Are there any home heating experts out there?

[3bals]

I have a WEIL-McLAIN HE II boiler to heat my house. I only use it as back up or when I'm out of town, as I heat primarily with wood. Last fall I fired it (the gas boiler) up to test it as usual and it worked fine. A couple of weeks ago I tried to fire it up before leaving town for the weekend and it wouldn't go. The fan would come on and purge like normal, the igniter would glow like normal and the burner would come on like normal, but after 7-10 seconds the flame goes out. The system resets and repeats the process, but won't stay lit.
I'm assuming that there is something that isn't sensing that the flame is on and shuts down the gas supply. I printed out the wiring diagram, but it doesn't show any flame detector anywhere in the system.

I talked to the company that installed it and they're trying to tell me that there is a thermal couple type sensor in the system and it might be dirty or broke. I haven't found any such device in there yet. I've cheked the rollout switch and the limit switch and neither of them seem to be the problem.

My next step is to take my Dremel tool with a wire wheel, clean the burner orifices and vaccum out the whole burner area.

Any other ideas???

Jody

[scoobert]

i dont know about that heating system but get rid of your luk clutch, they are junk. get a zoom clutch and dont look back, lol.

[3bals]

I didn't know any better and besides that it has to be better than that chinese one that came apart on me in the mountains of Colorado last summer.

Jody

[sootjunkie65]

On the oil burner there is device called a cadcell eye. This is located under the transformer on the burner, this little computer chip senses the light when the burner is running and shuts down the power if light isnt detected, if the eye is dirty it wont see the light from the flame and the burner will run for a few seconds then shut off. Its a fairly easy fix if you know what your doing but you should get a proffesional because you can screw something up pretty badly or even worse severely hurt yourself, the transformer holds 10,000 volts even when the power is shut off and it has to be discharged properly before you can get to the eye. Hope this helps

[3bals]

Thanks for the input. My boiler is natural gas fueled and I'm hoping to convert it to LP soon.

I was able to remedy my boiler issue by just cleaning the igniter coil. It seems to a dual device that not only ignites the gas, but also senses the flame by temp. In the process of diagnosing my problem the local dealer contended that there was a flame sensing rod in the system somewhere. Well, in tracing all the wires, tubes and other componates of the boiler, there was no flame sensing rod. And by simply cleaning the dust off the igniter made it work, tells me that the igniter/flame senser must be one and the same.

Any how it worked after that. Now that fall is near, it's time to test it out again.

Jody