Dangerous way to clean Seton Hex, but damn it works good!

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sparke

Minister of Fire
Jul 6, 2006
564
Maine
So I ran out of dry wood in Feb. and I have been burning green wood since : ( As a result the Hex needs regular cleaning.

I did not want to tear apart the beast again until I am ready to do a serious upgrade so I decided to use an old trick.

If you do this be extremely careful for 2 reasons:

1. If cold water hits the Hex, it could be extremely dangerous. Serious steam flash and possible explosion?

2. This method may reduce the life of the Hex?


What I did was drain the Hex (leave 30# pop off in open position)and lit a fire. I used a bunch of kindling, 3 or 4 hardwood splits and a chunk of pine. I probably should have made a smaller fire.

Anyway, the fire lasted about 3 hours, turned the hex cherry red in spots, and cleaned it very well, down to the metal. The back side of the hex was cleaned to bare metal as well.

Any metallurgists or fabricators out there hazard a guess as to damage done?



http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p83/sparkie68/Hex.jpg
 
http://www.calphad.com/iron-carbon.html

That link is a phase diagram used in adjusting the properties of steel. If you know the temperature of your fire and % carbon of your steel, you can tell what happened. Generally the longer you held the heat, the greater the grain size growth. Since you probably had an unmonitored process, it is guesswork about what happened to your steel. It might also be important how much carbon was available.

Boilers are low tech, but it is probably good to follow the manufacturers recommendations regarding operation.
 
I had my pump go about a month ago. Just about the same effect. Wife came home from work,temp gauge pegged,and no heat in the house. I was at work... WTH to do. I rushed home cleaned out boiler of HOT charred wood. Allowed to cool for a couple of days,refilled system. All ok. Hx tubes were very clean.. Not really how I wanted to clean em...
 
I personally would not clean a boiler in such a way. Why risk limiting the life of your boiler for a quick clean? I have way too much invested.
 
Its hard to say if you lessened the life of the exchanger or lengthened it. If stress had built up in areas the heating might have annealed it giving it a longer life. Randy
 
Those style HX's aren't that complicated to fab if needed.
Will
 
Generally speaking, if the steel has been distorted from the heat, things have gone downhill in a fairly big way. If you see any buckling or "waves" in the steel it has been compromised to the point where it's life expectancy has been greatly reduced. The grain structure of the steel itself has been changed and it is not the same steel anymore.
 
Looks like you converted it to a low volume forced air unit or a self cleaning oven. The HX, it depends on what grade of steel you started with where you end up. Most steel today is import low grade stuff unless you spec something else, A36 or above which has better gain characteristics, the better the grade. In the eighties I had a hot water coil made out of threaded pipe & elbows which wasn't used, in a forced air wood unit and after years of service it look fine.
 
I don't think you can hurt the Hex very much. To be honest, if I ruin the Hex, I can get a true gasifier ;)
 
I agree with Sparke, if I ruined my heat exchanger then my wife would let me get a decent boiler. My luck I could probably only accomplish burning down my boiler room and shed with that stunt. Jim
 
How about cleaning the HX with a turbo torch with map gas?

Will
 
Willman said:
How about cleaning the HX with a turbo torch with map gas?

Will
Click to expand...

That would probably work if you drained the hex, however, it would not clean the back part of the Hex(unreachable) like a fire does.
 
snowman49820 said:
I use a propane shingle torch to clean mine.
Click to expand...

Do you drain the Hex?
 
During the winter I don't, but it still works pretty good. Takes a lot of the heavy stuff off. Spring time last year I drained it. I never got the tubes red hot, after that they had a light blue tint to them. But I also made mine out of DOM tubing.
 
I understand this is an older post, Sounds like there are several of you that have Seton Boilers and have to clean the HEX tubes often... Can you guys give me an Idea how often you have to clean? And how can you tell when it is time to clean for example, does smoke start puffing out the front door? Havin serious problems with mine, only getting 6 to 7 weeks of burning and I am burning very seasoned dry wood.

Thanks......
 
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