my firebird combi boiler stinks of oil, can wind direction force fumes back down the flu as there seems to be no evidence of a leak, also it seems to surge 4 or 5 times before fireing up as it cuts in and out is this normal?

Mark, February 2012

Hi, i'm an oftec engineer...worked on hundreds of firebirds...you have classic symptoms of sooted up photocell...looks like a sparkplug cap on the RDB burner..pull it out and wipe the end clean, should be white.
you will need an oftec engineer to correctly fix the problem, there will either be a worn RDB riello oil pump, or (commonly) the condensate drain is missing its small 'ball' float in the drain trap below the boiler...installers dont usually know about fitting this float ball...that will cause the combustion mixture to exceed 12.00co2 and soot up like hell..fast!
when its running, check the condensate pipe (white plastic) is dripping and the flue is steaming well...if not, combustion issues, blocked or frozen condensate pipe.

mark properjob, February 2012

yes wind can cause a smell but if your smelling oil and burner struggling to fire the nozzle is probably worn sound like you should get your local engineer to give it a service

kevin the boiler man, February 2012