Ellie has a furnace that burns fuel oil, similar to diesel fuel or kerosene. When the furnace runs out of fuel, all that remains is air in the fuel line and whatever mechanism the furnace uses as a fuel pump. Unlike natural gas or propane, that uses a fuel that's under pressure in its container, liquid fuel is not or, at best, under what bit of pressure gravity will provide depending on how the fuel line is installed into the fuel tank. To get the pump to take fuel from the tank and give it to the furnace, you have to get rid of the air.
That's what priming the pump does. How it's done also depends on the type of pump used, but most often requires putting a small amount of fuel directly into the pump so that it can operate and thus draft (draw) fuel from the tank. The pump usually cannot just operate and create enough vacuum to pull the fuel in; adding some fuel directly to it gives something for the vanes, impeller or other type of mechanism to work against, pressurizing that fuel and creating the vacuum necessary to take fuel from the main tank.
And that's priming the pump in a couple nutshells.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Ummm .... curious...
Date: 2003-02-25 03:51 am (UTC)That's what priming the pump does. How it's done also depends on the type of pump used, but most often requires putting a small amount of fuel directly into the pump so that it can operate and thus draft (draw) fuel from the tank. The pump usually cannot just operate and create enough vacuum to pull the fuel in; adding some fuel directly to it gives something for the vanes, impeller or other type of mechanism to work against, pressurizing that fuel and creating the vacuum necessary to take fuel from the main tank.
And that's priming the pump in a couple nutshells.
Masque