Hello from North Dakota

[tswenson27]

Hi, thanks for adding me. Just wanted to introduce myself. I live in the north eastern part of North Dakota and i am running a firelake 315. I am hoping to gain some knowledge here on how to keep this heater running properly. I bought a shop that had this heater installed previously and i am on my 4th winter running it. I feel i have to work on it more than i get to work on anything else in the shop during the winter so i'm hoping that i can find some answers here when i am down. Heater is running well as we speak but as you all know that can change...

Thanks

Tim

[Russ]

Greetings Tim!  Glad you stopped by.  West central MN here, so we arent too far away.

I had never heard of a firelake, so I checked them out.  It looks like a pretty nice heater!

It isnt the most active place out here, but there is some very good information that has been gathered over the years.  There might not be much in the way of interactive chat, but for sure check out the posts.  There are some really helpful people out here who have lots of knowledge on commercial burners, specifically ShopSpecialties. 

It's always interesting to hear, where do you get your supply of oil?

Good luck with your heater and enjoy the forum!

[ShopSpecialties]

Hi, thanks for adding me. Just wanted to introduce myself. I live in the north eastern part of North Dakota and i am running a firelake 315. I am hoping to gain some knowledge here on how to keep this heater running properly. I bought a shop that had this heater installed previously and i am on my 4th winter running it. I feel i have to work on it more than i get to work on anything else in the shop during the winter so i'm hoping that i can find some answers here when i am down. Heater is running well as we speak but as you all know that can change...

Thanks

Tim

Hi Tim,
             I am over here in Montana and I can help you out. Lets start with when was the last time the burner was rebuilt ? On Shenandoah/Firelake I recommend burner rebuilds every 2-3 years as long as the power is turned off during the Summer. With a little time/patience I will get you all knowledge up and have that heater running good.

Duane

[tswenson27]

Hey guys, thanks for the response! Most of my oil comes from local farmers. i jumped into the game with this late where everyone around the area already had most of the sources spoken for. I am lucky to be friends with some of the local farmers that are willing to give up the oil to me. I made a little cart and found an old pto pump from a tractor i believe. i run that off of an old snow blower engine i had laying around. I have had some issues pumping cold oil in the past but i think i have found my problem. when its super cold out the garbage cam lock fittings i have are sucking air i believe. i am going to make every connection a solid threaded fitting and hope to solve that problem.

Duane,

last time the burner has been rebuild was "never" ha ha! i know the guy before me had never done any maintenance on the heater and i have been slowly getting things running. when it runs well, it runs well. when it wants to be a POS it sure can be! ha ha! about 2 weeks ago i pulled the burner gun out of it. i was not getting much of a flame. my oil pressure was way up at around 19 psi and i would always run it down at around 9 or 10. i knew something was restricted. pulled the nozzle and the nozzle holder out and cleaned all of that out good. i ran a brush with brake clean down through the oil passage and cleaned that out good. then i pulled the oil solenoid off and the valve. cleaned that out and i couldn't get hardly any fluid through the line coming into where the valve was. i put some air to it and a chunk of crap flew out. after i got that cleaned out really well i reassembled and it was working great again! Now i am having issues with the 90VDC motor that runs the pump. brushes are bad so i ordered new brushes today. This is all after i just put new bearings in it last week. I love the free heat but boy this thing can make a guy pull his hair out. Sometimes i feel like the dad on "A Christmas Story".

I believe once i get the new brushes in this motor i will be up and running good again! I love that i found this forum and have a resource now to come to when it decides to make me lose my mind again.

What is all involved in a burner rebuild?

Thanks!

Tim

[ShopSpecialties]

When I do a burner rebuild I take the whole burner down and start with the slide gun. The slide gun gets stripped down to bare block and then solvent-gun cleaning brushes-ultra sonic cleaner until all passages are shiny on the inside. Same goes for nozzle holder, solenoid body and all fittings attached to the block. New nozzle, holder and solenoid orings get replaced every rebuild. Combustion air fan gets cleaned along with the housing. Retention head cleaned. Inspect/clean/adjust/replace electrodes as needed. While on the bench I plug in the igniter and combustion air motor to check spark.

A very common problem I find with all heaters is sucking air. People over complicate the suction side with multiple unnecessary fittings that have Teflon tape and loose.  I keep it simple to eliminate air leaks and to make it easy to disassemble for cleaning both filters at once.