Re: Oil Burner Advice Needed

I agree with all that Mike said and added. I think that you might want to rethink firing upwards toward the flue sheet as there will be little heat reflected back in to the fire even if you surround the sides with refractory. The term "flash wall" is one that I believe I have seen in boiler books to refer to the refractory wall that the fire blasts towards. Also if you fire directly at the flue sheet you may get a lot of unburned hydrocarbon build up in the flues. Just a guess on this. I have set up a few stationary boiler fireboxes over the years going from coal to oil. These were all for burning #2 diesel. The books that I have read say in the perfect world your fire should not actually impinge(stike the refractory sides or back wall, but in practice this is not always the case. Mike will attest to the bone (carbon build up) that builds up on the back wall of a locomotive fire box due to the fire hitting it as the fire boxes are often too short for it not to and get a big enough fire. I was in the cab of a std. ga. 2-6-2 once and the fire box was very long and narrow. I doubt that the fire reached to the flash wall unless the engine was working real hard. I imagine this would be more ideal for oil firing. Well I've said enough and probably risk sounding like a know it all. Good luck with your project!