However, I've noticed over the past few weeks that the boiler has struggled to get up to temperature when starting from cold on days when it's been cold and frosty, of which we've had too many still. This wasn't an issue when we saw the worst of the winter weather so it seems there has been a drop off in efficiency in the boiler. The only likely reason for this, or so I've assumed, is due to 'fouling' in the boiler - a build up of ash and soot which reduces the heat transfer efficiency from the firebox into the hot water. So I decided it was important to revisit the cleaning and get out the soot brush.
When the boiler was delivered the plumber was very quick to give me the brush for the boiler. It's a square wire brush on a 3 foot handle. Re reading the detail of the manual it refers to a short and long brush - weird, we only have one brush.....
Turns out that two brushes are needed to clean the boiler soot tubes - a short one for the square tubes and a long one, almost 5 foot long, for the round tubes. 6 months after taking delivery of the boiler, and with no idea where the original long brush went (if we ever received it), I decided it was easier to buy a new one direct from Nuway which was delivered this week. So this weekend I was able to remove a significant amount of soot from both the square and round tubes using the two brushes. The long brush almost got stuck a couple of times which was slightly unnerving. With the arrival of much milder weather (At last!) it may be that the boiler is finally going to be in far less demand and it'll be difficult to see how much the efficiency improves after using the brushes. Even if this is the case, I'm sure brushing out the soot will have helped heat transfer within the boiler and made it more efficient as a result.
All of this is another illustration of the additional time and effort it takes to heat with biomass - so it's not something to take on lightly.
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