Urgent question for plumbers.

[GentleOtter]

Can anyone please help?
We have an antiquated kerosene heated boiler system with the hot water heated by the Rayburn.
There is kerosene in the tank, the Rayburn is on, the emersion has been on the whole day yet there is no hot water at all.
We have checked outside and there is no overflow running, the ballcock in the tank has not jammed so what has happened?

None of the local plumbers are interested in coming to fix ancient kerosene systems plus we are miles from town.

The landlord says it is our problem.

What do we look for, how can we fix it and is there a risk of explosion? Where is the heated water going?

Help!

ANTagony - you're good!!

Is the immersion now off?

If the tank is empty and the system is old it might now fuse so it would be a worth while precaution to turn it off whilst we try and work out how to refill the tank

Well - I am not sure about that Katy....it has never done this before with hot water - the cold freezes all the time but is ok tonight.
I have switched off the Rayburn but switched the immersion on and there is a little bit of heat appearing in the hot water pipes yet the tank is stone cold.
I cannot hear any tank fill up though and dh is out calving just now so when he returns he can poke about in the loft.

It seems odd though that the Rayburn just stopped heating the water.

Sorry x-post. I'll turn off immersion now.

Right, I went outside for a ladder, checked properly in the loft and there is a little heater under the hot water tank to keep it from freezing.

The tank is filling slowly and the water is starting to heat up from the immersion. The downside is that the Rayburn keeps the kitchen warm. I really think it has died a death.

Hi, my wife just showed me this thread and I'm having trouble following it. Does water come out of the hot tap when its opened? Is so the system is beeing fed , as for the Rayburn, is it a vapourising model or pressure jet? As I understand the CH boiler is working fine?

Is it a solid fuel Rayburn?

The vapourising models burn oil on wicks and need to be lit with a match, the pressure jet type have a motor and pump

The problem bit seems to be the Rayburn has stopped heating the water as the pipes coming from it are cold.
The immersion system is separate and seems to be working - the trip switch on the main board had flicked up and I had checked the fuse in the plug.

It is a vapourising model Trinity.
Water comes out of the tap with good pressure although the cold has slightly less pressure but our supply comes from the hill and it is below freezing outside.

It is all a bit archaic here.

I'm sure it is the Rayburn, the immersion will recycle the tank in approx 1 hour dependin on tank size. When was the Rayburn last serviced and what type is it? The vapourising ones build up carbon which restrictsb the oil flow and they struggle to et up tyo temperature

It is this type of Rayburn

The wicks were changed last Saturday but it has carboned up already.The flue, under the hotplate etc was all cleaned of soot but the smell of kerosene is dreadful. It has been struggling to get up heat lately.

Ok I can't use this keyboard lol. Check on the OFTEC website or in Yellow pages for an OFTEC registered technician to service it. Usually just a simple clean out and wick chane will do the job

It takes about 6 months to carbon up, looks like it wasn't done properly. The burner pot needs to have the carbon chipped/scraped out of it. If it's heavily carboned up, you may have a downdraught problem in certain wind conditions, this could be as simple as a cracked chimney pot or differnet terminal needed

Thanks Trinity.

It has been very temperamental and stinks. It is switched off until it gets fixed and is really expensive to run as it gobbles the kerosene yet does not get too hot.

The laird has replaced some of the other estate tenant's similar Rayburns with wood burning stoves but we were not so lucky.
It was burning with a yellow flame and spitting out little flames from the front vent.

The smell of kerosene and struggling to get up to heat means it's not vapourising the oil correctly so it's burning at a lower temperature hence it carbons up quicker, bit of a vicvious circle

Sorry to but in again but before you turned of the Rayburn was it still heating the kitchen? Is it just the water, not forgetting the necessary servicing issues mentioned above, that wasn't working?

I take that back you've answered it

Trinity - this is going to sound like a crazy question but would the fact that the chimney end of the house has an enormous 5inch crack down the entire length have anything to do with it? We set off a test smoke bomb and were so freaked at where the smoke came out that we don't use the back bedrooms at all.

The laird knows this and has done nothing.

Laird? Are you in Scotland? If it was anywhere near Dumfries I would come and have a look. I'm off to Biggar tomorrow to sort a similar problem. Hope this has helped anyway good luck

We are in the middle of rural Perthshire.
The laird is one of the 'landed gentry' who does nothing about his houses.

Many thanks Trinity and everyone else.

Yes, that will stop the chimney drawin correctly and cause a downdraught. The only way to repair that is put a liner in the chimney now, costs about £45 per metre plus labour etc. Looks like your landlord is in for a big bill to rectify that one. The work would need to be done for a wood burning stove too as no HEATAS engineer will install a stove onto an unlined chimney