Servicing Interval for Kerosene boiler ?

How often should a household boiler which heats radiators etc be serviced ? The fuel used is kerosene. I know someone who has had one for 9 or 10 years with no servicing or problems.

I have mine done yearly. Why take any risk for the sake of a few euro. Surely you cant be that stuck for a few euro?

Not servicing a burner/boiler for a couple of years would work out very expensive. Soot builds up on the boiler and your efficiency goes out the window. The thing might work reasonably well but your consumption of oil would be anything up to 50% more than a setup regularly serviced. €100 euro for a service or €300 euro in extra oil.

If you wanted to do some DIY, use an old Hoover and vacuum any soot out of the boiler - four bolt plate on the side removed carefully. Also buy a matching nozzle - which is a small jet head on the front of the burner and replace it. There are numbers on the side of it. About €7 for the nozzle. Carefully remove the nozzle and put the two pins in front of it back to exact position you found them.

Every second year then get it property serviced.

I have had my boiler for 8 years without touching it. I frequently compare my oil use to my neighbours (same house size, orientation and level of occupation) there is no difference even though they have their boiler serviced regularly. Diesel on the other hand will cause your boiler to soot up in no time.

Froggie, maybe the neighbour is getting their boiler serviced by a fella who goes out to the boiler house, sits down, lights a fag, waits the required 15 minutes, rubs a bit of soot on his hands are then reappears!!

Joking aside, you can be lucky and the burner was setup perfectly by the installer all those years ago and hasn't needed any adjustment. For the sake of completeness have a look inside the boiler itself (easily accessed by removing the plate on the side of the boiler) and see if there is any soot.

My experience in five years of DIY servicing is that the photocell got dirty twice and needed a wipe. The white enamel on the electrodes broke once when changing the nozzle – it may have been faulty to start with. I use a smoke tester to check flue gases. I also found wear on the one of the electric wires which could have let to a nasty shock or breakdown when I least expected it.

Thanks for your answers