Summerizing My Coal Stoker, Looking for Tips?

After running my LL Pocono for the first season, going to shut it down soon and want to go over it correctly in preparation for next season. Basically, going to go over the entire stove, stove pipe, chimney and clean it all out very well of all fly ash. Clean window, empty any leftover coal, lube down as much as I can with wd-40 and finally cover with sheets so to keep any dampness off it during the warm summer months.

I have a cap to close off the outside combustion air feed and chimney entry to basement.

I'm also planning to find some of that self adhering gasket material and apply to mounting surfaces of both blower fans and on underside of stove top plate for noise dampening purposes.

Ash pans - I've already high temp siliconed the weld areas to prevent dirt from falling through, going to high temp paint the entire surface to prevent future rusting. Starting to look terrible.

Anything I'm missing? Anything I should be doing with the stoker mechanisms?

I'm really happy with this stove and once fall comes, just want to uncover it and light it off.

Appreciate your comments! Thanks!

Where can I find LPS-3? Never heard of this before?

Sounds good except that instead of WD-40, I'd use LPS-3. Got that tip last year from Greg I think. That stuff is great. I had used WD-40 previously but had much better results with the LPS-3.

There were some other threads on spring shutdowns & cleaning....

Wash inside with baking soda/water to neutrized the acidity of the fly ash and dry good before sprying with rust inhibitor.

There was a better product to prevent rust (LPS or something?) WD is flamable. It will evaoporate over time.

Some other posts on the cleaning..

Post by beaverman - Shutting Down Stove???

Post by WNY - Maintenace for Coal Stokers

Post by LsFarm - Premature Rusting ?

Post by dsteele - "Rust in Stove"

Great topic, I was thinking of doing one soon as well. I remembered the baking soda wash then the corrosion prevention , I just got my LPS-3 so I'm good to go.

Any product sprayed on the inside that is going to coat the steel will also have to burn off the next time you fire up the stove..
I firmly believe in LPS-3, it is a very good product for coating surfaces with a waxy coating to seal out Oxygen, and thereby reducing or preventing corrosion.

But I want to add a safety caution:

Just be very careful next year when firing up the stove, the LPS-3 coating will burn off, and probably create volitile, burnable fumes.. so you may get some burn-off of the coating. I would start a very small fire for a day or so and inspect the inside of the stove to make sure the LPS has evaporated with the first low-temp burn before turning up the fire.

Another method to prevent corrosion is to keep a low-watt light bulb burning inside the stove, to keep it warm and drive off the summertime humidity. Or, stuffing the stove full of crumpled up newspaper to absorb humidity, and as already mentioned, cap the flue pipe opening, and also the stoker/distribution fan inlets.. all to block the infitration of humidity.

If you were really serious, you could remove the fans, and stoker assemblies, store them in sealed plastic bags with dessicant bags.

Hope this makes sense and helps.. Greg L

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it's still cold here. I'm going to pick up more coal tomorrow

e.alleg wrote:it's still cold here. I'm going to pick up more coal tomorrow

Sorry Ed, it's like 50* today down here near your old stomping grounds. 2 weeks ago I bought 10 bags to get me to the end but it appears I'll not need it all.

LsFarm wrote:Just be very careful next year when firing up the stove, the LPS-3 coating will burn off, and probably create volitile, burnable fumes.. so you may get some burn-off of the coating. I would start a very small fire for a day or so and inspect the inside of the stove to make sure the LPS has evaporated with the first low-temp burn before turning up the fire.

I was wondering about that, so I figure I'll just wipe it down real good with M.E.K or Acetone and then Fire it off real quick .

sauerzbr wrote:After running my LL Pocono for the first season, going to shut it down soon and want to go over it correctly in preparation for next season. Basically, going to go over the entire stove, stove pipe, chimney and clean it all out very well of all fly ash. Clean window, empty any leftover coal, lube down as much as I can with wd-40 and finally cover with sheets so to keep any dampness off it during the warm summer months.

I have a cap to close off the outside combustion air feed and chimney entry to basement.

I'm also planning to find some of that self adhering gasket material and apply to mounting surfaces of both blower fans and on underside of stove top plate for noise dampening purposes.

Ash pans - I've already high temp siliconed the weld areas to prevent dirt from falling through, going to high temp paint the entire surface to prevent future rusting. Starting to look terrible.

Anything I'm missing? Anything I should be doing with the stoker mechanisms?

I'm really happy with this stove and once fall comes, just want to uncover it and light it off.

Appreciate your comments! Thanks!

Where can I find LPS-3? Never heard of this before?

Just remember to burn the stove off after painting it before you fire it up full bore you will fill the house up with a lot of stinky paint smoke wife will be

It's warmer here too but still cool to cold at night. I plan to burn for a few more weeks yet at least. That's the beauty of the coal boiler, it will idle all day and come to life at night when needed without making the house too hot in the day time.

Overnight lows 'round these parts still in the 30's, so I'm going to keep burning for a while longer, so long as the manometer says the chimney is happy. It still amazes me how small of a fire the stoker keeps at idle, but coming down to a brilliant fire and warm kitchen in the morning is swell. Enough coal in the bin for 2 weeks of regular burning plus a dozen bags in reserve, that'll stretch out if the days stay mild.

If you were really serious, you could remove the fans, and stoker assemblies

That's what I do- pull off/take out all the moving parts. Since I need to take them apart anyway for cleaning and shutdown, I'm going to use a big ziploc bag to keep everything together. Wipe the stoker parts down with light oil and seal away, that way I don't run any risk of them rusting or seizing in place over the summer.

You can buy LPS 3 at grainger or MSc industrial products. Grainger also carries 2 CRC products that are great rustinhibitors CRC 350 and CRC 450. The 350 is what I use it leaves a non evaporative oily residue on the metal instead of the waxy one like the LPS 3 and CRC 450.

I plan to brush, scrub and vacuum out the stove to remove all the ash and white powdery residue out of it. Then I am going to seal it up as best I can and place some "damp rid" buckets in the stove. They are basically calcium chloride crystals that pull the water out of the air and end up as brine in the bucket. Just dump them out regularly until the calcium is gone, then replace. they are cheap. This should keep the moisture out of the stove and keep it from corroding too badly.

Also, there are two fantastic products - Boeshield and CorrosionX. These are aircraft corrosion preventers that don't leave a waxy residue and really work. I use them on the snowblower for summer storage, our '46 Cessna 140, and various other things around the house.

A quick search on Boeshield and CorrosionX shows they're a bit pricey....I was pi$$ed at the extra $5.00 for seperate shipping from MSC for my LPS ....$80-90 for the others are prolly not an option for everybody.

Ed.A wrote:A quick search on Boeshield and CorrosionX shows they're a bit pricey....I was *censored* at the extra $5.00 for seperate shipping from MSC for my LPS ....$80-90 for the others are prolly not an option for everybody.

I bought spray cans of CorrosionX for $14 each at Oshkosh this summer at the Airventure Fly-In. I think the spray cans of Boeshield are about the same price, give or take a few $$.

europachris wrote: I bought spray cans of CorrosionX for $14 each at Oshkosh this summer at the Airventure Fly-In. I think the spray cans of Boeshield are about the same price, give or take a few $$.

Ahh, thats not bad then considering what the product does, I did notice that it's highly recomended.