Biomass 40 water and creosote issues

Good evening all,

I am on my fifth year of burning a Biomass 40 with water storage. Late last year, I noticed some water staining the wall below my chimney thimble. When cleaning the stove, there was considerable creosote in the turbulators and fan area (whereas before I only had a white flyash material). If anything, my wood is drier than before (an additional year of seasoning).

My nozzle was quite worn, so I replaced that yesterday (which is a job in itself!). Now I have a slightly stained water running out of the chimney. This is to say that it is not a drip, but a small stream. When I close the damper, which directs the process through the secondary burn chamber, the stream reduces to dripping.

The chimney is a clay-lined masonry brick unit with a cap. I have not had this issue before.

The only other item to know is that my computer read-out was giving me an E1 and E3 readouts. Mark at Ahona is mailing me a new one, but I pulled the original and put it into cold water, then hot water, and it responded appropriately. I inserted it back under the stove cover (on the water jacket) and it seems to be working correctly.

Any ideas?

Thanks for reading such a long post and for your thoughts.


Bill

Thanks to all for the suggestions. I'll double check the chimney for any blockages, etc. I'm considering removing my turbulators to allow more heat up the chimney (I know, totally backwards) to see if that controls condensation. Weird that this didn't happen in the first three years. Maybe the weather has something to do with it - it was our wettest year I can remember in almost 5 decades.....

Thanks again.

Update: I removed my turbulators today. There was some hard black creosote, with a few flakes. I brushed out the riser tubes and left the turbulators out to see if allowing additional heat up the chimney would help the situation. It appears to not have helped. I inspected the cap and chimney - black staining, but clean and clear.

Also to note, I have not added water, and the pressure is constant, so I don't think it is a leak.

Its just so odd that this didn't happen from the onset of using this stove.

Thanks again for the previous thoughts. I'm certainly stymied and would love to hear others' opinions.

I think I figured it out! I appreciate when others "provide and end" to a problem so others can learn.
In any case, I found a gutter that was taken off, and the roof dripped directly on the chimney. Wetness was occurring in the summer months, so I knew it wasn't stove related. Replaced the gutter, and all seems well now!