Hi Guys,
After a long, arduous road of constructing the Garn building, yesterday I did the first fill, preclean chem. and firing of the Garn. I actually preheated the water with the HX piped to my existing gas boiler to 85 deg. to avoid condensing during the first burn. I added a smallish load of wood and fired it up. Flue temps never got above 300 according to the controller. The tank temp topped out at 130. I circulated the precleaner in the Garn and all attached pluming for 24 hours according to the instructions. Today, I let it cool to about 110 and drained the water expecting to do the flush and final fill. After draining, I was more than a little concerned by the amount of gunk, and debris - there was LOTS of it at the bottom of the tank. There were many gallons of opaque white/rust colored liquid and most of the welds inside the tank were rusted. The inside of the manhole has a fair amount of rust started as well. There is a lot of white residue that doesn't rinse off of the surfaces of the inside of the tank. Since I'm a total newbie and know very little about this, perhaps none of this is uncommon. So, let me ask a few questions please:
1. Is the newly-rusted surfaces something that I need to be concerned with? It's mostly weld joints, but there are patches of rust in many places on the inside of the tank and the heat exchange tubes. Prior to adding the precleaner chemical, the tank had no rust whatsoever.
2. Is the white residue something to be concerned about? It doesn't come off even if I rub it.
3. There are pieces of debris of some type that are sitting at the very bottom of the tank. I assume that it's steel shavings or something like that because I can't rinse it toward the drain at the front of the unit with a hose. The debris doesn't float, it just sinks to the bottom. Do I need to remove all of that? (if so I'll need to crawl inside the beast)
4. Will the final chem treatment stop the rust that the precleaner chem has caused?
I can upload pics if needed. Again, I hope I'm over-reacting and there is really nothing to worry about here, but I don't want to do the final fill only to have to drain it all and do it again later.
Thanks!
Chris
After a long, arduous road of constructing the Garn building, yesterday I did the first fill, preclean chem. and firing of the Garn. I actually preheated the water with the HX piped to my existing gas boiler to 85 deg. to avoid condensing during the first burn. I added a smallish load of wood and fired it up. Flue temps never got above 300 according to the controller. The tank temp topped out at 130. I circulated the precleaner in the Garn and all attached pluming for 24 hours according to the instructions. Today, I let it cool to about 110 and drained the water expecting to do the flush and final fill. After draining, I was more than a little concerned by the amount of gunk, and debris - there was LOTS of it at the bottom of the tank. There were many gallons of opaque white/rust colored liquid and most of the welds inside the tank were rusted. The inside of the manhole has a fair amount of rust started as well. There is a lot of white residue that doesn't rinse off of the surfaces of the inside of the tank. Since I'm a total newbie and know very little about this, perhaps none of this is uncommon. So, let me ask a few questions please:
1. Is the newly-rusted surfaces something that I need to be concerned with? It's mostly weld joints, but there are patches of rust in many places on the inside of the tank and the heat exchange tubes. Prior to adding the precleaner chemical, the tank had no rust whatsoever.
2. Is the white residue something to be concerned about? It doesn't come off even if I rub it.
3. There are pieces of debris of some type that are sitting at the very bottom of the tank. I assume that it's steel shavings or something like that because I can't rinse it toward the drain at the front of the unit with a hose. The debris doesn't float, it just sinks to the bottom. Do I need to remove all of that? (if so I'll need to crawl inside the beast)
4. Will the final chem treatment stop the rust that the precleaner chem has caused?
I can upload pics if needed. Again, I hope I'm over-reacting and there is really nothing to worry about here, but I don't want to do the final fill only to have to drain it all and do it again later.
Thanks!
Chris