Help with Smoking Tasso

[nhdblfan]

Hi all and Merry Christmas,

posting this question for a sweet lady friend who is having trouble with her 1980's Tasso Universal Wood Boiler.

She has had creosote removed from air chamber (?) above the fire box,stove pipe, and the cleanout below stove pipe-in back.Its still smoking to much to run;
She closes the firebox after lighting the wood (wood is dry),opens lower vent flap-just a bit, then smoke comes out around the upper flap-its closed. If she closes the lower flap its stops but fire goes out.

Any help greatly appreciated,

 

[leatherguy]

i have a retired tasso, nice boiler but did make a lot of creosote. 2 things to check. 1st the upper air chamber is connected to the fire box with channels in the forgings that need to be rodded out if i wasn't careful when i cleaned the top the vertical channels would plug. I had an old spiral brush with a long handle that i literally would have to ram down the channel to get a hole started. a very messy job but i had to do it 2 or 3 times a winter every time i thought my draft was bad. 2nd check your chimney draft, i liked to get my fire roaring hot and keep my chimney clean that way. don't do it if you don't have a good chimney.

 

[stee6043]

My brother in law has always said a good chimney fire is the easiest way for him to keep his smoke pipe clean. Of course he's running an OWB 300' away from everything and everyone.

My question was going to be "define dry wood" in your friends case. How dry...and what kind of wood?

 

[leatherguy]

I'm pretty sure the problem lies in pluged air tubes. The only way to get at them is to take top of boiler trim off. then there are 6 panels that are gasketed down onto the boiler casting and held by T bolts. This is a real easy but pain in the kister type job. I didn't know about these tubes for several years., and gues what al of a suden I couldn't keep a fire going. I thought my chimney was plugged checked it with a mirror it was fine so i started investigating everything that could be taken apart on my boiler and voila I found these clean outs. I hope the original poster sees this.

 

[leatherguy]

I wrote 6 panels 3 on each side on my 4 section boiler. but if you have a larger 5 section boiler you will have 8 panels.

 

[nhdblfan]

Hi,
and thank you all for the replies.Leather guy you where right,she took the op off and then undid the wing nuts and found those tubes clogged with creosote.There was a long "poker" type thing that hung by the stove that seemed to be made for the cleaning of them. I have not been over there since but tells me its working fine now and she is almost to warm in the house its working so well.

many thanks