MonoMonday – Challenge

Well I do like a challenge, so I decided to service the boiler.
 
Last September I decided to give in and buy a ‘Smoke Test Kit’ to set up the boiler.  When we moved in some twenty years ago I could still set up an oil fired burner by eye.  With this design of domestic boiler it meant getting down on the floor, removing the back plate from the burner and holding a clear piece of glass in place while adjusting the air. 
 
In more recent years the ‘getting down on the floor bit’ lost its appeal and consequently I had a poorly set up boiler on a few occasions.  So I bought the test kit (not cheap) and set things up.  Bingo, eight months later with a cold winter and no heavy soot deposits with the minimum of air.  I reckon I paid for the test kit with the fuel saved.
 
I learnt to set up an oil fired burner on the first steam ship I was on, the SS Velutina (Shell Tankers), which I joined on 5th October 1969 in Gothenburg.  I was a mere ‘Junior Engineer’ along with a number of other officers including the Second Engineer.  He told us it was a wreck of a ship and before the end of the trip we would have everything apart in the engine room except the main turbine.  He was wrong, we had that open too.
 
On my first watch we were leaving Gothenburg and I was on one of the boilers (we had three).  I was told to stand to one side of the register (burner – I think there were three per boiler but it’s a bit hazy now) – good advice, when the oil was put on there was a “wump” and the register landed on the deck, swiftly put back into place by two engineers, one each side.  I soon got the hang of it.  Health and safety ???  And no one got hurt!
 
 
 
Many thanks to ApolloFly for hosting MonoMonday this month.