waterheater

Sorry, but some things strike people who do burner work funny. This is not amusing, but dangerous – it is amusing in a way that someone who knows what he is doing lives with the danger and laughs at his own foibles.

I assume, because I hope that you do not have a gas unit, that you are talking about an oil burner. A gas burner should produce no soot at all – ever. If this is the case, then you want someone in there now, yesterday, to save you from breathing carbon monoxide.

If this is oil, then you need to adjust the burner so it will not smoke, as oil burners today are required to make zero smoke. This is done by an experienced technician after making sure the flame shape and size are correct. It takes some testing devices, the least expensive of which now goes for about $300 aside from the tools.

It is always fun to experiment, but not inside the area you live in.

If this is a gas unit, then you have any of a number of serious problems and they should all be checked immediately. Plugged flues, inadequate fresh air, downdrafts, overfiring or misadjusted burner, are some of the causes that come to mind, but there can be others also, all of them serious. The important thing is to get it repaired before you become an item on the six o’clock news.