Abstract Residential oil burners are capable of almost complete burning of the fuel oil, without visible smoke, when they are operated to deliver approximately 12% CO 2 in the flue gases. The positions of the air damper and of the combustion nozzle are adjusted at start-up and during operation in order to maximize the combustion efficiency. In practice, one factor at a time is varied, starting with the air damper. However, this method fails to detect the interaction between air excess and nozzle position and results in non-optimal settings. Optimal designed experiments allow obtaining local regression models and statistical analyses indicate if experiment augmentation is required. The air damper and combustion nozzle settings are changed in the direction of local gradient until a second order model that contains the optimal point in its experimental region is obtained. The gain in combustion efficiency thus obtained may be up to 5% as compared with the classical approach.