Diesel burner on pressure washer blowing white smoke

[reb78]

the contraption is not much different from your central heating boiler - too much air normally just means for lost heat and an unstable flame.


im guessing you would realise if you had a leak in the heat exhanger, and what you were seeing was steam? but you also said it smells of diesel, so possibly not.


kerosene would burn easier, but, if your existing jet is for 35sec, 28sec fuel will possibly end up being a bit adventurous.

might be worth a quick go in testing though

Had a leaky coil before - it pours water out as @carbon says. I managed to get a replacement boiler off of ebay complete with coil thankfully as I think that would have written off the hot water side looking at new prices.

I have run it on kero before but now I have the tractors I have plenty of red diesel so will stick to that as I think thats what its meant for!

 

[carbon]

I have no other way to do it but i presume adjusting the air by looking for a clean no smoke burn is half way to being sufficient?

Yes that's usually the easiest way, using a flue gas analyser is the more accurate way but not something you want to buy for a one off

 

[Turbo]

When I was working at these full time I used to be able to set the burners up by eye and ear then a sniff test to fine tune.
Then you did the final check with the gas analyser as you were tidying away your tools. Never had to adjust anything to get a pass.

Karchers first compact hot washer the HDS 555c had a badly designed boiler that was a pig to set up.
It was a very fine line between the boiler running cleanly and the fuel not lighting.
When it didn't light the cure was to block the chimney with your foot, reducing the airflow and bang it would ignite. Karcher came up with all sorts of ideas and we tried a few but nothing really cured it.
I think the best solution was to reduce the air flap to let the boiler light and run a smaller fuel jet to get a clean burn.
You had a lower heat output but I think that was always the issue. Karcher pushing the small boiler to its limit to get a higher heat output.

 

[Turbo]

They will run on kero or diesel but you have to tune the boiler accordingly.

On diesel you will get better heat but the boiler will eventually soot up and need cleaning.

On kero you get a really clean burn but it produces less heat. It also wears out fuel pumps quicker due to being less oily. The boiler coils seem to burn out quicker, never could work that one out. Maybe because it has has a less oily flame?