Lopi Leyden cleaning

how much have you burned thru it? The secret to keeping a downdraft burner is keeping the chamber clean, but overhandling will cause damage... they are not the most durable things when it comes to impact, and gaskets that seal it all together are even less so. For your stove, I would advise cleaning the chamber (with a vac having a brush attachment, or just a soft brush) at the middle of the season, and at the end of the season, unless you are pumping 5+ cord/yr thru it. Keep plenty of WD-40 to soak+ remove the retainer bolts, and coat the bolts on the retainers with silver never seize paste when you put them back.

I stuff a piece of cardboard under the pipe where it exits the stove. This helps to direct most of the crap into the stove rather than down the side of the stove behind the firebox.
The firebrick removes easily. The gasket on top of the shoe brick is very fragile and will likely turn to dust when you remove it.
If your stove is newer, there will be two plugs on the bottom left and right of the stove behind the shoe brick. Remove those caps and suck out ash from that area.
Don't mess with the combuster if it isn't full of ash.

I'm helping a friend who is interested in the Leyden. One question we have is whether it's possible to clean the chimney bottom-up (soot eater) via the bypass hole? The stove manual doesn't say anything about how large is the hole.

Cheers.....Som