I need some immediate response from those RE: OIL BURNERS!!

I am a first time home owner so I really don't know much about oil burners and things of that nature. My dad was over last night checking out things in my basement and he noticed that my oil burner has two holes in my exhaust pipe that lead up to the chimney! HE freaked, he said Carbon monoxide could leak out of the holes and it's VERY dangerous! Then he noticed that the dampner was off! It's so old it does not even stay on once he tried to place it back where it was supposed to be.

He had me call our heating company and tell them they better get someone out here to Re-service my burner and I told them all the issues above.

We immediately placed a carbon monoxide alarm over the burner and we have an appointment for them to come out next week. Does anyone else have holes that were drilled into their exhaust pipe for the burner, or did the idiot who came here for my initial service, just forget to patch them up??

Message edited 11/3/2007 10:43:28 AM.

Re: I need some immediate response from those RE: OIL BURNERS!!

I'm not familiar with the situation you've described, but I'd hope that if you gave a good description of the problem to your oil company they would have scheduled a visit sooner than next week if it was a dangerous situation.

We use Petro and they've come late at night to fix problems when we didn't have heat.

Re: I need some immediate response from those RE: OIL BURNERS!!

When we first bought our house we had the burner serviced and the first thing the guy did was punch a hole in the exhaust...he said that it helps the burner to burn cleaner, plus it helps them to test the exhaust. I asked him about the exhaust going into the house and he said it doesn't - the outside air gets sucked in when the burner goes on.

We have a carbon monoxide detecter right across from the burner and it's never gone off - we've been in the house for two years now.

Re: I need some immediate response from those RE: OIL BURNERS!!

I'm not sure how much truth their is to this, but our boiler guy, from Slomins (we are getting a new boiler this month) said that you can get carbon monoxide poisoning from a gas burner, but it's not likely at all with an oil burner. HTH

Re: I need some immediate response from those RE: OIL BURNERS!!

I just asked my husband, who used to work on boilers, and he says not to worry. The holes are there for the technician to check the efficiency of the boiler. They use them to stick a gauge in to measure the carbon monoxide levels. We have holes in ours and never had a problem (29 years). As far as the damper is concerned, it will adjust itself as needed. It's not supposed to stay open continuously.

Re: I need some immediate response from those RE: OIL BURNERS!!

If it's a small hole less than 1/4" it's normal for service to check CO2, heat and smoke. The serviceman inserts a probe into the stack but should cover it. At least I do... The other part that was off sounds like the damper and must be in place for proper draft up your chimney or flue stack. Keep an eye on it with the CO2 monitor...