READ THIS WHOLE REPLY IMMEDIATELY!!! So, you need to check those horizontal tubes where the smoke passes through before it goes out the chimney. I don’t know your specific design, I have never worked on a Woodmaster. But I have repaired and built many boilers. Any horizontal surface smoke has to pass through. Will build up with creosote Faster than a vertical pipe. It builds up a little at a time and stacks. Also, and most importantly, you need to take the tin off the front of the boiler, like today! That creosote that has oozed from around the bypass lever has probably saturated the insulation surrounding it. There is a very good chance it will catch fire. I have seen wood boilers Catch fire under the tin because they have had creosote leaking onto the insulation underneath! The fire inside the stove has followed the path of the creosote and ignited the creosote soaked insulation! Mine caught fire years ago because the creosote Ran down the chimney and got under the roof where the chimney goes through it. Just the heat of the stack ignited the creosote. It was not fun, trying to unscrew the tin off the roof while the insulation was an inferno underneath! I also didn’t have water at the boiler other than what was inside of the boiler, to put the fire out. And to make matters worse, it was in the fall and I had no snow on the ground. Do yourself a favor and pull that tin off ASAP to check it out where that creosote was oozing out in the front!

Seriously? 11 YEARS and you've clearly not done a speck of maintenance on it? 11 Years and you're only now noticing the tar dripping out of every crack? I'm only thankful it didn't burn down your house or building. The type of wood you burn matters. Some put out more tars, some put out less. I strongly advise against burning any Cedar in anything other than an open fire pit.

Wet wood. Fire temp to low. Exhaust temp to low. Nasty stuff. Any time I see these boilers on videos. You can see the build up in the fire box. No wonder it’s plugged up. Need 500 F exhaust temp to keep the flue hot all the way to the top of the flue outside to stop condensation. Just my thoughts.

Eye opener and educational…surprising the amount of buildup with your seasoned wood…a good reminder we all need to do yearly preventative maintenance…Thanks 👏🏻🇺🇸👍🏻

This is the main reason I finally did away with my boiler. But my chimney caught fire and thought it was gonna burn my garage down. The only way to clean that up is a super hot fire and scrape everything out.

I don't have any suggestions other than the other comments. Just glad you found the culprit and took care of the matter before anything major happened.

Fun fact: automotive engines do the same thing. I can tell when i take one apart if it was driven in a city or seen a lot of highway use. The cleanest and easiest to clean are out of race cars.😉👍

In my sixty years of burning wood and 20 years on the fire depth. I have never seen a chimney that bad. The good thing is now you if you see that build up you will know what is going on. I think you should be up checking that chimney every month. I've seen people standing there watching their house burn down, helpless feeling.

Dan both boilers I’ve owned the manuals recommended keeping water temp range between 185 and 170 to reduce creosote buildup. You might try that and see if it improves that. That said with the warm weather this winter I had creosote issues as well, just not as bad as you did.

Good find. Glad it wasn’t worse. I hope that you can figure out the cause

Holy smokes! Glad that you caught that before something bad happened.

Looks like you need to do a deep clean of all the creosote throughout the boiler. Stay safe.

hi there so you have a constipated boiler .i take 2 -5 gallon buckets out of my boiler each season , you boiler is like a engine ,it likes running most efficient at higher speed or under load ,with the warmer temp. your running it with the chock on . the top in where the hot wet gasses meats the cold , glad you are back to normal. that may be the wrong word for you , good show , best to all ,john

This year has been rough with the warm temps. I had the same problem.

You had a lot of tar creosote, and then you had a chimney fire. The tarry stuff when burned puffs up into the black glass like crusty stuff that was at the top. So there was like a one inch layer or tarry creosote in the chimney pipe, then you had a hot fire and the creosote burned and expanded in the pipe. Take some of the tarry gooey stuff and burn it with a torch. It will turn into the crusty stuff.

Thanks Dan. Heading out to check my chimney now

That’s crazy you even properly season your wood! I had to clean my chimney for the same reasons also this year very unusual.👍👍

A word of caution don't burn large amount of plywood. I clogged up my woodstove's chimney one year. The stove worked fine for years, until one day the stove would just smoke out of every little hole like air was being blown into the stove. I checked the pipe and it was completely clogged minus a small 1/4" hole where I could see light. I had burned plywood scraps for a few months prior and all those resins were sticking to everything. It was easily cleaned and since then I have moved to a pellet stove.

