Furnace Shut Down - Spring Cleaning

[oneoldbanjo]

Our weather is starting to get into the 50's in the daytime and very often doesn't drop below freezing at night. I notice my furnace is using very little wood and is starting to get some pretty heavy creosote coatings built up as it is running very little and is smoldering most of the time. I think it will be time to shut the furnace down in a week or two.

This is my first year using my OWB and I have never shut it down before. I planned on letting the fire go out and let everything cool off - then make one or two small hot fires with really small dry wood to help burn everything out. Then I can scrape the loose stuff off the inside, clean out the ashes, scrub the exterior and spray everything with a light coat of oil inside and put the chimney cap on.

Anyone have any suggestions on a better method?

 

[stipton]

Wish I could do that this soon, I have at least 2-3 weeks minimum left.....grrrr

Sounds like you have the right plan. Scrape and oil the inside, I like to shop vac too, gets all the little corners. Do not forget about a properly measured treatment of the 'purple stuff' aka rust inhibitor for the summer season. I like a good exterior power wash too, so the stainless shines in the sun......

 

[Husky137]

Shut it down?... mine runs year round heating my hot water.

I would do all of those things except why not get the fire really hot before letting the stove cool off?

 

[mga]

Our weather is starting to get into the 50's in the daytime and very often doesn't drop below freezing at night.

man...count your blessings. supposed to get at least another 5" over nite with additional sunday. argh!! winter gets boring right about now.

 

[oneoldbanjo]

Well we got about 10" of snow on Friday/Saturday and temps down around 10 degrees - however on Sunday it got up near 40 and half of the snow is gone. It will be in the 50's by midweek and a huge snow melt may cause some flooding in the Ohio River Valley.

I plan on building a hot fire just before I shut it down - but the only way I can do that is to shut the furnace blower off and let the water temp get really low before I build a re-start the blower. My house and garage are very well insulated and the demand on the furnace when it is warm out is very low and the furnace only takes about 10 minutes to reach 170 degrees. I will split up some dry wood into very thin pieces and build a hot fire that will hopefully run out wood just about the time that the water is up to temp.

 

[hanko]

Shut it down?... mine runs year round heating my hot water.

I would do all of those things except why not get the fire really hot before letting the stove cool off?

sorry to have to ask, but isnt that some of what all the uproar is all about with the OWB's? burning in the summer. I, reading all these post about banning boilers and that sems to be one of the problems with the people that want to shut them doem

 

[Husky137]

I would agree that is probably a contributing factor. Having said that though, the people that cause a nuisance in the summer are probably causing a nuisance year round. I had mine for over a year before my upwind neighbors knew about it and that was only becasue they were in my backyard for a neighborhood cookout. When I explained to them what it was they thought it was pretty cool. I told them to let me know if there was ever a problem and no one has ever complained. There is a right way and a wrong way to run these things.