takes 5 minutes. Just be sure you catch him while he's there delivering, or leave a note on the fill spout for him and a door unlocked, if you'll not be home. He needs to get at the burner to do it.

 

[NSDave]

If it ran dry , you'll have to bleed the air of the line. Its usually simple unless your burner is higher than your tank for some reason; like in a mobile home; Generally all you need is a few rags, a small bucket; like a 1/2 gallon icecream bucket and the correct size wrench; some burners have a cove rover them you need to remove with a screwdriver. When I did this; I would back the fitting off on the oil line at the burner untill I got air; not all they way. It should gravity feed; when you get oil. tighten it up again. Alternatively you could run the burner; that varies by model, there should be a bleeder screw on that as well.
* have someone at the shutoff for the oil just in case ; I have seen the fittings crack; you don't want an oil spill! *

Be aware that you may have sucked crud from the bottom of the tank and clogged the nozzel or a filter.

 

[KodiakII]

Forget the rag you will need about a pickle size jar to be on the safe side. You don't want to spill any of that dino juice. Riello (sp?) burners are a reddish orange color, you will need to take the cover off to get at the bleeder screw. Beckett burners are uncovered. On either one though you will see a pump on the side of your burner where the oil line comes into it. On it you will see a bleeder screw just like a brake bleeder on your vehicle. Loosen it just slightly with the proper size wrench, get the jar positioned under it and hit the reset button on your burner and loosen the bleeder screw (but don't remove it). Some air might come out but wait until you get a good stream of oil an snug the screw shut. the burner should fire right at that moment. If you wait too long the burner will time out because of no flame, you will have to wait a few seconds until it will let you reset again. Depending on how much air and where your furnace is in relation to the tank you might have to do this several times. Good luck.

 

[rkofler]

Thanks for the guidance everyone. I will probably ask if the driver can do this for me before I tackle myself.
It is a Riello burner, fairly new. I am aware that it might have sucked in some crud from the bottom of the tank. I will probably just schedule a spring cleaning soon to be safe. Again, lesson learned...

 

[NortheastAl]

Forget the rag you will need about a pickle size jar to be on the safe side. You don't want to spill any of that dino juice. Riello (sp?) burners are a reddish orange color, you will need to take the cover off to get at the bleeder screw. Beckett burners are uncovered. On either one though you will see a pump on the side of your burner where the oil line comes into it. On it you will see a bleeder screw just like a brake bleeder on your vehicle. Loosen it just slightly with the proper size wrench, get the jar positioned under it and hit the reset button on your burner and loosen the bleeder screw (but don't remove it). Some air might come out but wait until you get a good stream of oil an snug the screw shut. the burner should fire right at that moment. If you wait too long the burner will time out because of no flame, you will have to wait a few seconds until it will let you reset again. Depending on how much air and where your furnace is in relation to the tank you might have to do this several times. Good luck.

Exactly how it's done. Adding some flexible clear plastic fuel line to the bleeder nipple will guide the oil into that pickle jar.

Rkofler, if you are ever getting low and you need to add some fuel before it runs dry use diesel fuel until you can get a fill up. Have done this myself when I ran out.

 

[billb3]

Some Beckets have covers ( the one next door is black) and some Riello burners are Buderus blue.

 

[rkofler]

It is a Riello.
Unfortunately I'm at work til 5, my wife is home with one of the kids who are sick.
They told me oil delivery will be early afternoon. Is it worth a shot to have my wife try to reset without bleeding? There is only one line from tank to burner, and it is a pretty long run.

 

[billb3]

Is the line to the tank in the floor or on the ceiling ?
Do you have a tigerloop ?

 

[rkofler]

Not sure what a tigerloop is. The oil tank sits on the basement floor, same as oil burner. The line runs right along the basement floor.

 

[billb3]

Looked at your pic better - it would be where your filter is.
Running the line dry from running out usually needs to be bled.
With a simpler system like you seem to have the driver might do it.
My sister used to run out once a month buying the minimum.
I lived too close. Just a reset never worked.

 

[rkofler]

Got lucky, I guess. Pressed reset one time. Fired up, stalled out. Fired itself back up and stayed on.
Went down into basement about a half hour later and there was some water on the floor under and around the burner. Any guesses? I will definitely keep an eye on it.

 

[Ashful]

Is this a boiler or a hot air furnace? If air, do you have a humidifier system? If a boiler, was the water near the pressure relief valve?

 

[rkofler]

Is this a boiler or a hot air furnace? If air, do you have a humidifier system? If a boiler, was the water near the pressure relief valve?

It's a boiler. Hard to tell, water was sort of evenly spread out around the unit. Excuse my ignorance, not positive I know what pressure relief valve is. There is a copper pipe that comes up, back and down the back, and is open. Assuming that is it. Seems like that is probably where water came from. If so, why did this happen upon restart? Should that be it, nothing to worry about?

 

[Ashful]

Well, what can happen (not necessarily what did happen) is that when your system cooled all of the water and air in the system contracts, and causes the boiler pressure to decrease. If you have an autofill valve (common these days), it will top your system off with a little more water, to maintain ideal pressure. Then, you restart the system, and as the water and air in the system heat and expand, the pressure builds. The pressure relief valve eventually spills a little water to keep the system at a safe operating level. Everything may just be operating as it should.

I've seen this many times with water heaters in houses with a well and/or check valve upstream of the water heater, but since I just recently moved to my first house with an auto-fill valve, I've not witnessed it myself on a boiler. My previous boiler had a manual fill valve.