Rayburns don’t burn (properly)

In response to the completely rubbish performance of the most single major investment I’ve made in the last ten years I did this.
the inside of my rayburn cooker

See, it’s been cleaned. Completely and absolutely free of any carbon. If you see even a speck of carbon, login and comment. The cooker has brand new wicks and should now burn for twelve months without further ado .. let’s fold arms, stand back and wait.

5 thoughts on “Rayburns don’t burn (properly)”

  1. Today I’ve added a picture to show what happened to the burner in 2 months. As you can see it’s completely coked up. Enough is enough. I got mad and got on the phone.

    According to this book i bought the problem originates from the introduction of ultra-low sulphur kerosene which came into the UK around 2005.

    I put this to senior people at the Head Offices of Rayburn (cooker manufacturers) and Silvey (oil suppliers).

    Rayburn said I should be using 28 Sec fuel, class C2 without additives they said they hadn’t heard of customers having the same kind of persistent coking that I described. They hadn’t heard of ultra-low-sulphur kerosene. Silvey confirmed they were selling me 28 sec. The problem, they said was because I wasn’t using additives. They said there was no such thing as class C2 and hadn’t heard anything about ultra-low sulphur regulations and sulphur.

    I already tried additives some time ago but stopped on the recommendation of a service engineer. Class C2 simply distinquishes kerosene from paraffin (class C1).

    So the experts explain the poor performance of my burner in 3 different ways:

    – Changes in sulphur levels (Independent expert)
    – Low-quality non-C2 fuel (Rayburn manufacturer)
    – Lack of additives (Oil supplier)

    Who tells the truth?

  2. The service engineer visited today. He discounted the oil rate, water in the oil, condition of the rayburn etc.. and said the only possible cause was poor fuel quality. Rayburn recommend between 0-10 contaminants. The service engineer expects Rayburns to perform ok up to a level of 20. The engineer says that the last 3 customers who had their oil tested independently had contamination levels around 28. The engineer confirmed that all the problems began since the introduction of ultra-low-sulphur kerosene.

    His recommendation is not to convert the Rayburn but to switch to an Oil supplier who provides Glomax sulphur substitute ready-mixed. Glomax is endorsed here.

    http://www.boilerjuice.com/blog/love-your-aga-revel-in-your-rayburn_57/

  3. Report from the service engineer who visited on 8.1.2013

    Burner and oil feed pipe to burner were blocked with carbon. Oil filters on oil tank and in Rayburn oil control valve blocked with debris that must have originated from the oil tank. These had been cleaned previously.The cooker is failing prematurely. There may be a fuel problem.

  4. Just come across your blog, wondered how you got on. Have an on-going romance with a twin burner Rayburn OF22 but in a former life owned an Aga which I converted to run on oil using a burner identical to yours.

    Recently embarked on an exercise to see if the efficiency/reliability of the cooker could be improved starting with alternative wick arrangements and fuel depth.

    Always only run the cooker burner although it has a boiler and provides all the hot water we need and warms the bathroom with a radiator in the gravity circuit. Water temperature between 40 and 50degC depending on the weather. It’s a big tank.

    500L of kerosine lasts 9-10 weeks although we also have an oil boiler which we run very occasionally.

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