Gas and Oil Home Heating Furnaces - oil furnace wont fire consistantly

i have a armstrong oil fired furnace the pump is manufactured by beckett,the whole mess was new in 1998 i just bought the house last year,this is the first time ive had problems,i pulled the ignighter assembly out and took it to a reputable heating and cooling establishment and had the tech.(owner and service tech) reset the positioning of the electrodes and change the nozzel i marked and reassembled the ignighter assembly,it ran perfect the rest of the day till around 1 am,then nothing,i hit the reset and still nothing i left it alone till this morning and tried the reset again ,same thing nothing,any ideas,ive looked through the other questions and answers but nothing actually hits the problem,sorry if ive missed something.:(

Things to check first:

Power- is there a tripped breaker/blown fuse/switch turned off?

Look on the end of the motor for a reset button [usually red]

Loose wiring connections

Motor runs but not the pump? Check the coupling between the motor and the pump.

Take the wires off the thermostat subbase AFTER making a sketch of which goes where. [power to furnace turned off at this time] Wire the one from R or Rh terminal to the one from W terminal. Turn the power back on and see what happens. Works now? Replace the thermostat.

Let us know what U find.

Assuming this is a typical cad cell relay unit, jumper the primary control box on the burner unit terminals T and T, if it starts, the burner is fine, the problem is with the tstat wire or the tstat. If the burner didn't start, remove one of the yellow wires from either of the two F terminals, if it starts, the problem is with the cad cell or it's relay. If nothing happens, check with a meter if you have 120volts to the unit. Try that and report back on your findings!

Clear up the definition of nothing. I have been told many times that nothing happens and it means a click was heard or the motor ran but didn't light. If you really mean nothing, then you could have a bad high limit control, or thermostat (which was already mentioned). A real nothing means it is probably a line voltage problem. If you get a click or hum or buzz, let us know and we can guide you toward the culpret.

The easiest is usually the most overlooked most of the time. I couldn't begin to tell you how many oil guys will tell you they find the emergency switch off, someone thinks its a light switch, especially if it has been painted over with the wall color. Is there plenty of oil in the tank? A good slap on the side of the tank should have a thump. If it rings, fill it. Did you change the oil filter and fuel pump basket this autum? If the unit locked out it would have a discernable sound upon reset. If it didn't, it didn't go off on safety. If it did, you don't have to check for power, because it needs power to trip.... This is a starting point...

Originally posted by exrepair man
i have a armstrong oil fired furnace the pump is manufactured by beckett,the whole mess was new in 1998 i just bought the house last year,this is the first time ive had problems,i pulled the ignighter assembly out and took it to a reputable heating and cooling establishment and had the tech.(owner and service tech) reset the positioning of the electrodes and change the nozzel i marked and reassembled the ignighter assembly,it ran perfect the rest of the day till around 1 am,then nothing,i hit the reset and still nothing i left it alone till this morning and tried the reset again ,same thing nothing,any ideas,ive looked through the other questions and answers but nothing actually hits the problem,sorry if ive missed something.:(

I HAD A SIMILAR PROBLEM MINE WAS FUEL SUPPLY.
THE OIL COMPANY SOLD ME A WELLS OIL ALERT AND I HAVENT HAD ANY PROBLEMS SINCE. WHAT WAS HAPPENING WAS MY OIL LEVEL WAS GOING TO LOW AND PICKING UP SLUDGE WHEN THEY DID FILL IT. NOW MY OIL ALARM GOES OFF AT A 1/4 TANK AND I HAVE THEM TOP IT OFF THEN. IT SEEMS TO BE WORKING FINE NOW.
I SAW THEIR WEB SITE
WELLSOILALERT.COM
BUT YOU CAN BUY IT CHEAPER THROUGH YOU OIL DEALER PROBABLY AND HAVE IT INSTALLED .

Nothing!!!!! Like kfield said nothing what????? You put the electrode assemblies back where you marked them ????? They should have been with or on the nozzle set up the whole time. Did you also mark how far in or out of the air tube the nozzle assemblie was or where it should be?Does the burner have 110 to it???;) ED

my fault,sorry the pump and fuel are ok,the problem ended up being a bad transformer,it would heat up and gain resistence from an internal short,therefore weakening the spark and causeing it to lock out.a new transformer seems to have fixed the problem,i did it i freaked out and called the repair guy,only after not realizeing how much oil had accumulated in the burner after a nice bang and a flash i wore my coffee and had to change my shorts,lol ive learned a great deal from this whole experience.thanks for all your help
;)

So the answer to my question (which I never got) is that 'nothing' means when you hit the reset the burner runs through the safety time and then locks out again. I'm sure everyone else realizes how much shorter this thread would have been with that description of the problem. I am not asking for technical mumbo-jumbo, just something better than

"it ran perfect the rest of the day till around 1 am,then nothing,i hit the reset and still nothing i left it alone till this morning and tried the reset again ,same thing nothing"

If I had a dime for every time I had to interrogate a customer over the phone to ascertain the meaning of the word 'nothing' I would be a rich man. Thankfully cordless phones are everywhere today and many times the customer will take it into the basement with them and let me hear what nothing is. Every now and then it is nothing and I can tell them how to look for the fuse and save a night callout.