Take a look at this boiler chamber, is it impinging the flame?

[MST3K]

The right side of my chamber is leaning inward towards the flame. Quite often, as you will see, the flame "licks" this sidewall. Chamber is almost 5 years old. The reason why I ask is that per another thread last month, I had my heat exchanger get plugged up with soot causing exhaust to fill back into the house. The tech cleaned the heat exchanger and leaned the mixture out a little, but I never got a definitive answer why it happened in the first place. Burner is serviced yearly. I have read that the chamber impinging on the flame can cause sooting.

So I have attached a video (don't worry sound is muted!) which shows the right side where it is now. The viewing port is above and to the right of the gun, so it is a good viewing angle for the top of the sidewall in question. You can't see from the angle but the wall sticks out like that almost all the way to the bottom of the chamber.

Click on the image to view it. What do you guys think?

[beenthere]

Should be repaired/replaced.

Its not impinging on it. But, it can cause sooting problems in the passage ways.

Looks like the flame was set by eyeball instead of with a combustion test.

[MST3K]

Yes it was eyeballed, I was concerned about that in my other thread when the sooting happened. I am curious, how could you tell?

[beenthere]

By my eyeballs. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Just the way the flame is controlled.

After a while, you do learn what to look for for by eye.
But, to get it right, you need to do the combustion test.

The flame is a bit lazy, I think you have more then a combustion chamber problem.

[MST3K]

I was thinking about this, is the fact that the flame licks the side like that more an issue of flame control rather than the sidewall sticking out a little. Seems it might still hit the side from time to time even if there was a little more room, although not nearly as much. Do you agree?

One final question, I actually forgot to mention that according to a tech one year, the other side had fallen in and was impinging on the flame, and he actually reached in with the gun removed and pulled it out (I mentioned it in an older thread) and he said that was OK. So should the whole chamber be repaired or can that side also be taken out as well with no harm done?

[beenthere]

Better to have the chamber replaced.

Its easy to do on them.

Removing the side walls, can make your system loud, and you lose some of the reflected heat, that helps the oil burn.

[cmajerus]

new chamber, and an analyzer to set the burn better, like beenthere said, looks like it is off a bit.