Harmon Accentra

I leave my shop vac outside when I clean the stove and use a long hose.

chuckster said:

I leave my shop vac outside when I clean the stove and use a long hose.

Click to expand...

I second that....

I use a shop vac with a drywall filter and don't get any soot in the house. Here is how I do it...

1. Place 8x8' canvas tarp in front of stove to keep from getting soot on the carpet (from my tools).
2. With shop vac running and the hose inserted just inside the door of the stove, I use a brush to brush all the ash off the heat exchanger, walls and etc. The shop vac will suck any fly-soot that becomes airborne. The rest falls into the ashpan.
3. Put burnpot and burnpot liner in a 2-gal bucket, take outside and clean off carbon outdoors.
4. Empty ashpan and vacuum the hearth & exterior of stove with the shop vac.

As you can see the shop vac is really not needed for actually getting the ash out of the stove. Just to suck up any ash/soot that becomes airborne. This also makes filters last a lot longer before they are full.

Sounds like your shopvac/filter arrangement is not filtering good enough though. It should catch all the ash and not let any pass.

Is there a way to turn on the combustion blower just in a "test" mode? That's what I do on my Englander while cleaning it.....put the stove in diagnostic mode and turn just the comb. blower on....sucks any errant dust right out through the stove.

If you can't do that on a Harman, maybe make up a electrical power "test" cord like many of us have and direct wire the comb. blower to the wall outlet (SAFELY and INSULATED!).

In addition to a drywall filter, I put a hose on the exhuast outlet of the vacuum and put it out the window.

Dougsey said:

In addition to a drywall filter, I put a hose on the exhuast outlet of the vacuum and put it out the window.

Click to expand...

x2

imacman said:

Is there a way to turn on the combustion blower just in a "test" mode? That's what I do on my Englander while cleaning it.....put the stove in diagnostic mode and turn just the comb. blower on....sucks any errant dust right out through the stove.

If you can't do that on a Harman, maybe make up a electrical power "test" cord like many of us have and direct wire the comb. blower to the wall outlet (SAFELY and INSULATED!).

Click to expand...

With the door open just turn the stove from Off to stove temp or room temp mode and the blower comes on and pulls the dust out the exhaust.

I hook my shop vac up to the tee out side the house when cleaning.This helps pull out a lot of the dust.

Turn on the stove after opening and the blower will run and suck out the VAST majority of the fine soot. The rest is the vacuum you use.