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Central heating has been playing silly beggars since last week - it turns itself off after about an hour, because no oil is getting through. Spoken to my heating engineer, who explained that the oil is going waxy and clogging the filter because of the cold weather. (He's been out to look at it, and confirmed this is the problem)
When I politely pointed out that we had it much colder earlier this year, he said the problem is the difference between the tank temperature (which apparently is still relatively warm) and the temp outside. As the oil goes out through the narrow pipe, it will start to freeze at only -2, whereas if the tank was already properly cold, it wouldn't freeze until -8.
What this means is that, in the midst of all this freezing weather, we have heating for about an hour, then have to wait about an hour (after pouring hot water over the pipe where the filter is) before we get about another hour. Needless to say, it's hard to keep warm like that (that goodness we still have a woodburner in one room).
But I'm struggling to understand this explanation of the problem - can someone please explain the science behind this ??
Thanks
When I politely pointed out that we had it much colder earlier this year, he said the problem is the difference between the tank temperature (which apparently is still relatively warm) and the temp outside. As the oil goes out through the narrow pipe, it will start to freeze at only -2, whereas if the tank was already properly cold, it wouldn't freeze until -8.
What this means is that, in the midst of all this freezing weather, we have heating for about an hour, then have to wait about an hour (after pouring hot water over the pipe where the filter is) before we get about another hour. Needless to say, it's hard to keep warm like that (that goodness we still have a woodburner in one room).
But I'm struggling to understand this explanation of the problem - can someone please explain the science behind this ??
Thanks
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