As i have stated in a few of my other posts I purchased a Tarm OT-50 used. It is in pretty good condition considering its age. It was manufactured in 1979. I chose this model specifically because it is wood with oil backup and i only have one chimney flue. I want to make sure things are as prefect as they can be before i try to install this so i'm working on cleaning it up as best i can. From talking to the guy i bought it from it has been sitting for about a year. The service tag on it says that it was last serviced in 2013 and the Oil side was 84% efficient. The only problem i have found with it was that the DHW coil won't hold pressure. This is not that big of a deal as i plan on using a superstor. After i discovered the leak in the hot water coil i pulled the coil so i could inspect it do determine what the problem was. It appears like whoever pulled the boiler tried to clean the coil out as best they could but since it is a vertical coil some water settled to the bottom and froze and split the coil in several places. That is my opinion, but it is also possible that the coil just corroded from the inside and go thin and burst. The coil on these boilers is huge, it is something like 18 inches wide and 20 inches long. So, removing it gave me a good look at the inside of the boiler. The inside of the boiler looks clean. it does not appear to be rusty anywhere. All the internal surfaces that i could see still had paint on them.
Now that you have some idea about the boiler, here is my real problem. After pulling the coil and inspecting the inside of the boiler i noticed between the firebox and the top of the water jacket way in the front corner there was some stuff that appears to be put there by mice. I removed as much as i could and now the top of things is pretty clean, but it appears to go over the edge of the front of the firebox. On the front of this boiler there is about a 1 1/2 inch gap between the firebox and the front plate that creates the water jacket. There is a drop of about 3 or 4 inches before you get to the flange that creates the door to the firebox. I have tried mirrors and all sorts of other things to try to get into this area or see in there but i can not.
Does anyone on here have any experience with this sort of thing? Does anyone have any suggestions about how to get into this area or how to make sure i have removed everything. I have used a coat hanger to remove everything i could see. It was very difficult because of all the connecting pieces of steel that connect the firebox and the outside of the water jacket.
What are the risks of possibly missing some of this? If it stays lodged where it is, could it cause hot spots in the boiler that could harm the boiler? If it were to come loose i realize that it could clog my heating system. To prevent this, if i can not be sure i have removed all of it, i was considering putting an inline filter in each of my heating loops. I have found cartridge filters that are designed to remove sediment that will withstand the temperatures and won't restrict the flow that i think will work. Does this sound like a good idea? Does anyone else have any solutions to this problem.
Now that you have some idea about the boiler, here is my real problem. After pulling the coil and inspecting the inside of the boiler i noticed between the firebox and the top of the water jacket way in the front corner there was some stuff that appears to be put there by mice. I removed as much as i could and now the top of things is pretty clean, but it appears to go over the edge of the front of the firebox. On the front of this boiler there is about a 1 1/2 inch gap between the firebox and the front plate that creates the water jacket. There is a drop of about 3 or 4 inches before you get to the flange that creates the door to the firebox. I have tried mirrors and all sorts of other things to try to get into this area or see in there but i can not.
Does anyone on here have any experience with this sort of thing? Does anyone have any suggestions about how to get into this area or how to make sure i have removed everything. I have used a coat hanger to remove everything i could see. It was very difficult because of all the connecting pieces of steel that connect the firebox and the outside of the water jacket.
What are the risks of possibly missing some of this? If it stays lodged where it is, could it cause hot spots in the boiler that could harm the boiler? If it were to come loose i realize that it could clog my heating system. To prevent this, if i can not be sure i have removed all of it, i was considering putting an inline filter in each of my heating loops. I have found cartridge filters that are designed to remove sediment that will withstand the temperatures and won't restrict the flow that i think will work. Does this sound like a good idea? Does anyone else have any solutions to this problem.
