One of the posters on another unrelated forum I frequent, picked up an HS Tarm for free. I told him if he didn't want it to let me know and I'd drive to his place and take it off his hands. He's in New York and I'm in Michigan but no big deal. I consider a Tarm to be the Cadillac of gasification boilers. It has a pin hole in it, in the back wall. Not a big deal either. Some careful MIG or TIG welding will fix that issue. Just the ticket for my shop.
Just be aware that you'll need storage with that machine...indoor gassers don't have built in storage like the outdoor models do, and they run very poorly without
A pin hole is just a indicator of a bigger issue. Welding thin corroded metal from one side Is seldom more than a roll of the dice.
The owner will be along shortly. Not mine. He's awaiting for moderator approval and I told him I initiated a thread about his Tarm. Hope he po0sts pictures of it. The previous owner really let it go to hell inside. I'd like to have one but the asking price on a new one is a bit beyond my financial means.
At least you are out in the country so when it springs it's 40th leak you can blow the chit out of it. Sorry for the lack of enthusiasm but I've been into far to many chemically neglected heat exchangers to ever think about trying to bandaid one again.
I had a Tarm in the house; it was a multi fuel wood, coal and oil. It worked ok but the amount of space those different fuels use per BTU took up in fire box, made it inefficient.
If they could burn waste oil that would be a plus. Shame it was neglected they look pretty well engineered.
My old one would have with right nozzle.. But 6 cubic foot (sized for wood) firebox is a lot of space to heat to transfer over to water.. Probably last person to use coal and wood in an approved inside boiler.
Lets see if this works, took it outside and rinsed it out with a hose, got enough out for now to work on it without getting covered in ash, will pressure wash things later. Inside the firebox: More to the front of the firebox: Down below: Where I washed out out: MUCH better than how it started: I THINK the pinhole was somewhere in this yellow circle: I now have a box fan sitting on the top "cleanout" opening pushing air through to push the "loose water" out. Before I go to bed, I will put the heater in the bottom and hopefully finally start to dry everything out. Once it dries back out, I will get the air hammer with the chisel blade back out to finish removing the large chunks of creosote and the needle scaler to clean up the walls. Once I can see the walls better, I will plug the openings in the boiler back up and pressurize it so I can mark the leak point(s?) and decide where to go from there. Aaron Z
Grampa installed a Tarm in our house when I was a kid (mid 70’s). Wood/coal style, connected to the oil boiler for one set of circulation pumps and DHW. No heat storage, not dry wood, dripped nasty black creosote. Years later, the Lyme dealer told me some people use those older units outside with a shed roof over them, coupled to storage. Dad’s is still there in the basement.
Air is still free, at least for now. I'm sure at some point someone will figure out how to charge for that as well.
Had a conversation with my neighbor (who has run/maintained steam boilers for years at work) and he suggested when I'm ready to fully dry it out and/or to finish curing refractory cement to stick a salamander heater in the opening where you would load wood and let that run for an hour or so, let it cool off and repeat. That should get it up to a couple hundred degrees, let me get the first couple of stages of curing the refractory cement taken care of in a controllable fashion (without having to fill it with water and try and run it slowly without having it hooked up to the house). That should also let me finish drying out whatever water has been absorbed into the fire bricks in a controlled fashion. Aaron Z
Got the back wall cleaned off tonight: Surface rust, but it doesn't look bad. No significant pitting or erosion that I could find. Started cleaning off the door (so it doesn't put creosote on my arm all the time) and it is the rusty mess that I was expecting the back wall to be: Going to have to replace the insulation and the round vent adjuster as it is rusted through. Snapped off my first bolt (lower left on the door), will weld a nut to it and see if it comes out. If not, I will center punch, drill and try not to snap off an extractor in it. Aaron Z
I agree, will hit it with the angle grinder and a wire wheel to finish cleaning it up and see what the soapy water says. Might go so far as to paint the rusty parts with high temp paint once it's done. Aaron Z
Pressure tested it today, found 4 leaks in the back wall. Top right is the one that was leaking when I saw it, the others are pinholes: I am going to bet that the gasification part did NOT work properly after they replaced the firebricks, the nozzle brick was installed backwards so they had no flow through the nozzles. This end was towards the door: Instead of this one (they're supposed to be one unit, but it broke in the middle and now there's two halves): The backside of one of the nozzle bricks: The outer bricks look ok: Some closer pictures of the back wall after taking a wire wheel to the leak points: Aaron Z