When I came home the house was cold. We have an old coal furnace converted to oil heat. The thermostat does nothing. I pressed the reset button on the furnace twice (despite the clear warnings to only press this ONCE!) I opened the door to the furnace to see that all it does is spill unlit fuel oil into the main compartment of the furnace. It appears that my sparker is on the fritz. DYI fix? what will a professional charge do this. Or is it time for the abrupt conversion to gas?

 

Get a pro to look at it. The reason you only push the reset once, is if it doesn't fire correctly your just filling the firing chamber with oil. Please inform the service man that you pushed the reset more than once without ignition.

 

Ok I called in a professional. He tinkered with it for an hour and a half before telling me that the fuel nozzle and electode assembly were warped and he could not remove them from the burner. He wanted to sell me a new furnace.
I sent him home and worked on it myself. I got the thing out in about 20 minutes. I replaced the filter, the nozzle and cleaned and regapped the electodes. The thing fires right up when I press the reset button but it was pouring thick black smoke out of the smokestack for about 20 minutes before things calmed down. Now I have heat but I am getting intermittant control from the thermostat. Sometimes it kicks on when I turn the old dial and sometimes it doesn't. New thermostat time? The guy today said that it wasn't the problem. also is the black smoke caused by an air mixture problem. There appears to be some sort of choke or air intake control switch but I dont notice any difference in the amount of smoke when I turn the dial.

I know this thing is crappy, but I would like to get through the rest of winter before I replace the thing and convert to gas.

So can I turn down the smoke?