Two Questions. Has Anybody Seen This Before?

I have a never before seen white powdery substance on the interior walls of my stove and a tar like substance dripping out of the clean out on the exterior chimney.
I do need to clean the chimney, I know that, but I don't know if these two things are related to that our if there even related to each other.

If your shut down for more than a couple days, and plan to be shut down any length of time, I'd clean EVERYTHING out of there ... or else your going to find holes in everything pretty quick. You won't get holes in the boiler or stove (whichever unit you have there) , but the hopper and pipe will be gonzo pretty quick.

Just a little airborne moisture + fly ash or coal = sulphuric acid. It will eat right through stainless steel. It's happened to me on 2 occasions with 3 separate stainless parts in the past.

SMITTY wrote:If your shut down for more than a couple days, and plan to be shut down any length of time, I'd clean EVERYTHING out of there ... or else your going to find holes in everything pretty quick. You won't get holes in the boiler or stove (whichever unit you have there) , but the hopper and pipe will be gonzo pretty quick.

Just a little airborne moisture + fly ash or coal = sulphuric acid. It will eat right through stainless steel. It's happened to me on 2 occasions with 3 separate stainless parts in the past.

Woahhhhh!! I am glad I asked! I will clean it up really good this weekend. Any recommendations on products to use to clean it?

Scraper, wire brush & elbow grease to start. Lots of coating stuff to chose from. Looks like she's been WAY due for a cleaning. How long you been shut down?

Yeah, the dripping out of your metal chimney is probably from condensation. It's water and fly ash which will react to form sulfuric acid. Bad combo for metal. Use a shop vac in the stove along with the scraping and wire brushing, I recommend coating the inside of it too. I use motor oil, others use fluid film and there are a couple other spray ons you can use.

The stove looks normal prior to a good vac and brushing. Coat with Fluid-Film and your are set for the summer. The chimney looks to be galvanized, and you should think about replacing it, from previous posts it doesn't look like there is a long run of it which will cut your costs a fair amount. Let us know if we can help, questions are always welcome here.

freetown fred wrote:Scraper, wire brush & elbow grease to start. Lots of coating stuff to chose from. Looks like she's been WAY due for a cleaning. How long you been shut down?

I will get it all cleaned up...not looking forward to that :/

I shut it down about 3 weeks ago now.

Lightning wrote:Yeah, the dripping out of your metal chimney is probably from condensation. It's water and fly ash which will react to form sulfuric acid. Bad combo for metal. Use a shop vac in the stove along with the scraping and wire brushing, I recommend coating the inside of it too. I use motor oil, others use fluid film and there are a couple other spray ons you can use.

Thank you!! So put the coating right inside of the stove? Motor oil? I assume that it will wear off by the time the heating season rolls back around and won't cause any issues when I re-light the stove...

2001Sierra wrote:The stove looks normal prior to a good vac and brushing. Coat with Fluid-Film and your are set for the summer. The chimney looks to be galvanized, and you should think about replacing it, from previous posts it doesn't look like there is a long run of it which will cut your costs a fair amount. Let us know if we can help, questions are always welcome here.

Replace it with steel?

Stainless steel chimney rated for "All Fuels".