Hi All,
I'm on season #4 with my PDV, and I've been lurking on the forum a lot this season as compared to years past. I have been having a rougher season this year keeping the PDV happy, and this past week, I figured out my issue. I went through a full cleaning this fall, taking out the combustion blower, running the leaf blower, blowing compressed air through the exchanger, etc. But I couldn't keep a clean burn going for more than a week or so. If I didn't do a full cleaning each week, I would start getting a lazy burn, and the window would soot up.
Well the last cleaning (now on three weeks) I finally figured out my problem. Over the past four years I've been pretty good about cleaning out all of the creosote from the auger, burn pot and wear plate and doing a solid cleaning everywhere else on a weekly basis. Each time I inspected the holes on the wear plate and I didn't see any blockages and they all looked clean.
Well looks are deceiving. This last time I decided to take a drill to the holes, and man-o-man, what a difference. I now am running three weeks on the same cleaning, with no evidence of any issues. I've probably cut the amount of ash that stays in the burn pot in half, and I am back to the burn that I had when the stove was running well.
So add that one piece of info to the 1-ton clean out. Make sure to drill out those holes in the wear plate!
Hopefully this will help someone else with their burn issues.
I'm on season #4 with my PDV, and I've been lurking on the forum a lot this season as compared to years past. I have been having a rougher season this year keeping the PDV happy, and this past week, I figured out my issue. I went through a full cleaning this fall, taking out the combustion blower, running the leaf blower, blowing compressed air through the exchanger, etc. But I couldn't keep a clean burn going for more than a week or so. If I didn't do a full cleaning each week, I would start getting a lazy burn, and the window would soot up.
Well the last cleaning (now on three weeks) I finally figured out my problem. Over the past four years I've been pretty good about cleaning out all of the creosote from the auger, burn pot and wear plate and doing a solid cleaning everywhere else on a weekly basis. Each time I inspected the holes on the wear plate and I didn't see any blockages and they all looked clean.
Well looks are deceiving. This last time I decided to take a drill to the holes, and man-o-man, what a difference. I now am running three weeks on the same cleaning, with no evidence of any issues. I've probably cut the amount of ash that stays in the burn pot in half, and I am back to the burn that I had when the stove was running well.
So add that one piece of info to the 1-ton clean out. Make sure to drill out those holes in the wear plate!
Hopefully this will help someone else with their burn issues.
