Aga oil conversion - what happens when oil runs out?

Ralph · Dec 30, 2019

I have a very dumb question - being totally new to Aga's - so please be kind!

We have recently bought a house/project. It came with an old Series 2 Aga (pre 1972 as far as I understand) that was converted at some point to oil - using the BM valve. We've had someone look at it, clean it out, and it seems to be burning fine.

Now we're not at the house at the moment. The Aga is (I believe) burbling away. The oil is currently low. What happens when the oil runs out. I assume the flame goes out, and you may get air locks, crap in the oil feed. OK I can understand that.

BUT I have ordered some more oil to be delivered. If this gets put in and then gravity does its thing and delivers oil to the BM valve then does it go onto the burner and floods the kitchen with oil it until someone manually turns the supply off???

Or is there some form of safety latch/lock-out mechanism?

Brambles · Dec 30, 2019

The BM valve will lock out to stop the burner being flooded. Without stating the obvious old AGA’s can be difficult to restart if they have left to “burn dry”

SJB060685 · Dec 30, 2019

Yes if the oil runs low the burner will gradually die out. Whenever an oil appliance runs out of fuel then filters etc need to be checked yes. It might need bleeding but Aga and Rayburn etc require a minimum of 450mm head so the majority of your fuel line will probably have fuel in it, just not enough to reach the OCV on cooker.
If the flame goes out due to no fuel and then you're away when the tank is filled then fuel will reach the OCV and into burner, through capillary action it will rise up burner and as you say flood into combustion chamber over time so someone needs to return to the house to isolate the fuel to burner, alternatively re light it. If through capillary action you do start flooding the chamber this will obviously leave oil in the bottom, it also seeps into the insulation etc creating a very dangerous possibility. At best you would just have a lot of smoke when re lighting, I have however heard of situations where this happened to such an extent that it was over 50K in damage to property by the time everything was rectified.
Like I said, return to the property, turn knob to 0 and flick the lever on the BM up.