Got home tonight to find instead of whitey exhaust fumes coming from the boiler it was grey / blacky looking like a dodgy diesel car. Inside the house stunk and the co meters were reading 98ppm I took the cover off and took the red cover off the burner and fired it up and saw a puff of burning oil smoke eject from the Photo Cell when it fired up, does it sound like a blockage? What could be causing this? Its a Worcester Greenstar Camray 12 18 Thanks
Don't know about oil boilers, but the symptoms sound like an air intake blockage causing the burn to be rich.
Something is causing the flame to burn badly or increased oil amount. Sometimes a nozzle will go faulty, especially if it hasn’t been replaced for years. Or it could be blockage to air as above post. Or someone might have touched the oil pressure on oil pump if you ran out of oil. Only thing I can advise is you DO NOT use the boiler and get a service engineer in. Not only dangerous, but a badly sooted oil boiler will damage the baffles inside as the soot is an insulator
Its staying off until sorted. Probably needs a good service then. Is there anything to diy clean? Thanks
No. That boiler is fairly complex, plus it will need an industrial hoover and also the right cleaning brushes etc. The soot from an oil boiler that has been operating very badly is very lightweight and frankly you don’t want it over your home or in your lungs
Thanks is there a good website with a list of trusted worcester service engineers? Dont want to book any old one. Was reading one forum and the service engineer told the owner they needed a new boiler because he couldnt get the baffles out, the next engineer that arrived said they require a bit of effort and a few wacks to release them and said the boiler was fine... Thanks
You could contact Worcester Bosch for a list of their approved service engineers. It won’t guarantee you get a decent or knowledgeable person though. Or you could try Oftec for local oftec registered people. But that is a bigger joke and fairly meaningless. If you find a local plumber highly experienced in oil and honest, that is best bet
I opened all the windows until the co reader said zero To be honest i thought the detectors would have went off unless it has to be at a level for a certain length of time? I have 3 fireangel digital monitors one outside bedroom, one in lounge with stove and one in kitchen with the boiler At first I was just wondering if it was the constant high winds blowing down the flue stopping it from burning properly I did run out of oil last week and re primed it by loosening the allen head unti oil ran out then tightened it but it was going fine after that. I have some kolor cut water checking paste will check the tank for water Will probably use the people the serviced it for them, they seem to have done it 4 times going by the stickers on top of each other. Im just always worried I end up with someone that does a half assed job eg I read after the nozzle is changed it needs re calibrated for the optimum burn etc Thanks
Can have 100ppm for a wee while before it goes off- it’s within safe exposure levels for a few minutes at least. (From kidde) Carbon monoxide levels that will set off your alarm Carbon Monoxide Level Alarm Response Time 40 PPM 10 hours 50 PPM 8 hours 70 PPM 1 to 4 hours 150 PPM 10 to 50 minutes 400 PPM 4 to 15 minutes
Thanks had it serviced today, packed full of soot but luckilly the baffles came out for him without too much hassle. No problems now