Anyone know what black goop oozing from boiler is?

Joseph_4

Hi,

 I live in the rockaways and being afraid of flooding/and or looting, as we had to evacuate because of hurricane irene, I pulled my burner from my peerless jot 175w boiler. The boiler was off for close to 48 hours, when I got home I reattached boiler and in five minutes  of firing it, there was  a really bad smell, looked in observation hole and saw black stuff oozing from the bottom of boiler sections. Heard that gaskets could go bad if you bring temperature down. spoke with someone whose worked on boilers for 30 years. he told me,if was gasket, boiler would be leaking water, since its not,  its soot that hasn't been cleaned well. he told me to fire up boiler 5 minutes at a time till bring up to temperature. have been home now for 5 hours it fired up plenty and the stuff has stopped. I cleaned in between sections with my soot saw and brushes and smell seems to have stopped. I just never heard of or seen such an occurrence before. Has anyone else seen this?

Thanks

Joe 

lchmb

actually

I'm more impressed that you took your burner....Did you empty your house also or are people in your area known to steal old burners? I'm thinking they probably would have gone after your copper lines first.



As far as the goo...probably it means alot of junk was washed down your chimney and started to plug up the passages (guessing of course) but I would suggest you have someone come in and service the unit and inspect the chimney to be safe...

Joseph_4

actually its a brand new carlin ezgas burner

Hi.

 Thanks for post. it sounds funny, but its a spanking new carlin ez gas burner and at $675 -vs- 5 minutes of work to remove it, i opted to take it. although I'd say the flooding was more of concern.

thanks

joe

lchmb

being gas

with that in mind I would definately make sure you get someone in to check the setup and make sure there are no issues with the unit. Glad to hear you got home safe!

Techman

oozing

I agree with the comment about soot being washed back down the chimney.Is this a gas conversion job ? Is the chimney lined ?