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[Roger2561]

Hi all, about 2:00am this morning I was awaken by the noise of my oil burner running indicating that there was something wrong with the OWB.  I get dressed, walk to the basement to look at the temp guage coming from the OWB and it shows a water temp of less than 150.  Dang, something going on with the OWB most likely the fire was out.  Get my heavy coat and gloves on, go outside to look at the controller and it shows F.O., meaning the fire is out.  Open the by-pass door, wait couple of seconds and then open the main door to inspect the firebox.  At first I thought the firewood had bridged so I removed it all and noticed a few red hot coals still active so I was careful not disturb them.  I press the switch that activates the primary air and I heard try opening but no air flow.  I then go the back of the OWB, remove the panels and open the combustion box.  Everything looked okay but when I lifted the solenoid arm the plate that's supposed to lift to allow air into firebox did not lift.  The bolt that connects to the solenoid was missing, thus the plate couldn't lift so it snuffed out the fire.  I go to my work shop where I have extra stainless steel nuts and bolts and replace it.  It took all of perhaps 20 minutes to get it going again.  Because I didn't disturb those hot coals, it took seconds to have a roaring fire going but it took 2 hours for the water temp to reach 190 from a bit lower than 150.  I had turned off the heat in the house to allow the water to heat to the level I chose.  After 2 hours I turned everything back on and I'm to report all is warm again.  Roger

[slimjim]

Terrible timing Roger but I'm glad that at least it was an easy fix, great job with diagnosing the issue!

[Roger2561]

Slimjim, Unfortunately it's happened before a couple of years ago so I knew where to look, but I thought I had replaced the nuts and bolts with stainless steel when it happened the first time.  My best guess as to what went wrong is I didn't change out the lock washer for a stainless steel and it rotted away.      When that happened that left the nut loose, and with the opening and closing of the solenoid it simply unthreaded itself from the bolt.  And, you're right, it is an easy fix but I'd rather not be doing these things at 2:00am.       I am thankful that it didn't happen during the sub zero temps we experienced last month.  Although it only was 10 degrees out there this morning at 2:00am, it didn't feel that cold.  Roger   

[mlappin]

Just double nut it next time and lose the lock washer.

[Roger2561]

Just double nut it next time and lose the lock washer.

mlappen:      Now, why the heck didn't I think of that!      I'll do that at the end of the heating season when I'm shutting her down for the summer.  Roger 

[Big Wood]

On the older units they used cotter pins they must have changed things good fix keep warm

[atvalaska]

wife got me up last nite at 250 am to ....but only to look at the northern lights, as they were really tearing the sky up ! checked to boiler for the he!!of it ....with a very nice show playing overhead ")

[Jwood]

ATV you should take some pictures of them up there I've been watching them here for the past week but they are not as spectacular as where you are

[MattyNH]

Glad it was a easy fix!..

[Roger2561]

wife got me up last nite at 250 am to ....but only to look at the northern lights, as they were really tearing the sky up ! checked to boiler for the he!!of it ....with a very nice show playing overhead ")

I never thought to see if I could see the northern lights, it just never occurred to me.    I use to watch them all the time when I was younger and could stay awake beyond 9:00pm.        Roger 

[mlappin]

We've seen em maybe twice here in Northern Indiana. There has been a few times where the according to the weather people we could see em as well, but it was cloudy instead of clear like the experts claimed. Missed several of the big meteor showers as well because of cloud cover when it was supposed to be clear.

One of these years I've been threatening to do a layover in Iceland on our way home from England just to get a real view of the Northern Lights.

[fsuftball]

my 2 year old turned my thermostat off 2 nights ago i woke up to the house 64 and the owb was at 180. took me a bit to figure out what was wrong.

[Jwood]

How tall is your two year old generally thermostats are mounted somewhere around 5' high!

[fsuftball]

he is 39 inches tall at 2.5.

but i did mount my boiler t stat right under my normal one its hooked up to my normal one with 2 wires to turn on the blower.

[Jwood]

At least he didn't turn the A.C. on