EKO 60 Cleaning

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Mushroom Man

Mushroom Man

Member
Sep 6, 2008
183
Eastern Ontario
The last few times that I have cleaned the heat exchanger tubes I have noted that the center tubes do not allow the tube scraping tool to pass through. I run into a hard immovable mass.

I can't remember whether this stoppage was evident last season. Do the center tubes exit into the lower (secondary chamber) like the other tubes?

I have never removed the refractory blocks and cleaned out the ash from behind the refractory, at the back of the machine (under the tubes). Is ash build-up the hard mass I am hitting with the tube scraping tool that came with the boiler?

I am cleaning it tomorrow but I thought I could find out if removing the refractory should be part of that process.

Mine is a 2007 machine (according to the label and does not have the shaker for cleaning the tubes. Ironically it does have the holes for them but I guess that it was built just before the turbulators were made standard.
 
Hey another EKO 60 standard. I do pull my blocks out for the cleanings. The mid exchangers are exactally like the others (straight all of the way through). You might have to run a skinny rod down the clogged exchangers, my exchanger cleaning tool was cut off by the previous owner so I use the handle side of the tool to break through when I've neglected cleanings. If you have turbulators on those middle exchangers and the buildup is that heavy remove the turbs.
 
I made a scrapper tool to use with a drill. I took the largest wood spade bit I could find and then had a 2" washer welded on the side. I then took a grinder and just took a small amount off the sides of the washer so that it would just fit down the tube. This works well to scrape all of that crud off the walls. All of the tubes should go down to the bottom chamber to allow the exhaust to freely go up to move the heat from the exhaust to the water. Take out all of the refractory blocks as you probably have quite a bit of fly ash and buildup back there.
 
sdrobertson said:
I made a scrapper tool to use with a drill. I took the largest wood spade bit I could find and then had a 2" washer welded on the side. I then took a grinder and just took a small amount off the sides of the washer so that it would just fit down the tube. This works well to scrape all of that crud off the walls. All of the tubes should go down to the bottom chamber to allow the exhaust to freely go up to move the heat from the exhaust to the water. Take out all of the refractory blocks as you probably have quite a bit of fly ash and buildup back there.
Click to expand...

Could you post a picture of the spade bit w/washer attached? Sounds intriguing.

Norm
 
Thanks to all contributors. I cleaned it thoroughly. That was a nasty job. 5 of the 16 tubes were blocked solidly. What a waste of wood and energy! When I say blocked solidly, I mean I really had to pound that tool to get through. For a long time I thought I wouldn't be able to pound through.

I'll do it every 2 weeks from now on. A tool to fit on the drill is high on my list. I figure it is a lot easier to hold a drill every few weeks than find the tree, fell, buck, carry, split, stack, carry and burn. I am probably missing a few steps in that list.
 
Below is three pics of the tools I use to clean the boiler tubes. The spade bit is the tool I used the most before this year as I was having trouble burning clean (i.e. mostly due to wood issue, and some due to air control issues) so I would get quite a bit of crud in the tubes. The other pic is of a wire brush that I use now as I finally just get fly ash in the tubes and its easy to remove. Before when I had the bad build-up, I tried the brush, but this would just coat up with crud and I would have to let it cool down and then beat the brush to knock off the build-up before attempting to clean the next tube. The spade bit scrapper would just scrape the sides without this issue and worked well. The spade bit has a 2" washer welded onto it and the bit is then welded to a long rod that I would fit into the drill. I did this because with a lot of build up-it takes a 1/2" drill to power it through and the bit would slip in the drill extension that I use for the brush.
 

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