How often do you run your stove on high and for how long to reduce creosote?

I run mine on level 6 for the first hour then turn it down to 2 or 3. My Englander has 9 levels but I never had to run it above 7 to get the house warm. I cleaned the vent a couple of times and found ony loose soot which was very easy to brush and vacuum.

ummmm , never what creosote ?

Can you over heat a pellet stove??

You shouldn't have any creosote as it's not made by the burning process of burning pellets as far as I know. No need to try to burn something not there.

Never had a smitchen of creosote in nine years,just ole ash.

have not had any creosote since I have been burning pellets.

Creosote forms from the incomplete combustion of overly damp ot green wood.and or the lack of enough oxygen to sustain a clean burn. None of those things will occur in a computer controlled pellet or corn burning stove. If you have a creosote issue (and you don't nean instead soot on your viewing glass) you have a serious problem. I've never had any creoste in my stove(s) or venting in 30 years.

dawg1419 said:

Can you over heat a pellet stove??

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Cute avitar....lol

No, you cant so long as your limit switches are working correctly. Even if the room air blower fails, the high limit will shut down fuel feed before the stove gets destructively hot. Thats what the 'WH' certification is all about, Warnock-Hershey tests stoves for just that scenario. If they pass (among other test criteria) they get the WH seal and certification. WH is the AGA (American Gas Association) of solid fuel burning appliances.

SidecarFlip said:

Cute avitar....lol

No, you cant so long as your limit switches are working correctly. Even if the room air blower fails, the high limit will shut down fuel feed before the stove gets destructively hot. Thats what the 'WH' certification is all about, Warnock-Hershey tests stoves for just that scenario. If they pass (among other test criteria) they get the WH seal and certification. WH is the AGA (American Gas Association) of solid fuel burning appliances.

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Thanks for the reply. My installer was telling me if you over heat one its toast. Lol I think he really wanted me to buy a wood stove[emoji107] but I dont have the room for one.

A great thing about pellet stoves is that a problem will usually cause the stove to shut down.

Since you folks seem to think that a pellet stove can't produce creosote I won't spoil your day by saying it can.

Why does everyone think that all pellet stoves are properly installed, adjusted, and functioning properly.

Think just a minute it is wood you are burning, all wood has moisture in it even after having been heated and pressed into pellets.

Then you have tons of examples on here of folks with crappy air/fuel ratios and I haven't even gotten to flaky controllers and other operational issues.

I rest my case and head upstairs for a hard cider as I shake my head.

Smokey your right. I never said they could not have creosote. I have my stove burning good an don't have issues. Enjoy your cider

Countryside stoves can be overfired but on corn. Several manual controlled stoves but with questionable over fire controls. Stoves run in cold enviroments like a garage can crude up the exchangers. Most stoves have a proof of fire of around 120 degrees F. Not enough to really keep an exchanger from condensing flue gases and creating a mess.

jim2074 said:

Does running your stove on high for some amount of time help burn off creosote?

If you do for how long and how often? I have a vertical pipe through the roof.

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Countryside stove recommends this practice daily for an amount of time. Some of that is to clear the exhaust passages of ash. Not an issue for Harman.

St Croix recommends firing their stoves on high for a period of time each day to burn off any condensed combustible volatile crud before it can become a problem, this condensed volatile material contains guess what folks?

Pellet stove are wood burning appliances. Therefore they can produce creosote. Plain and simple.

mepellet said:

Pellet stove are wood burning appliances. Therefore they can produce creosote. Plain and simple.

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And a few other goodies as well.

30 years and no creosote on pellets or corn, I must be the exception then. Only ash here, always, but then, I don't idle it along either.

Enjoy your cider.....

SidecarFlip said:

30 years and no creosote on pellets or corn, I must be the exception then. Only ash here, always, but then, I don't idle it along either.

Enjoy your cider.....

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Run em hot and run em hard. Seems to keep most stoves from flue gas problems. Pellets do have about 7-8 percent water, corn that we burn is around 13-15 percent so stands to reason multifuel stove manufactures recommend a high fire.

SidecarFlip said:

30 years and no creosote on pellets or corn, I must be the exception then. Only ash here, always, but then, I don't idle it along either.

Enjoy your cider.....

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I shall enjoy the cider, there are just so many things that can and do go wrong that I can't let one person's actual experience with a properly operated heating device give everyone the warm fuzzes.

He double I came home to a burned out boiler one evening. Funny about all those safety devices, when one of them fails all bets are off. The same goes for operators.

Now anyone really want to talk about whether or not a pellet stove can go into an over-fired state?

Been around too long I guess. Fire can either keep you warm and kill the microorganisms in that slab of meat so it doesn't kill ya or it can kill ya. Double bit ax at work it cuts in both directions.

I won't run corn over 15% RM and I prefer 12%RM, which is why I like old crop corn from the bottom of the grain bin. Far as pellets go, I believe more like 5% but I've never tested them. I do have a Delmhorst capable of RM testing of pelletized fuel but I never have. Corn over 15 really yields a poor burn anyway, no matter what the test weight is, not that it 'burns' in the sense of burning like wood fibers do. It 'carmelizes' and ignites. Take a close look at your corn in the pot. It appears in a liquid state prior to igniting.

SmokeyTheBear said:

Now anyone really want to talk about whether or not a pellet stove can go inmto an overfired


I shall enjoy the cider, there are just so many things that can and do go wrong that I can't let one persons actual experience with a properly operated heating device give everyone the warm fuzzes.

He double I came home to a burned out boiler one evening. Funny about all those safety devices, when one of them fails all bets are off. The same goes for operators.

Been around too long I guess. Fire can either keep you warm and kill the microorganisms in that slab of meat so it doesn't kill ya or it can kill ya. Double bit ax at work it cuts in both directions.

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If the safety devices are working correctly and the operator hasn't bypassed them, no, it cannot. Having said that, I'm not factoring in the human element. 'Fiddle factor' always takes precident.

Solid fuel appliances are inherently safe...as long as they aren't buggered with.

Go have your cider.

Bioburner said:

Run em hot and run em hard. Seems to keep most stoves from flue gas problems. Pellets do have about 7-8 percent water, corn that we burn is around 13-15 percent so stands to reason multifuel stove manufactures recommend a high fire.

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It's pretty hard to 'idle a corn pot as you well know, if running straight corn. It's possible with a mix of corn and pellets however, which is why I tend to run 50-50.

mepellet said:

Pellet stove are wood burning appliances. Therefore they can produce creosote. Plain and simple.

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Maybe yours, not mine, so, not that simple.