I installed this stove Jan 2013 and used it a little bit that winter. This winter I heated my house exclusively with it Oct and Nov, and burned a ton during those months. Into December I used it to augment my natural gas baseboard heat... and until the last couple weeks, it ran fine. A bit over a week ago I noticed a lazy flame and blackened glass. It was also pushing lots of unburned pellets into the drawer; previously I had a nice inch of soft gray ash at the edge always. In fact in Nov I emptied the ash drawer for the first time after burning 1500lbs! But now the flame was real lazy.
I did a fairly complete clean on it, burn pot, overheat exchangers, cleared the airholes on the burnpot, cleaned out the inside of the combustion blower. I looked through the horizontal vent from inside, and it wasn't bad at all. With a lot of snow outside, I didn't want to hook up my outside vac and brush out the vent. Outside I go through-wall, then vertical about 5', then a snorkel vent cap.
One thing I did notice was a bit of soot at the top of the opening face of the stove when the door was open. Right where the seal pressed up against it. Is the seal leaking? I am not getting any smoke in the house that I can notice.
Anyway, it lasted a week+ after that clean, then last night, lazy flame again, smoked up glass, pushing unburned pellets, etc. So I shut it down last night.
Thoughts? We will have warmer weather and less snow, so I will look at the vent this weekend. Could it be the door seal? Just seems odd that it ran so well for all that time, then all of a sudden this. My second ton started Dec 1, was the same pellet brand BTW (Supreme Green I think), and I will say that even when it was running well, it seemed to fill the ash pan up faster than the first ton.
I did a fairly complete clean on it, burn pot, overheat exchangers, cleared the airholes on the burnpot, cleaned out the inside of the combustion blower. I looked through the horizontal vent from inside, and it wasn't bad at all. With a lot of snow outside, I didn't want to hook up my outside vac and brush out the vent. Outside I go through-wall, then vertical about 5', then a snorkel vent cap.
One thing I did notice was a bit of soot at the top of the opening face of the stove when the door was open. Right where the seal pressed up against it. Is the seal leaking? I am not getting any smoke in the house that I can notice.
Anyway, it lasted a week+ after that clean, then last night, lazy flame again, smoked up glass, pushing unburned pellets, etc. So I shut it down last night.
Thoughts? We will have warmer weather and less snow, so I will look at the vent this weekend. Could it be the door seal? Just seems odd that it ran so well for all that time, then all of a sudden this. My second ton started Dec 1, was the same pellet brand BTW (Supreme Green I think), and I will say that even when it was running well, it seemed to fill the ash pan up faster than the first ton.
