After making the purchase of your outdoor wood boiler, you know what kind of investment you made. Typically, a Crown Royal Stove will last 25 to 30 years as long as it is properly taken care of. Your outdoor wood boiler will generally pay for itself in 3 to 5 years, and will provide you with 25 years of cheap heat. To get the full life out of your wood boiler, there are a few things you should know and do.
- Burn good, clean, dry wood.
- Rotate your ash when burning. You should always have coals in your stove but get as much fine fly ash out as possible. Fly ash has no BTU value and acts as an insulator.
- Keep a stainless steel rain cap on your outdoor wood boiler. A rain cap keeps all the rain and snow from getting into your stove through your chimney. Moisture can mix with your ash and turn corrosive.
- Add only the amount of wood needed to get your desired burn time. If you overfill your outdoor wood boiler, it will smolder for long periods of time and that will cause creosote, which is corrosive.
- When shutting down in the spring, clean all the ash out of the firebox, ash pan areas, secondary combustion areas, and heat exchanger areas. Scrape all areas with a garden hoe to remove all ash or creosote from the walls. Take a pump up sprayer and spray the walls with a diesel fuel. This will work its way behind the leftover creosote on the walls and protect the steel.
- Take a water sample and mail it to the testing facility. This is the most important part of the maintenance of your outdoor wood boiler. Your outdoor wood boiler water can turn corrosive in a short time if not properly treated. Water treatment can be purchased at your local dealer. Sample bottles and testing procedures are free of charge.