Heating Oil Soot Removal

[sako243]

Does anybody have any recommendations for chemicals / cleaning products that can be used to remove sooty build up from heating oil?

The main use would be in servicing / cleaning our oil fired Aga. Usually I just drill out the oil pathways etc., and that does the job but this time around I've had a fair bit of build up in the oil-ways on the burner unit. Doing a bit of research a solution of trisodium phosphate is possibly the badger to use but I thought I'd double check before giving it a go.

This is the typical problem, usually fixed with elbow grease and a combination of various special scrapers I've made for it.

The centre is particularly bad because a plumber had cemented it down in the past and I've only just managed to break the seal free and thus found our current issue.. What would be ideal is if I could dunk the whole thing into a bath of solvent or something similar to loosen everything then I can just wash it down and be done with it. Usually it's just a load of elbow grease and scraping.

 

[Agroshield]

Now, if you had something like an Aga, you could leave it in there and it would burn off with the heat...

Would the carbon be in the same form as that inside an engine? Whatever is the goto solution for decoking these days could be worth a test run. Would it be anything like the DPF in an engine? If so, there are people who drive around doing DPF cleaning. Perhaps an ultrasonic with hot TSP might shift it.

More for academic interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piranha_solution

 

[julianf]

Blow torch, but it will take a while

 

[Dozzer]

have used Lucas EGR cleaner for AGA burners before https://lucasoil.co.uk/product/diesel-egr-turbo-cleaner/, currently find with the low Sulphur oil, even with Topanol or other additives, that the carbon deposits are a PITA to remove in the main burner body and the tubing.

 

[Kram]

Caustic solutions are likely best. 15% is common for kitchen cleaning. We used stronger stuff when I was in a chain kitchen (unknowingly, unlabled and without proper PPE, in a bloody aerosol spray bottle).

 

[More Amps]

Caustic soda might be worth a try- assuming there's no aluminium parts in there. cheapest way to buy it is to buy it neat in a crystal form rather than an expensive aerosol. Pour slowly into a plastic bucket of warm/hot water while stirring and beware of any splashes - it doesn't burn immediately but when it does...you know about it.

 

[dyno-tron]

Don’t know about heating oil, but when cleaning the inside of kart exhausts (specifically - high concentration castor 2 stroke oil) we would use strong caustic soda solution, blow torch for about 15 mins up the exhaust inlet to ignite and burn, or put them in a bonfire. All methods followed up by throwing a mug full of sharp gravel in and a good shake

 

[sako243]

Elbow grease and scraping is probably the easiest way. One of the passages was coked up but managed to free up most of it with a special tool (bent screwdriver). It's areas like that (the little ways between the rings) that are difficult to get to.

A damn sight cleaner than it was. Currently soaking now in oil ready for lighting.

Its neolithic (completely gravity fed and regulated) which is wonderful in power cuts as it keeps us with cooking, some heating and hot water in a 9 bedroom house . To be fair the boiler despite being the size of the kitchen table only pulls a couple of amps for the fan and water pump and due to being a care home in a previous life it's got emergency lighting so we're not doing too badly.

 

[julianf]

I buy caustic by the 25kg sack.

It may work, but i would doubt it.

Its good with ovens and kitchens because the oils are triglycerides, which the caustic sapponifies, but mineral oils are different. And what is in the photo is mostly carbon anyway.

As i say, a MAPP torch pointed at it for a while will do it.

 

[gaz1]

Its neolithic (completely gravity fed and regulated) which is wonderful in power cuts as it keeps us with cooking, some heating and hot water in a 9 bedroom house . To be fair the boiler despite being the size of the kitchen table only pulls a couple of amps for the fan and water pump and due to being a care home in a previous life it's got emergency lighting so we're not doing too badly.

and what stove do you have then?

 

[sako243]

and what stove do you have then?

Read the first post.

 

[awemawson]

Grit blast it - should move that deposit easily as it's all nicely accessible.

 

[Kram]

I buy caustic by the 25kg sack.

It may work, but i would doubt it.

Its good with ovens and kitchens because the oils are triglycerides, which the caustic sapponifies, but mineral oils are different. And what is in the photo is mostly carbon anyway.

As i say, a MAPP torch pointed at it for a while will do it.

It worked well on pure, burnt carbon.
Strong hot solution, let it soak for hours, would be my approach.

 

[m_c]

For future, my dad gets some kind of additive added with the heating oil which cleans up the burn of the oil boiler, but I think it's more aimed for things like Agas, as the delivery driver often asks why they're getting it when there's no Aga.
I think it was the heating engineer who suggested it, and it cleaned the exhaust from the boiler, as they used to get issues with the side of the house getting sooted up, and never had to clean the house since.

 

[Gareth J]

Always just decoked manually as you have been doing at the first hint of imperfect running and it's never that bad. Make sure it's set up spot on. Those little 7" aga burners run nicely in my experience.

I imagine that oxyfuel run lean would east through the carbon quite effectively.

 

[addjunkie]

Not sure itll work, but Ive cleaned a few things with this stuff.

HG Oven, Grill & Barbecue BBQ Cleaner 500mlDefault Title

Product Description:HG Oven, Grill & Barbecue BBQ Cleaner is a powerful cleaning solution designed to tackle the toughest grease and grime stains found on ovens, grills, and barbecues. This effective formula effortlessly removes dried and baked-on grease, restoring surfaces to their original...

supamart.co.uk

 

[gaz1]

Read the first post.

an aga its with you saying this

Its neolithic (completely gravity fed and regulated) which is wonderful in power cuts as it keeps us with cooking, some heating and hot water in a 9 bedroom house

 

[sako243]

an aga its with you saying this

I actually stated it in the first post too so you didn't have to guess

The main use would be in servicing / cleaning our oil fired Aga.

I'm not complaining over it nor the boiler. The boiler went out of production in the late 80s we think (Ideal Buccaneer - no letters after it, just that) and is still going strong. Most parts are generic service items for commercial boilers so can be bought over the counter from a decent plumbers merchants. The only thing that failed after a jet nozzle burnt out was a blast tube inside but that was a simple case of rolling a sheet of steel and welding on the little fins to locate it in the blast chamber.

I seriously seriously doubt any modern boiler would ever recover it's installation cost. The grand total of what's been spent on that boiler is £60 in the last 6 years I think which covers two control boxes and a new injector nozzle. Prior to that the previous owners of the house had done almost nothing to it for 20 years.

 

[julianf]

On the lounge floor here. I mean, where else would you keep it?