why did the boiler not fire, had to press reset


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Old 04-19-11, 07:42 AM
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why did the boiler not fire, had to press reset

3 yr old columbia with riello f5. working great normally. I got up in the middle of the night and heard the circ running but the baseboard was cold. Saw the red light on the f5 and pressed it and all has been well since then

tank is 3/8 full and virtually no chance of clogging (only about 10 yr old tanks) but thats the only thing i can think of as a reason why it would trip off

any other ideas?

i dont work on my own boiler but just was curious

also other than wasting electricity, is there any harm if this would have happened and i was away from home and is there any chance it would have eventually fired?
 
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Old 04-19-11, 10:42 AM
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I'm not familiar with Reillo burners and controls but once a control goes into a hard lockout it requires a manual rest before it will fire.

Just because your tank is "only" ten years old doesn't mean it couldn't have a build up of dirt, water or sludge. Biological sludge can grow quite quickly under the right circumstances.

There ARE several other reasons why the control might lock out and with the the Reillo it could easily be delayed ignition. Reillo's have a very short ignition trial so I would start with the ignition system. Make sure the spark electrodes are clean and properly set in relationship to each other AND to the end of the nozzle.
 
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Old 04-19-11, 11:33 AM
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i did skip out on my annual cleaning to save money last year. sounds like that's probly the reason. Absent additional issues i'm going to wait until summer to have it done.

also i do have a startup delay, my installer put in a 30 second delay relay because of issues i was having.
 
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Old 04-21-11, 05:43 AM
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Instead of putting in a delay relay why didn't the installer find the reason for the dealy in startup? If there's a problem it's just going to get worse.
 
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Old 04-21-11, 10:06 AM
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hi lucky –

Don’t know much at all, but one time my burner (Beckett AFG) wasn’t firing and I checked and the reset button had popped. Pushed it in and the burner fired up right away. This was about a week or two after I had the annual service done by my previous oil provider. That was 5 years ago. (Thanks to this forum I’ve been successfully doing my own maintenance for the last five years).

Never did figure out why the burner locked just that one time? Didn’t do a thing to the system immediately after that one reset? Just hit the reset button and waited till the next year to do normal maintenance. That was the only lockup I ever had in 8 years with that burner. So hopefully maybe yours is a one-and-done also ?

(But I was wondering why your installer would put in the 30 second delay, but I figured I just don’t know enough about various system configurations and installation techniques. But obviously heatpro questions that.)

Good luck!
 
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Old 04-23-11, 03:43 PM
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Originally Posted by heatpro
Instead of putting in a delay relay why didn't the installer find the reason for the dealy in startup? If there's a problem it's just going to get worse.
from what i recall, it was due to short cycling of sorts..apparently when the boiler refired, it pushed the hot water out so quickly that the boiler turned off again..i'm assuming this is because of sensor placement but he didnt want to change where the sensor was so i can assume it was in a good place.

does that make sense? i may be wrong..it was a long time ago...i may even have a post on here about it but i'd have to search....but i do know whatever problem i had that needed it was fixed by the delay relay. i've been pleased ever since.
 
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Old 05-19-11, 01:57 PM
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just did it again today, i think the circ was running all day after my shower..oh well...maybe ill have him come do the annual cleaning during summer and he can tell whats up
 
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Old 06-06-11, 02:28 AM
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How old is the burner? If you are getting morning first start lock-outs it could be the capacitor, normally either a 4μF or 4.5μF depending on burner size. If you have a multimeter that with a capacitance function, remove one of the capacitor leads, discharge the capacitor (short capacitor terminals with a metal screwdriver) attach your test leads to the capacitor then meter, read off value. I have 4μF capacitors still running happily with 2.75μF, the data on the capacitor says there is a tollerance of +/- 5% but then I would be changing one everytime I did a service :-)

Or the coupling that connects the pump to the motor could be worn and jam the motor. In these cases when you remove the pump you will if that the plastic coupling will have grooves cut into it and there will be a large amount of rust/dust around the motor back bearing.

Need to know when it locks out.
 
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Old 06-10-11, 06:40 AM
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dec 2008.. what you said was all over my head so ill just wait for my installer to do his cleaning lol....ive put it off 18 months so maybe thats just the issue. only happens maybe once or twice a year and maybe i expect too much from a new unit to be perfect.
 
 

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