Regional Talk > Connecticut Chat > How much for a whistle for Furnace

How much for a whistle for Furnace

If they overfill there may be hazardous waste and insurance issues.

$150 sounds high to me.

IIRC when we had an in ground oil tank there was a whistle or some such on the pump head from the truck. Could some sellers provide a pump head that detects full without your having to buy a whistle?
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"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."

Yeah, I think they said the part was 82.00. I cannot find any place to buy one to compare.

reply to sky king49
Ok, I had to look that up...always wondered how they knew how much to add...

reply to sky king49
This guy knows of what he speaketh: Scully is likely the world leader in overfill protection devices.

Quoted from »www.homegardenguides.com/garden-···tle.html

Your answer is close, but not quite right.

I'm qualified to pontificate about this subject as 20 some years ago I spent a
dozen years of my career as the Chief Engineer of the Scully Signal Company. That
company was the original promoter and manufacturer of the whistling tank fill
signal, (The "Scully Signal") which it brought onto the market in the early 1930s.
That device made "automatic unattended oil delivery" possible. The company still
makes those whistling fill signals, along with lots of other mechanical and
electronic equipment associated with fuel oil and gasoline delivery and storage.

Prior to that invention, if the fuel oil tank was inside a house, oil delivery
required access to the inside to check how much the tank could accept and
sometimes even a second person in there watching a tank gauge, or just looking in
an bung hole, ready to bang on the vent pipe with a wrench to signal the guy
outside to stop filling.

The whistle has a hollow stem extending down from it about 5 or 6 inches into the
tank. When the rising oil level reaches the bottom of the stem, the venting
air/oil vapor stops flowing through that tube and blowing the whistle, signaling
that the tank is filled to a safe level, and leaving enough head space to
accomodate the expansion of the possibly cold oil warming up to interior
temperature.

If as you said, the oil had to be all the way up to the vent pipe to stop the
whistle, then the deliveryman would have to act super quick to shut the nozzle
before oil came spraying out of the vent pipe, and there'd be no head room left in
the tank for expansion of the oil.

The whistle and it's tube are "loose" and form a mushroom shaped gravity operated
presure relief valve which acts to keep the air/vapor pressure above the oil
relatively constant over a wide range of filling flow rates. As the flow rate
increases, the whole whistle and it's stem rises to spill the excess pressure
around it. And the whistles have a "bug screen" built right on them, because not
all vent caps are screened.

The whistling fill signal is a very simple device that almost never fails, and if
it does, it "fails safe", as the deliveryman is trained to stop filling if he
doesn't hear a whistle from the ventpipe within a second or two of starting to
fill the tank.

NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS!

You won't have to dismantle all the vent piping. You can just cut the pipe and
rejoin it with a double ended compression coupling after you remove and replace
the whistling fill signal. There are even fill signals made with a compression
fitting on thier top ends, which you could use if you hacksaw the vent pipe right
at the top of the existing signal, providing there's enough spring in the ventpipe
to accomodate things.

I'd lean on the original installer to replace that fill signal.

Let us know what happens...

Good Luck,

Jeff
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Jeff Wisnia (W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)

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The actual whistle is inside the vent pipe near the top of the tank.
They generally look like this

reply to sky king49
Every oil delivery man worth his salt carries a whistle stick. They put it down the filler, then attach the hose. I don't see the problem.

reply to sky king49
We usually use Saveway oil but tried a different company last year and we got the notice saying the same thing. The whistle goes outside where they fill the oil. We just replaced the entire tank last weekend and they installed it then.

reply to disconnected
Never heard of that and I am sure they will say it is unsafe or something otherwise they would just use it. I will ask them why they do not have one. If they were not the cheapest around here I would go elsewhere. Best Oil is the company....out of Waterbury.

reply to disconnected
exactly, we have a standing order on our account that the driver has to bring a whistle rod with him

reply to sky king49
We buy from a different company nearly every year (lowest price) and every driver has always had the whistle stick. It seems to be standard procedure with the oil companies in the Danbury-New Milford areas.