If your house has a chimney connected only to an oil furnace, do you still need to have it cleaned? I hear conflicting stories. All the chimney cleaning places say yes annually. I hear all these antidotal stories of people living in home for decades and never having them cleaned.
It's your life ... listen to the furnace professionals .. .. or listen to Joe-Buddy's cousin at the coffee shop ..
I was in my last house for 40 years and burned 500 to 800 gallons a year. Never had it cleaned. I replaced the oil burner and the guy looked at it and said it was OK.
Do you ever see diesel trucks having the exhaust pipes cleaned?
It is a good idea to have a cap to keep crap out of it though.
1) yes. 2) How many years does a diesel truck exhaust stack last before it is replaced? Less than 40, that's for sure. 3) Diesel truck exhaust stacks are inspected annually. 4) Modern Diesel trucks have emissions controls designed to reduce and collect the soot generated by combustion. DAGS VW SCR Blue Fluid
"And, finally, a diesel particulate filter (DPF), removes the small particulate matter that's left over from the combustion process. It captures the soot and stores it until it can be oxidized, using a process called thermal regeneration. NO2 oxidation is now the leading regeneration mechanism in most DPF systems equipped with a DOC because the soot burning takes place at a lower temperature."
It's a good idea to inspect the lining regularly and arrest or repair any corrosion due to the sulfur in the exhaust mixing with water vapor and producing H2SO4.
Um...no. But my not "seeing" that being done doesn't mean it's not happening.
There's lots of thing going on in the world that I've never seen - or even heard of - that are happening all the time.
IOW: bad analogy.
I bought my house 39 years ago and for several years had the oil company maintain the furnace once a year. The first 2 or 3 years, they put a hole in the flue, put in some sort of meter, and adjusted the air amount to get the right reading.
After that, they skipped the meter and maybe they went by the flame color, or maybe they didn't check it at all. I began to think I could do just as good a job, and one time I actually changed the air mixture. The same year my brother gave me a CO detector. Imagine my surprise when it woke me up.
I opened the window and turned off the furnace and couldn't decide when to close the window. It was cold out.
Then I called the oil company to maintain the furnace. When he disconnected the two parts of the 4 or 5" flue pipe, there was soot 2+ inches thick and only a one inch hole in it for the exhaust.
He vacuumed the flue (using better than average filter for the vacuum. I forget what they call it, but they didn't make them for my little shopvac. I had to buy the next size up.
And I assumed the chimney was a mess too.
The first guy I called to clean the chimney tried to sell me all new stainless steel flue pipes, even though their was nothing wrong with the pipes I had. I can't remember if he made an estimate call or this was part of a cleaning call, but I know I hired someone else to clean the furnace chimney and the fire place chimney and he didn't give me any crap.
Since then, I replace the nozzle, about every two and a half years. That is, when the furnace stops working I'm in the basement, cold, replacing the nozzle. They always seem to last 2 years**, and if I were to hire an oil company, they'd replace it every year. I live in Baltimroe where it's not as cold as farther north and I use t he furnace that much less.
It used to be hard to buy a nozzle because none of the oil companies had stores.... except I found one that did. I'm sure there was mail order but it got easier after Amazon arose.
I keep one or more CO detectors on all winter and none has shown a reading more than zero iirc. Certainly none has buzzed.
I don't mess with the air setting. Why should it change anyhow? I guess that's why the later repairmen didn't bother with a meter.
I do pay a little attetion to the spacing of the electrodes. They don't change in only a year, but I presume after a few years the electrodes will be shorter and t he spacing needs to be redone.
When my n'bors got a new furnace, I asked for the old burner and got it, so I have spare parts. They sell all the parts online, the HV transformer might fail, including on Amazon. The control unit is for sale somewhere, maybe Amazon and locally. That did fail.
IF the furnaceis running properly the stack will be clean. If it burns dirty the stack will be black and tarry - and needs cleaning
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