I believe you are correct with the warmer temperatures I have heard a few other people have the same thing happen but once they got it cleaned out they were able to burn it all out with a really big fire and it helped

Put a chimney sweeping log in there beginning middle and end of season, it’s a csl log, so after you clean all that creosote out use the csl log to maintain it and you’ll never have this problem regardless of the wood you burn but pine is a major producer of creosote that’s why you hear people only burning hardwood, but if you use the chimney sweeping log it drys out that creosote and it’s able to flake off and not accumulate as it did but after all that build up your probably going to have to do an initial thorough cleaning then use the chimney sweeping log to maintain and you’ll never have this problem All The Best Fabrizio

Hi, LA I didn't call boiler. And when I purchased mine, they told me to run it at 185 I never Torun it under 180. Just this suggestion, that's what the manufacturer told me. He's been doing it record a while.

I have found when my boiler does that it is because its not burning efficiently or my wood isn’t as dry, cured as much as it should be. A hot fire will help clean that out. Have a great day!

Wow! That's some crazy buildup! I've been cleaning my chimney on my indoor wood burner on a monthly basis during the heating season. Usually the spark arrestor shows buildup before it gets too awful. My brother has had two chimney fires so I really stay on top of it! 😊

Be sure the door is 100% sealing because if the firebox gets any air between firing, the OWB just becomes a creosote generator if allowed to smoulder.

Warm winter, burning too cold. Taking a wild guess you're burning fir.

That's the stuff that causes chimney fires with a regular wood stove. Just be careful and stay safe. Bill

That creosote is a crisis! That is a major problem with your outdoor wood boiler.

You are so lucky all that creosote caught fire and burned. My chimney pipe is like yours and when I installed they suggested to clean at shutdow , with a chimney brush. n

I have swept chimneys and cleaned and worked on furnaces and boilers, Both wood fired and Oil fired. With wood fired boilers and furnaces you need to clean them more often. Oil fired units create soot while wood fired units create creosote. The creosote is caused by moisture in the exhaust gases/smoke that binds with the soot causing it to coat/cover all the surfaces and build up reducing the exhaust flow. It can be worse when burning soft woods with sap as the sap boils off creating more moisture in the form of steam, That is why they say never burn soft woods in fireplaces and woodstoves. The boiler needs a good cleaning and maybe replacement with how thick it is. With the creosote seeping out through the seams you need to replace the insulation . Clean it once a year with brushes to keep the flow of exhaust clear.

That boiler has turned into being a serious safety hazard instead of being a go to for heating efficiently. Last spring it was clogged up bad with creosote in one of your videos.

I have a 5ft section of pipe on top of my outside boiler that I replace each year. It gets a build up of pitch and creosote. I also have a removable panel at the bottom of the stack on the boiler for checking and cleaning. I do a little maintenance all through out the heating season.

do you sweep your flue? in the UK it's recommended to sweep our chimneys at least once a year (more if burning regularly) over time the flue can clog and slow down the flow - the last part to see this is are the entry and exit points. Might be worth getting a proper chimney brush in there.

What kinda wood are you burning? I have never seen anything like that but i only burn wood for a little bit every evening just to get the lump coal burning then i switch to coal the rest of the time it's burning

Dan good 👍 thing you checked ✅ the problem with the wood boiler because it might have started a massive fire 🔥 in the long run thank goodness it didn’t happen 😮😊❤

If timber is dried properly there shouldn’t be such a build up of creasote in any appliance.

Good you caught it, a couple days and it would have been a chimney fire! Systems where additional water storage is heated probably don't have this problem, since they basically burn at full blast when they are on

WOW. Thanks for the video!

I had more creosote this year than normal too here in WI. I check the chimney 1st of every month to avoid issues. Saves a lot of work.

Brother in law was getting creosote problems too. Was keeping temps down and burning more wood than required at a lesser temp. He started only using the boiler on weekends and run it hot. I suggested burning lower btu wood in milder temps. This helped a lot.

My buddy did this years ago to his central boiler . He had burned poplar trees he cut down that spring. Burn dry hard wood an use a product called ash troll from central boiler. It works

I had the exact same thing happen to me mid winter but the moisture content in my wood leaves a bit to desired. This season has been kinda crazy so I clean mine every sunday night.

I'm not convinced it's a wet wood problem. Check your blower to see if it's putting out enough cfms. Check the door seal as well. Both will effect total burn. Maybe check the temperature regulator to make sure it's accurately kicking on and off. Since this is the 1st time this has occurred, something has changed. Weather definitely will effect how your boiler will cycle. Definitely need more heat to clean out the creosote. Good catch before it was to late 👍

That is am IMPRESSIVE amount of creosote! What type of wood are you normally burning your own heat? That amount of creosote I wouldn't think could build up in that short amount of time especially in the fire box

Hey dan thing i do is i throw aluminum pop cans in my stove every once in awhile. What that does is put aluminum oxidation in the stove and the creosote build up will be kept down due to it not able to not stick to steel also i burn a hotter fire to burn off the crud inside.

Stay safe and be warm

We have had the same open the doors in the house will help with the differents temperatures. We had a spar arrestor on our flue an it plugged up.

