The Great Creosote Excavation: Am I Doing This Wrong?

[M3569]

I've had a HeatMaster G200 for about 7 years now, but have a propane boiler as backup. So I only fire the OWB up during the cold season. Every fall, when the temperature starts dropping, that's my cue to do the annual boiler ritual: clean the chimney, test the water, and mentally prepare for battle.

Without fail, every year I end up with my head stuffed inside the firebox, armed with a hammer and a collection of flathead screwdrivers, chiseling away at creosote like some kind of archaeological dig. Getting the side panels out is also a fight. The whole process takes hours.

By the time I'm done, I've lost a few pounds in sweat and look like I just crawled out of a coal mine. Face covered in ashes. Hair covered in ashes. Shirt covered in ashes. Dignity covered in ashes.

Every year I tell myself, "There's no way other people are still putting up with this. I must be the only bozo spending an entire afternoon role-playing as a chimney sweep." Surely everyone else has figured out a better way by now.

And every year, while scraping away, I think, "I should ask other OWB owners what they're doing..." Then I promptly forget about it until the following fall.

Well, this year I finally remembered.

So how do you guys deal with creosote buildup in your OWB fireboxes? Do you just chisel it out like I do? Is there some magical product that reduces it? Or have the rest of you discovered a secret that could save me from my yearly ash-covered walk of shame?

1st image: Firebox half cleaned out, right panels taken out
2nd image: Firebox cleaned out, panels on both sides taken out
3rd image: Firebox cleaned out completed, scraped panels added back in.

 

[Robert Eyford]

I have a G400 heat master furnace. In 3 months starting last September, I had to clean out the creosote 9 times. It took me and an assistant two days to clean it out each time. I finally noticed the bypass door was not sealing properly, after making sure it was re-assembled correctly according to the diagram I received from Heatmaster. I had the space around the bypass door sealed with gasket glue, but it may have failed. Now, with no response to my request for information from heatmaster, I'm going to weld the bypass door shut. I'm trying to find anyone else who has had the same problem and if they found a fix without welding the bypass door shut.

 

[sloeffle]

If you get the boiler up to temperature and clean it, it's a lot easier to clean. You'l sweat your a$$ but it's much easier. Made the same mistake you did the first year too. I do my cleaning is the early spring after my last fire.

I also put a 1/3 of a CSL log in my bottom chamber during my last burn to loosen all of the creosote on the turbulators, fan area, chimney etc. Give it a few days and it falls off with a putty knife.

 

[salecker]

I have never cleaned the baked on creosote out of my Econoburn which looks similar to what you are cleaning out
I clean my flue tubes of baked on creoste every couple months

 

[salecker]

Here is what the inside if mine looks like when I fire it up
This is typical of every year except where I cleaned around a stay to see if I had any erosion like someone else, plus I have no sweating inside over the summer

 

[brenndatomu]

I don't think the firebox really needs to be cleaned...other than what you need to do to just check the areas that might need cleaned if plugged (air passages, etc) like @sloeffle said, if the 400 has the side panels, pull them off while its still warm, then leave them in the firebox...people that complain about how bad they warp pull them out warm and throw them on the cold ground...not good.
Otherwise just let the water temp come down a bit and have a rippin hot fire for a little bit once in a while...it'll clean itself up.
There's a large HeatMaster group on Facebook (HeatMaster Outdoor Wood Boilers) that is pretty active...you'd get a good response on there with others experiences on this model...plus a few well experienced dealers post there a lot too.