HS Tarm 500 Extreme Creosote Problem

[mjeselskis]

Hello,
I just found the forum and am desperately looking for advice.

Last winter, I had a Memco boiler from the 70's. It basicallly ran wide open all the time and did a poor job of heating my house. Since it ran wide open, and had a stack temp of around 700* all the time, i had no creosote issues.

This year I put in a HS Tarm 500. It's about 20 years old but was barely used and pretty much was only used for oil so its very clean and in good shape. Anyways, the boiler is much more efficient and doesnt have a problem heating the house, garage, and still is running with damper closed most of the time.

It has a mechanical damper that is set right now to maintain about 180*. I load up the boiler in the morning, lunch, and then when I go to bed. Since the house is barely using the capacity of the boiler, the boiler maintains the water temp easy and the bottom draft control stays shut most of the time. The issue is that I am having ALOT of creosote buildup. I have a Tee in the chimney for my barometric damper. There is so much gummy creosote in that tee that the damper wont open anymore unless I clean it everyday. I have creosote buildup on the inside of the door, and inside frame. I have to scrape the inside frame with a putty knife a few times a day to clean up the creosote. I have creosote dripping out the door and down the front of the boiler. When I do let it go out and start it up, I run it wide open for about 30 minutes and that seems to keep the chimney dried out and I sweep the chimney once a month due to this buildup.

The boiler is in the garage, with two sections of standard stovepipe going into 8' of 8" of metalbestos that goes straight through the attic and through the roof with about 3' exposed on the exterior. The wood was cut down last January, cut and split this spring, and sat stacked and covered all summer. It is cracked oped on the ends, but does have some moisture in it. Mostly Maple, some yellow birch.

Sorry it's so long, just want to give as much info as possible. really need help.

Thanks

 

[tom in maine]

This was a pretty typical problem with old Tarms.
You might check in with BioHeatUSA about it.
My experience was with a friend who had one that did exactly what you are experiencing.
The solution was to install a storage tank (My first one for a wood boiler--20 years ago!)
and run the boiler with the damper opened up for a fast fire that burns a lot cleaner.
All the excess heat dumps into the tank, once the house is satisfied.

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

Can you moderate your loads so that it has to burn with the damper open more?

I'm no expert on Tarms. There are Tarm 'sperts here, though, so you might want to rename the post with the word Tarm in it. Around here when people see the word Creosote they just assume its an Adobe/Seton/GreenWood :smirk:

 

[mjeselskis]

This was a pretty typical problem with old Tarms.
You might check in with BioHeatUSA about it.
My experience was with a friend who had one that did exactly what you are experiencing.
The solution was to install a storage tank (My first one for a wood boiler--20 years ago!)
and run the boiler with the damper opened up for a fast fire that burns a lot cleaner.
All the excess heat dumps into the tank, once the house is satisfied.

Thanks for the input. Not encouraging, but good to know I'm not the only one with this issue. I have thought about a storage tank, but just havent got there yet.

Renamed the post to catch the eye of the Tarm experts.

Any other suggestions to help this besides a storage tank?

 

[Gooserider]

Essentially you sound like you have one or maybe two problems,

The BIG issue is that you are idling the boiler to much - idling = inefficient burning = creosote buildup.... You need to reduce the amount of time the boiler spends in idle mode - either add storage as already mentioned (probably the best solution) or burn smaller fires in the boiler, which will likely mean more frequent feeding...

The second problem is that you may have wood that is less dry than it should be - get a moisture meter, and measure the inside of the splits by resplitting a few pieces and measuring the middle of the newly exposed surface... Should be under 20% ideally... Not much to do at this point to cure that one, other than to try and get further ahead next spring - ideally wood should season for AT LEAST one full year after being cut, split, and properly stacked - preferably with some kind of top cover IMHO, though you will get some debate about that.

Gooserider

 

[RobC]

I had one of the old Tarms. Great, simple, boiler. For my boiler return protection I had a 4 way mixing valve and the circulator on the stove ran constant. At the time we had baseboard heat so when you would load the stove if you needed more heat you would turn up the dial on the mixing valve. Subsequently if you needed even more heat you could turn up the circulator speed from 1 to 2 to 3.
However I do remember that creosote was a bit of and issue, but not nearly as bad as what your describing. Do you have some sort of mixing valve installed ?
Now I have a Tarm gassifier and storage. A previous post mentioned adding storage. I would second that idea. It would all but eliminate your creosote issue and it would allow you to cut down to 2 fires a day or 1 long fire a day. It doesn't sound like you have a large heating load so you could maybe go with 1 X 500 gallon tank. The advantage of storage is burning year round for DWH, and, if in the spring or fall if you want a little heat to take the chill off you just turn up the thermostat with out building a fire.... Those times of year you might only fire every 2 days and in the summer every 3 or 4 for DWH.

http://na.heating.danfoss.com/xxTypex/338448_MNU17445670_SIT209.html

Rob

 

[WRVERMONT]

I heard a similar story today talking to the ownder of a older non-gasser Tarm. I am going to try and convince him to add some storage. Alternatively, considering that old Tarm just wants to make some HEAT, you could leave the front door to house open when you leave for work! Good Luck

 

[yamgrizz700]

i have a buddy that works for tarm now bioheat heat usa and he is very knowledgeable at all aspects of boilers no matter what it is. ask for scott and he can help.

 

[mikeyny]

I have been using a old tarm for years now. Mine is a 502. My house is a bit too big for it so it works hard most of the time. I don't have any storage. I don't have any creosote problems. Make sure you have good draft, and real dry wood. I sometimes mix in some not so seasoned wood and get that black liquid running out the upper door air inlet. So I would say if you have that awfull black stuff present, you have wood that is not ready for your tarm. Find some real dry wood and see what happens. My draft was too great so I put turbulators in all but one tube and the performance is now better than ever. When I am home, mostly on the weekends, I add wood a little at at tme during the day so it will runn even cleaner.