Combustion chamber: war zone or just dirty

seized123

Okay doctors of heating, I know that making a diagnosis using only pictures is not ideal, but do you see anything fatal here?

It’s a ten-year-old Weil-McLean P-WGO-3 which was regularly cleaned and tuned by my now retired plumber - very competent overall but not a heating specialist. No problems so far with boiler itself, but while upgrading the oil line I thought I’d open it up. Of course, compared to, say, the inside of my microwave this looks to me like a war zone after carpet bombing, but I’m hoping that you don’t see anything that says absolutely time for a new boiler. Having said that, I’m looking for candid opinions, and I have a gifted bottle of single malt whiskey ready to open to ease the pain …

pecmsg

Did this plumber leave the combustion analysis sheets ?

seized123

Hi @pecmsg. Hah! Combustion analysis sheets. Very funny. He never did a combustion analysis with a legitimate analyzer that I remember, and  I didn’t know any better to notice. (This was the same guy who made the return line as long as the supply at the top of the tank, as you predicted and I mentioned to you the other day in my two-pipe to one thread.)

A few months after last cleaning and tuneup the boiler smoked some (!) but he had retired by then and I called my next choice, another old time plumber who didn’t do a combustion analysis but he fixed smoke.(Since then I bought a used wet kit with smoke tester, etc. less than ideal especially in my hands but things looked good, and I will probably use oil company for service in future, no more old time plumbers who do things “by eye.”)

seized123

Anyway, I just ordered a replacement liner kit. To clean this (combustion chamber only) can I just use a wire brush and scraper and vacuum, or is there some protective coating or something I am not supposed to scratch?