It's always the small things...

This post was originally published on golifelog.com.

So, I took some time today to take another close look at the oil burner today. I changed up some older electric connections and replaced them with new clamps, measured a few points to see if they’ve got power.

Then I thought back to the beginning again. What’s preventing the burner to run? It must be related to the wood oven. There are two temperature sensors running from it to the oil controller. One in the boiler room and one in the exhaust pipe. Since the wood logic was working fine, the one in the boiler couldn’t be the problem. So I took out the one in the exhaust connection.

Well, as soon as I pulled it out of the pipe, I could hear a relays click. And sure enough, a few seconds later the fan of the oil burner kicked in, indicating power was running through it. Another few seconds later I could hear the ignition and the sound of burning oil started to reach my ears.

From the start, I had that particular sensor in mind, but I didn’t expect it could be stuck. Well, today I learned, the first thing that comes to mind should be the first to fully rule out as cause first.