Cleaning a Lochinvar Armor

e123b123

Hi I'm just wondering if anyone knows of a spray to clean the burner without taking it apart?

one of the mechanics at the company i work for told me about it but he will only tell me what spray after i clean this one.

RPK

For years I used to clean the Giannoni heat exchangers with only a plastic scraper and water, since the Lochinvar literature says no metal brushes or chemicals.  Then I talked my employer into buying Lochinvar’s cleaning kit, which consists of a long shaft that can be fitted in a drill, an abrasive wheel (plastic bristles embedded with some kind of mild abrasive) and a plastic cover to protect the bullseye refractory panel.  This setup works great, and is referenced in the Lochinvar literature.   I remember other manufacturers gave different instructions for cleaning the same heat exchangers and IIRC some did allow certain chemical cleaners. 

RPK

Just reread the original post.  I do think any kind of spray cleaning of the burner without disassembly is advisable.  The burner is easy enough to disassemble and needs to be visually inspected while servicing.  

BoilerToolbox

For cleaning the heat exchanger, use Lochinvar's cleaning kit as RPK mentioned.

The burner itself usually only needs to be blown out and then shop-vacced. First use an air compressor to blow from the outside of the mesh back into the middle of burner (opposite the normal path of air flow when it is installed). Then use a small shop vac attachment to vacuum out any of the debris that this pushes into the middle of the burner. You can then run the shop-vac over the outside mesh, be careful not to tear or snag the mesh though. When it is clean, you should be able to look down the inside of the burner and see light coming through the mesh and holes in the burner.

If the burner is really bad you can hit it with high pressure water but it has to be completely dry before you put it back into service. Use the air compressor and shop vac to dry it off. The burner is not just stainless steel and it will rust if it is still wet when you fire it back up.

After you do a cleaning, it is always recommended to check combustion with an analyzer. Check out Lochinvar University for free training videos specifically about the Armor:

https://www.lochinvaru.us/2018pages/awn.html