What is the difference in quality between cast iron and stainless
steel residential oil burners?

Howdy mferszt! 
 
It appears it is not so much quality, but rather corrosion, 
cost and "robustness" versus size, weight and energy efficiency 
that are the main issues when it is comes to comparing stainless
steel and cast iron residential oil burners. 
 
Courtesy of: 
 
The Energy Research Institute 
Department of Mechanical Engineering 
University of Cape Town 
Rondebosch 7700 
Cape Town 
South Africa 
www.eri.uct.ac.za
 
There is the rather extensive: 
 
HOW TO SAVE ENERGY AND MONEY IN BOILERS AND FURNACE SYSTEMS 
http://www.3e.uct.ac.za/downloads/boilers.pdf
 
Warning, this is a large (3.5M) Adobe Acrobat format (PDF) file. 
 
If you do not already have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, you
will need to download it in order to read the above document,
which you can do at:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html  
 
If you do not want to download, etc. the whole publication, here 
is the pertinent information to your question: 
 
Starting at Page 38 
 
"The major advantage of the cast iron sectional unit is that it is 
much more resistant to corrosion than an equivalent steel boiler 
when flue gas temperatures fall too far. When firing natural gas 
or LPG this consideration is trivial, but it is of much greater 
significance when firing fuel oil or coal. Another advantage is 
that the method and the robustness of its construction reduces the 
effect of thermal stress making it ideal for small space-heating 
applications where the burner will fire `on' and `off' quite 
frequently." 
 
This continues on page 39: 
 
"To some extent the cast iron boiler's pre-eminence is being 
challenged by stainless steel welded boilers which are more compact, 
much lighter in weight and more energy efficient. However, the former
unit still offers a cheap and very tolerant package ..." 


Search strategy:

pros cons "oil burners" "cast iron" "stainless steel"
://www.google.com/search?q=pros+cons+%22oil+burners%22+%22cast+iron%22+%22stainless+steel%22
 
If you have questions or need for clarification, please do
not hesitate in asking! 

Looking Forward, denco-ga

Howdy mferszt!

It appears it is not so much quality, but rather corrosion,
cost and "robustness" versus size, weight and energy efficiency
that are the main issues when it is stainless steel versus cast
iron residential oil burners.

Courtesy of:

The Energy Research Institute
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Cape Town
Rondebosch 7700
Cape Town
South Africa
www.eri.uct.ac.za

There is the rather extensive:

HOW TO SAVE ENERGY AND MONEY IN BOILERS AND FURNACE SYSTEMS
http://www.3e.uct.ac.za/downloads/boilers.pdf

Warning, this is a large (3.5M) Adobe Acrobat format (PDF) file.

If you do not have it, in order to view it you will need to
download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader at: 
 
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html 

If you do not want to download, etc. the whole publication, here
is the pertinent information to your question:

Starting at Page 38

"The major advantage of the cast iron sectional unit is that it is
much more resistant to corrosion than an equivalent steel boiler
when flue gas temperatures fall too far. When firing natural gas
or LPG this consideration is trivial, but it is of much greater
significance when firing fuel oil or coal. Another advantage is
that the method and the robustness of its construction reduces the
effect of thermal stress making it ideal for small space-heating
applications where the burner will fire `on' and `off' quite
frequently."

This continues on page 39:

"To some extent the cast iron boiler's pre-eminence is being
challenged by stainless steel welded boilers which are more compact,
much lighter in weight and more energy efficient. However, the former
unit still offers a cheap and very tolerant package ..."


Search strategy:

pros cons "oil burners" "cast iron" stainless steel"
://www.google.com/search?q=pros+cons+%22oil+burners%22+%22cast+iron%22+stainless+steel%22


Hope this Comment helps! Looking Forward, denco