Cleaning soot of heat exchanger

Abracadabra

Teledyne-Laars Might Therm boiler used for DHW.
Heat exchanger is sooted completely blocked. Flames licking outside the combustion chamber.
Guess Laars knows about this problem. Any suggestions on cleaning heat exchanger without having to remove it completely from the boiler? Was thinking for removing burner assembly completely and power washing the exchanger.

RLuck

Remove top use hacksaw blade. Then find out WHY! That boiler is currently unsafe and producing high co

Abracadabra

RLuck said:

Remove top use hacksaw blade. Then find out WHY! That boiler is currently unsafe and producing high co

I talked to a Teledyne Laars distributor and the supply house that supplies me with these boilers. It's a well known problem for the might therm and I think minitherm was mentioned as well. I guess since they became aware of this problem Laars modifed the design to include a thermal switch just outside the combustion chamber in the event flames back out. Fins on the heat exchanger are very close together. Upon startup or boiler shutdown and restartup, cold water circulating in the exchanger causes condensation. Startup flame causes a bit of soot, also if combustion air is dusty all that combines to cause soot/dust/etc to attach to heat exchanger fins. Soot Destroyer was suggested by my supply house, but they are currently out of stock. Think I prefer the power washing route.

unclejohn

It's real easy to pull the burner rack right out of that boiler. I have used a garden hose if a floor drain is right near by. If not a wet vac will work.

RJ_4

I always clean these once a year as part of the P/M, Burner tray slides out like UJ said you can get to xchanger top by removing flue and back panel becareful if using water not to get the refractory panels to wet. make sure your flue is sized correctly, some install the flue the same size as the boiler trim flue connection, this can change and the flue size may need to increase in some cases.

Abracadabra

So you guys wash the heat exchanger without disconecting it from the piping? Any trick to trying to keep the refractory panels from getting too wet? I've had to pull burners assy on these before, so I'm comfortable with that... I was more concerned about having to disconnect the heat exchanger from the pipiing header and having to deal with gaskets leaking or having replacement gaskets on hand.

RJ_4

Refractory panels sit around the outersides of the inside of boiler, just direct the water directly into heat exch. also blowing out with CO2 after wetting xchanger with coil cleaner is an option, The last one I did I lined the boiler room with plastic sheathing for easier clean up and brought plany of rags and tyvex suits

Abracadabra

thanks RJ!