seeking advice on 2nd hand boilers...

[alarge2k4]

Hi everyone

Backgound info:

My family has recently purchased a mushroom farm which requires heating to each of its tunnels (6 of them). The current (not working!) heating system is two oil fired boilers (trianco redfyre's?) one of which has been soaked in water and looks totally dead! The other doesn't want to fire up (I will get more details later on). One boiler is only running at one time the other being a backup incase the main one fails.

Each tunnel has its own heater matrix (about 2ft by 2ft at the most) to which an industrial fan blows the heat into the tunnel (like a car heater I guess!?). I will take some photos later on so you can see what I mean. Each tunnel is linked independently to the main hot water pipes in the middle.

Query:

We have searched through the local ads for oil boilers and found two Boulter Camray II's both gwo and serviced regularly (don't think our current ones have been though!) one has these numbers: 90/130 which is £150 and the other £100.

My question is are these boiler(s) going to do the job. The heating only needs to be at 25 degrees C for 2weeks while the mushrooms grow then turned down. At the moment we are trying to get an immersion heater to work but it gets it to 15 degrees C then the trip switch goes!

Also because we are looking at solar panels and other electricity saving ideas is having an electric boiler a good idea? have seen one on ebay that does 25,000 - 30,000 BTU's for £50 thats all.

I will get more pictures of the setup and details of the current boilers when I go over in a second.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks

Andrew

 

[oilman]

It depends whether water heating is needed or air heating would do. Iwill assume you are providing propogating bed heat and that water heating is needed.

What is wrong with the existing boilers? The only engineering justification for replacing the boiler is if the water jacket is rusted through. Otherwise it's just fix the burners. You may be able to fit the burner from the s/hand boiler to fix the old boiler, even if it needs it. The problem here is, I could easily cobble the bits together, but you probably don't see enough equipment to work out what needs swapping from one to the other. If you get someone in to do it, they will be probably reluctant to do that (unless they get a supply of mushrooms for life, I'd do it for a nominal charge and loads of mushrooms )

 

[PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN]

Why not just hire some propane hot air blowers for a fortnight, I am a propane and propane accesories salesman, but I do have a narrow euretha and an annoying little ginger haired fat kid.

 

[wilhelm]

camray II's are ok. theyll have mectron burners on em which are ok.
i would do it.
in fact camray IIs are one of my favourite boilers (sad i know) . in fact i sometimes think theyre better built (especially the baffles) than the 5.

 

[oilman]

.....in fact camray IIs are one of my favourite boilers ....

Definitely sad, sounds you're touting for business. There's already two of us, not mushroom for another (geddit?)

 

[wilhelm]

i must get out more in fact iwent off line for ten minutes to read, a screwfix/machinemart/toolstation catalogue

i geddit, thats almost funny

 

[alarge2k4]

Hi thanks for all your replies! oilman yeh your right it needs to be a propogating system. I have created a little diagram to help you all see what I mean:

http://www.imagehosting.us.com/image.php?id=10182&h=811747

Heres a little more info on the current boilers (no pics, sorry the camera is broken ):

1) Boiler make / model (gas or oil)
1 x Trianco Redfyre TRO 20/25 (water logged) OIL
1 x Trianco Redfyre TRO BF OIL

2) What is / is not happening
Both dont fire up... oil is running out of pipes fine and there is a spark (TRO BF) just no oil going up to the spark and igniting, the water logged one locks out after 10 seconds.

My friends dad who is quite good at car things and general DIY said all of this, obviously not a pro though!

3) Has ANYTHING else been done / changed recently

Ummmmm.... don't know we came in tried to fire them up but nothing... previous owner did say that they haven't been serviced in a while!!!

4) When did it (problem) start

Straight away.

5) When does it happen? eg, heating coming on or going off

All the time lol.

6) Anything else you feel may be of relevance

The water pump seems to be in gwo, but there is quite a bit of air in the system. Water pressure is slightly under 1bar.

Thats about it, don't really want to call out a plumber if possible. My sister has got a few friends she knows and is trying to get them out but being the festive season its been quite hard. Thats why we just thought start from scratch. Is it a hard job to install boilers there are quite a few of us who are good with a spanner lol!

Thanks for all your help!!!

Andrew

 

[wilhelm]

waterlogged...means the water jacket has split..
get the other one serviced. its impossible to fix an oil boiler over ther net.
or it could be
blocked filter.
knackered pump
nozzle
photocell
transformer
drive dogs
motor
solenoid valve
control box
air setting
pump pressure
water in fuel


...........ive probably missed something...

 

[kevplumb]

fuse gone

 

[wilhelm]

err..fuse...as well
.....
capacitor,
electrode gap
electrodes dirty/carboned up

to be honest best bet/easiest would be check elecrodes and if no joy change the nozzle, from then on you need test gear...i mean a van load of bits to slave on and see if it works ..ahem ( i call it fault finding )

 

[oilman]

Come on you two, you could narrow it down a bit. If motor's running capacitor is probably ok. Er... that's it

alarge2k4, you don't need a plumber, you need an oil burner engineer.

Installing a boiler is fairly easy, all the instructions are in the book and burners are usually set up with a bit of excess air so they don't make soot. Your biggest problem will probably be the oil tank unless it comes under the Agricultural Fuel Storage requirements, it will have to be bunded by next year. Talk to the environment agengy about it, they might not be so inclined to get you fined thsat way.

 

[kevplumb]

Come on you two, you could narrow it down a bit. If motor's running capacitor is probably ok. Er... that's it

alarge2k4, you don't need a plumber, you need an oil burner engineer.

Installing a boiler is fairly easy, all the instructions are in the book and burners are usually set up with a bit of excess air so they don't make soot. Your biggest problem will probably be the oil tank unless it comes under the Agricultural Fuel Storage requirements, it will have to be bunded by next year. Talk to the environment agengy about it, they might not be so inclined to get you fined thsat way.

remember your rant last week when somebody fitted their own boiler

 

[oilman]

What's that got to do with it, (and I'd be grateful for the link to this "rant", then I can discuss it), alarge2k4 is putting the boilers in industrial plant, so it's nothing to do with building regs. It just has to comply with BS5410, simple

 

[kevplumb]

paul ah ring any bells

could be a gas boiler they dont count on agricultral premisis either

*pulls on rod and starts reeling in *

 

[oilman]

paul ah ring any bells

He doesn't count, he's a flue sniffer (it's spelled PaulAH). You need one of these from breezers Christmas collection