Teledyne Laars Copper Oxide buidup on heat exchanger fins remove

Ed. W

How to remove buildup of copper oxide on heat exchanger fins to prevent blowback?

Mark Eatherton

No offense, but...

The only way I've been able to do it is to not use copper fin tube boilers.

I've seen them piped primary/secondary. primary secondary terciary (P/S with a bypass), even seen them with termo mix valves on them, and they ALL crud up eventually. I think it's a great idea whose time has come, and gone. TIme to move on to something with a thermal efficiency greater than 85%.

Just my humble opinion tempered by 35 years in the field...

I'd welcome someone to prove me otherwise...

ME

Timco

The last one I pulled cleaned right up with a prerssure washer.

The last one I pulled was cleaned with a pressure washer. Cleaned right up. I think most of that stuff washes off with water.

T

hot_rod

wear a dust mask

or respirator! If you decide to vacumn or blow out the fins that crud is bad stuff to breath.

hr

Bill Clinton_6

cleaning TD Laars

some years ago, Laars "improved" the MiniTherm by moving the draft diverter from its "toadstool" location to hanging off the rear of the boiler. This gave them better control of excess air and allowed a couple more points in AFUE. Trouble is, particularly in low temperature applications, condensation forms on the fins at the rear of the boiler (first pass of cold water through HX). Mark is right: It's really hard to prevent)

As the boiler cycles, small amounts of soot are made each time the burner goes on or off. That soot sticks to the wet fins and pretty soon the boiler is all choked up.

We found a simple laundry squirt bottle gives enough oomph to knock that stuff off. Open the top; remove the burners; and squirt. The amount of water used is small enough to wipe up with a sponge in the combustion chamber.

Bill

Justin Topel

Copper Cleaner

Ed, I have used a product that cleans out lime and scale on the copper HE fins. The only thing that is to be done is that the cleaner should be rinsed off with water. If you can do that, then you are home free. Ill post some pictures. The cleaner is safe to use without gloves, but it can etch concrete if left on. The gentleman who sells me all of my chemicals is always around for questions and has direct line access to the chemical engineers if needed. His products have worked better than anything for all of my different applications. His name is Ted Gilbert and he can be reached at 970-420-6351. The HE in the pictures was sprayed with the cleaner, sat for around 3 minutes, sprayed off with water, sprayed again with the cleaner, and rinsed a final time. No scrubbing was utilized. The cleaner worked quite well. Hope this helps you a little.

Justin Topel

Try this out!

I have used a product called Na6 that is safe for copper and eats away and calcium and lime. The pics show a HE that was sprayed with the product and let set for around 3 minutes. I took it outside and rinsed it with water. It removed almost all of the scale, but I gave it another shot to clean the copper as well. I let is sit without any sort of scrubbing and then rinsed it off again. It is water-soluable and is not a health hazard type product. I guess it is safe on skin, yet really eats up the scale deposits. My sales rep is Ted Gilbert at 970-420-6351. Tell him Justin sent you. He can hook you up with some products. The only requirement is that you need to flush off the product with water. This may not work in all cases, but it definately will in some. Hope this helps.

Mister T

Hvacman

Prevention

After you have cleaned the HX prevent that condensation! It is killing your boiler! Low return water temps are a primary cause, is it piped per the mfg? RBI, Lochinvar, Laars, they all do it but I say a copper fin boiler installed correctly is not such a bad thing! :-)