The very top of chimney has a little temp drop. Creosote starts to built. Only way to get clean would be to burn hot. Might have to remove pipe and burn it out on ground. Then brush clean.

First of all if it gets hot enough, it will burn the tar, so if your not worried about burning anything important down go for it, Wet/damp wood, cold burn/not enough air at all time, leaking heater core is letting water or steam mixing with the smoke forming tar

This should be cleaned every down season. What did you think? That it would clean itself?

QQQ Hi Dan did you use Any of your Dry Pine Logs in your Broiler And Could that be the Cause of All that Build Up of Creosote

Wow, that’s got to hold the record for most creosotes without having a chimney fire. I have heard that a lot of people have way more issues this year. I can’t believe your wood is dry. Do you open up some of those big chunks and check the moisture ? Many factors here that could be causing the problem. Good luck Dan. Hope everything gets back to normal.

What is the temperature cycle time, I run mine at 180°, 15 degree cycles

After you've removed as much as you physically can, Anti-creo-soot is commercislly available spray you can apply to glazed creosote which will convert it to the ashy creosote, which can be removed with a wire brush. I've thought about making my own creosote spray as if you look up the msds it's basically just vinegar+magnesium salt (lookup the msds/sds) and a binder (coconut oil). Likely going to have one of my chimneys rebult next year when I replace the roof anyways, so might try my own juice and see how it goes. Lol.

I have found that mine gets buildup on top like that when we get snow

I can see a major cleaning this summer, chimney swept clean. Burn hotter fires. Dry wood. Good luck .

Insulate your chimney above the roof.. What happens is that when it's cold outside, the exhaust gas cools in the chimney and creosote forms on the inside, and when it gets tighter, the pressure in the furnace increases. That's where the problems start..

With such a mild winter, the fire is not burning very hot causing creosote build up. It would be better to build much smaller fires so the fire burns hot enough to get to your water set point, minimizing creosote.

Dan, I would or wood? recommend TSP or trisodium phosphate. Bet you have seen it in the plastic container labelled as creosote remover. If added to coals, creates a catalytic reaction drying out and turning creosote into flakey material and reduces that sticky, nasty tar. Results in easier removal. Fairly inexpensive.

Hopefully it will burn its self clean. I wonder if one of the chimney sweeping logs work? Did that tar/creosote get into your fan motor? How free spinning was your fan? May want to have one on the shelf. Great content

need more airflow for it to not gum up like that. good job on cleaning it off though back40 :)

I LIVE IN NORTHWEST WISCONSIN (DOUGLAS COUNTY) AND HAD THE SAME WARM WINTER WITH THE SAME PROBLEM WITH MY PORTAGE AND MAIN OWB. DUE TO LONGER PERIODS OF THE UNIT NOT FIRING, WHEN IT DID START UP THE BURN CYCLE IT HAD TO START FROM ALMOST NO FIRE LEFT. THIS WOULD RESULT IN ONG PERIODS OF LOW FIREBOX TEMPS CAUSING THE JUICIER ASH. AT THE TOP OF YOUR CHIMNEY IT MET COLDER AIR AND FORMED THE RIM OF CREOSOTE. THIS IS JUST MY OPINION AFTER USING AN OWB FOR 25 YRS.

You need to run your boiler at 185 or higher to stop it from building up on you

You’re doing the same thing my dad does, running your fires too slow. Don’t worry about conservation of wood. Run it so that stuff burns up and goes out the chimney. But 11years of use your doing pretty good. Dad dampens to much and his gets like yours about every 2 years. Then I get the pleasure of scraping and cleaning and brushing and clearing. If you can’t hear air roaring into the intake it’s running too slow.

It plugs up at the top because the smoke instantly condenses when it hits the cold air. A better rain cap may help and can be removed and cleaned on the ground.

Cold exhaust temperatures allow the creosote to stick to the pipes , keeping exhaust temperatures around 450 degrees will help decrease the build up , burning wet wood is another issue to.

Maybe the Owners manual could give you some ideas on how it should be operated !!😊

Bro what are you feeding it, or when did you last clean it?

It’s a wood stove basically and you need to at least clean the chimney with pole and brush to bare metal once a year every year, you have all the makings for a chimney fire and as the individual pointed out creosote soaked boiler insulation perhaps. Chimneys need to be cleaned at least yearly especially if your burning lumber and pine. You also need a hood top on the chimney while it’s burning to help with draw and creosote depositing. At the least it keeps rain/snow out of your chimney/ boiler.

