LL110 Venting Issue

This brand new boiler has been in service just 6 weeks. I came home today and the first thing I noticed was a terrible odor and found my CO detector alarming. After investigating I found the internals to be FILTHY with ash. I also had a large amount of moisture in the coal hopper. I shut the unit down and cleaned it thoroughly. It seems to be fine now.

My question is, has anyone else had this happen? and am I going to have to do this every 6 weeks?

Hopefully you can see how dirty it was in the pictures.

I'm not real happy right now.

check your draft, add a fresh supply of combustion air.

do you have whole house fan? bathroom fans nearby?
height and type of chimney?

ValterBorges wrote:check your draft, add a fresh supply of combustion air.

do you have whole house fan? bathroom fans nearby?
height and type of chimney?

I have good negative pressure. It is a clay tile chimney. No fans close.

Assuming you have CO detectors in the house and one close to the stove or in the basement to alert you in this situation?

Have you actually set and checked your draft with a Draft Gauge? and Your baro damper set correctly too?

Some coal has more ash content then others, depending on the brand and quality, you may have to clean it out more often.

Excessive combustion air will cause lots of flyash to enter the flue.

johnniecuse wrote:This brand new boiler has been in service just 6 weeks. I came home today and the first thing I noticed was a terrible odor and found my CO detector alarming. After investigating I found the internals to be FILTHY with ash. I also had a large amount of moisture in the coal hopper. I shut the unit down and cleaned it thoroughly. It seems to be fine now.

My question is, has anyone else had this happen? and am I going to have to do this every 6 weeks?

Hopefully you can see how dirty it was in the pictures.

I'm not real happy right now.

My boiler has bees going for about 5 weeks, and after seeing your post I decided to take a look. I had quite a buildup of flyash as well, not as bad as yours but close. So now I plan on getting out the vacuum every 4 weeks.

Hey guys, might mention where you got that coal from for reference.

McGiever wrote:Hey guys, might mention where you got that coal from for reference.

Bagged Blashak rice

I saw this post at work, and went right home and checked my 110k.

I had some build up, but not nearly as much as John. Let me qualify that, I didn't have any coverage of the tubes up top, from what I can see, John's is completely covered in ash.

I've been running a 0.02 draft at the base, assuming the flue was in range. Today I'm going to drill a hole in the flue pipe and check the draft up there, because I suspect that build up is coming from too much air movement.

I haven't checked the draft with a manometer yet, but I will this weekend. I seem to have good negative pressure based on a simple smoke test.

CO detector is near the boiler.

The coal is from Woodford Brothers in Fabius , NY.

plumber wrote:
My boiler has bees going for about 5 weeks, and after seeing your post I decided to take a look. I had quite a buildup of flyash as well, not as bad as yours but close. So now I plan on getting out the vacuum every 4 weeks.

You are going to shut the boiler down every 4 weeks? It took me all evening to shut it down clean it up and restart. I can't see doing that all winter long.

You need to get your draft checked.

Smoke test only tells you have draft. NOT what the actual vacuum/pressure is and to set you baro damper accordingly.

This is interesting I know there are some variables to be nailed down like manometer reading. As we are aware jpen1 has a year of operation under his belt with his 110K. I see a manometer port on his set up and no mention of excessive fly ash build up/frequency of clean out in his 110K review. Maybe he will chime in on what his one year of operation has been related to fly ash build up in the clean out.

I have a deposit with no delivery date yet for my 110K and would like know what to expect with a properly setup 110K related to fly ash deposits in the clean out.

If he dosen't catch the question in this thread I will post in his thread ……….Dick

johnniecuse wrote:

plumber wrote:
My boiler has bees going for about 5 weeks, and after seeing your post I decided to take a look. I had quite a buildup of flyash as well, not as bad as yours but close. So now I plan on getting out the vacuum every 4 weeks.

You are going to shut the boiler down every 4 weeks? It took me all evening to shut it down clean it up and restart. I can't see doing that all winter long.

Shut it down? No! This is my first year with coal and I'm determined to be a member of the one math club!

I shut off the service switch and let it cool for about 5 minutes. Opened the cleanout door and vacuumed the flue and the cleanout box itself. Closed the door and checked the fire ( if the fire was low I would have kicked it back on) Then I pulled out the baffles dropping and turning them a few times along the way, brushed and vacuumed out the tubes. Again checked fire, wiped down and reinstalled baffles then closed cleanout door. Now I pulled off the front cover, cleaned on top of the diverter baffle and the fire box. Put the front cover back on then took off and cleaned up the glass with a damp rag dipped in flyash. Start to finish all of 20 minutes.