Best for cleaning diesel soot

[unbusted67]

I've got a Dickinson diesel heater that I love but it's ruining my boat! I'm getting a lot of diesel soot all over the decks the stuff is horrible the minute you touch it it smears and I have yet to find anything that cleans it up easily without smearing it all over the place first. What do people use?


Sent from my iPhone using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[DickinsonMarine]

Please e-mail us to help you troubleshoot the sooting problem Diesel heaters that operate correctly do not create any soot.

info@dickinsonmarine.com

Sorry, I do not have any reccommendations for cleaning

[zeehag]

ammonia does as well as anything for soot. god luck . i still have sooty paint from 2010 and a trawler lamp with bad burner...
i suggest clean with ammonia a few times then sand and repaint. have fun.

[Captain Bob]

It may be a faulty jet causing the fuel to not burn completely. If you don't know what you are doing, this is not the place to learn.

[JPA Cate]

We have a FabAll diesel heater, never a soot problem. Perhaps contacting the Dickinson folks, per their suggestion, makes sense.

Zee's right again, household ammonia is about the best for soot, it's not perfect, but about the best you can do.

A.

[GordMay]

De-Solv-it Mechanics’ Solvent
➥ De-Solv-it Mechanics Solvent

[IdoraKeeper]

Originally Posted by GordMay

De-Solv-it Mechanics’ Solvent
➥ De-Solv-it Mechanics Solvent

What Gord said. Follow that with a scrub with oxyclean laundry detergent in solution to remove oily residue.

[Hud3]

They use Dawn dish washing detergent to clean crude oil off of birds that have be caught in an oil spill. I'll be it would work on diesel soot pretty well.

[wrwakefield]

Originally Posted by unbusted67

I've got a Dickinson diesel heater that I love but it's ruining my boat! I'm getting a lot of diesel soot all over the decks the stuff is horrible the minute you touch it it smears and I have yet to find anything that cleans it up easily without smearing it all over the place first. What do people use?


Sent from my iPhone using Cruisers Sailing Forum

'Krud Kutter' works well on soot (and most everything else...) I buy it in gallon containers and/or quart spray bottles at the box stores for ~$12/gallon.

It is water based and while it does have an odor, there are no volatile fumes to deal with.

[shipleft]

FIX THE PROBLEM WITH THE HEATER FIRST. Then use varsol(mechanics cleaning fluid) or regular paint thinner(expensively package varsol, but not laquer thinner!) to do the initial, then use a detergent (Dawn is really good) or a caustic based cleaner like Spray and Wash or Fantastic to do your final. If you have a glass boat, it certainly helps if you have regularly waxed your boat, because the oxidized finish of older sun-fried gelcoat absorbs stains to a greater degree, making them more of a cut-polish job to clean up. Re-wax after any major scrubbing down.

[zboss]

We have the same issue. The soot is from two problems... bad mixture of air/diesel and from the little piece of tissue they ask you to burn to get it going. I need to clean the inside of my diesel about every 3 days.

For the soot I use TUF ENUF. Takes the crap right off the deck but be careful it is extremely slippery in use. I follow it with a good application of StarBrite Deck wash with PTFE. The ptfe helps the soot (and everything else) wash off a lot easier next time around.

[jjlyons]

Had the same issue when we moved aboard Starship. Boat got nice and warm, QUICK, turns out our oil metering valve was not working and we had unregulated diesel flow into our heater. Dickinson was great on the phone and replacing this part is really replacing the only part that ever fails on these stoves.

We still have some soot on deck from our day in the sauna but when we get the weather scrubbing with a mild dish soap like Dawn works. Our harbor hasn't had fresh water turned on so its been all we can do to scrub with salt water and wait for the rain.

[PDScott]

I had an exhaust leak and filled the locker with soot. The only thing that really did a good cleaning job easily was Fantastic with bleach. Don't know if you can purchase it were you are but it did work very well and was quite resonable price wise. Good luck and I agree to get the problem fixed first. Peter

[Rex Delay]

We used a Dickenson Diesel heater for years and never had any soot. There is something wrong with yours or in how you use it.

[svPeaceKeeper]

Hehe... Funny story. My FabAll doesnt work quite right either. It got so sooty inside once that it burned out. I opened the door to see what was going on and was greeted by a puddle of fuel and a massive chunk of soot fell on the floor.
I thought hmmm... I'll just suck that up with the shop vac. That was the worst choice ive made in recent memory. The shop vac sucked up all the soot and blew it out of the exhaust, turning it into a cloud. The cloud settled on every single thing inside my boat.

Three rolls of paper towels and a bottle of Simple Green later, the problem was mostly solved. The soot landed on deck around the chimney as well, and I had much better luck with a large box of baking soda, a brush and the hose. The trick with baking soda is not to water it down too much. Just use enough water to make it kinda pasty.

Best of luck, hopefully that mess doesnt happen again!