I've burnt for 2 yrs in my outside boiler and never have more than a few flakes inside my stack. It's practically clean for the whole season. I also turn my aquastat to a 5 degree difference so the burner kicks on more during warmer temps

The problem with these wood boilers is that you put in too much wood and it burns upwards and too little air gets in during combustion and then the result is amounts of tar in the upper part of the wood boiler and the whole chimney :O Better would be a wood boiler where the same amount of wood is burned down through ceramic plates with holes so the fire travels down and on through the boiler's several passages and up the chimney! Then you get secondary combustion on the exhaust gases on the lower part and very good combustion with clean ash and almost no tar at all in the chimney. That's how my combustion works here at home and never any complaints and only small amounts of gray ash at the bottom :)

Sounds like you need to check the blower every fall as well as the stack. Should likely clean up the inside top as it's likely quite coated and needs it.

Anyone had experience with those creosote drying logs? I've seen them advertised, but don't know if they work. Maybe they'd help some in this situation?

Isn’t this a problem with maintenance not a problem with manufacturing? I guess I don’t get the premise of this video.

Typical of a boiler without combustion fan!

Shift, has the boiler been maintaining water level or have you been adding?

I used to have that same problem with my log burner. I turned the fan off and burn it like an open fire. Now I never have to clean the chimney just a handful of dirt each year. There's a video of it on my youtube

Were you not doing any maintenance to it?

You may need to change your wood supplier. Lol. I have had that same problem.

You’re pretty lucky you caught it. Thst stuff burns like crazy for a long long time.

Wow! Your first indication sighs have been the creosote accumulation inside the fire box. Whatever you are seeing inside the firebox is going to be repeated inside the flue and intakes, as well as other airflow passages that combustion gases go through.

Creosote is formed when the wood is a higher moisture content than desirable. Dry wood burns easier. The chimney needs to be cleaned out on a regular basis. The normal in a chimney is a soft flour like soot. , cleans easy, with a brush and vacuum. (Buy a dedicated shop vacuum, messy. Chimney brush, sized for your chimney with rod extensions suitable for the height of the chimney.) Clean regularly. What you are looking at inside your chimney are the remains of a chimney fire. Chimney fire. You are lucky all the good construction and good materials kept the fire in the chimney. DISMANTLE the sections and check for damage (too much heat), clean with a wooden stick to break up the cinder, clinker, and then use the brush to finish the clean, inspect,, reinstall or buy new. Clean regularly. Lucky you kept the building.

Heat it up super hot a couple times per season to keep it clean. Probably need to add a bigger blower to do that, I use a leaf blower

I mean, you burn fairly seasoned wood, right? I know a few boiler burners don't care and they'll throw fresh cut stuff directly from the woods into their boiler box. But I think your assessment of a mild winter was the culprit. Nice save and something other boiler burners should look out for. Keep cuttin' Dan!

Since i have an energy efficient home my boiler idles a lot. Fortunately my boilers design allows easy access for weekly cleaning of the chimney system and yes it needs it.

That chimney reminds me of a picture of a fleshlight that my friend used throughout a 6 month deployment in Iraq back in 2005.

YEARLY MAINTENANCE IS REQUIRED!!!

Invest in a sooteater mate,it’s a really good chimney sweep,just goes on a cordless drill

Call the company that made your unit and explain your problem. As homeowners are supposed to have their chimneys cleaned you need to do that to your unit as well as service it by cleaning all the creosote off on the inside and out.

The blower is what caused the problem. When you know it’s going to be warmer put less wood into it. Increases cycle times

Did you burn any sappy wood?

How did you not notice anything sooner?

Is this pine wood resin?

Have you been burning pine?

Hi Dan!😀😀 I used to have that problem years ago when I burnt lots of wet wood. Mine would choke down to a small hole quite often. But you are burning seasoned wood so I'm wondering if you maybe have a small water leak inside your firebox that is allowing extra moisture in and creating extra creosote. Hopefully not and that it's only been the warm weather. Take care my friend!!😀😀 Logger Al

Only time i have issues with creosote build up is when i burn pine or spruce. Keep temps above 175 and burn hsrdwoods

Hello Dan, What Rod said😂 good Podcast🤘🏻🪵🇺🇸

Been running my Windhager logwin 25 log gasification biomass boiler for 10 years- all hot water and heating as no gas since installation. No creosote or build up. Huge variables of wood species burnt with Flue Clear additive added to each burn. Wood all fully seasoned and almost too dry at times I was told by Windhager! All about that fuel management. 👍….I batch burn and heat 3000ltr of water per day in the winter time which is held in the two 1500ltr accumulator tanks.

Man that was a major jam, I'd definitely blame it on yhe warmer Temps, and it not calling for heat as often... heat your pool year round😂😂, it will definitely call for heat then!!!!

hope you have metal roofs on any buildings within 100+ ft if that creosote catches fire. My guess is you have an inch of that gumbo on the bottom of the fire box too. Have yet to find a spark arrestor that stops flaming liquid creosote

How old is the wood that you are using ?