How to Clean and Service a Tarm Dual Fuel Wood Gasifier / Heating Oil Boiler

Make sure the power is off to your boiler. Cleaning a boiler can be messy. Wear old clothes and a dust mask. Do not use a standard vacuum. It will make a mess. My boiler has been in service for a couple years. I have burned any wood, but I have burned heating oil and waste vegetable oil, wvo, in a modified burner. I thought it might be time to give it a good cleaning.

Most boilers are difficult to clean, but the Tarm was designed to be serviced. It comes with it's own brush for the heat exchanger tubes. The top sheet metal skin needs to be removed. It just lifts up to reveal an access panel. The panel is held on by wing nuts. Remove the nuts and carefully lift up the panel. It will probably be dirty inside and soot could fall off if it's dirty enough. You can now see the top of the heat exchanger. There is a draft diverter that sits over the tubed from the oil burner. It will lift right out and allow you to reach the turbulators in the oil burner tubes. They also lift out.

These pieces can be bagged and carried outside if needed. A wet rag or sponge should do most of the job. A wire brush can be used for any stubborn areas. A poorly adjusted burner a cause a lot of build up in a boiler. You could have hard, baked on carbon or light fluffy soot that brushes right off. A soot vacuum took care of most of top of the heat exchanger. The factory supplied brush cleaned the heat exchanger tubes in two or three passes. The only thing left is the fire box. The oil burner is held in place with two bolts and the access door to the fire box is held on by a bolt at each corner. My waste oil burner ran with clogged nozzle and blacken most of the fire box with soot. An old charcoal grill brush can be used to clean the fire box after you shovel or vacuum out any soot from the tubes. Be careful not to damage the insulation in the fire box by scrubbing to hard. Loose build up should fall off easily and any baked on build up should burn off with a properly tuned burner. Remove and brush out the smoke pipe. Inspect it for signs of rust and make sure the draft damper swings freely. Inspect your chimney and clean it if needed. If you have been burning wood you will need to clean out and inspect the fire box for the wood burner.

If you're lucky, the oil burner and the door gaskets did not rip. If they did, they will need to be replaced for the boiler to operated properly and safely. Replace the clean turbulators and the diverter in the top of the heat exchanger. Set the access panel in place and tighten the wing nuts. I expected to find another gasket on this panel, but Tarm doesn't use one here. Replace the smoke pipe and the top skin of the boiler. Turn on the power and check for proper operation. If your oil burner was making soot have it tuned before running your boiler.

Be sure to view all of the photo attached to this article. You can click on my screen name or visit my blog to see how build a soot vacuum and learn more about heating with waste oil.