How long can your stove burn without attention?

My CAB50 with white pine can run 2 days, it runs out of pellets by then

StovePig said:

I suppose that pellet brand has a lot to do with it but I am wondering how long you guys and gals burn your stoves without tending to it by scraping the ash mustache away to liven up the flame again...

I have a Harman P61a and am burning FSU or Purcell... Either brand can go 14hrs till I get home to tend to it but if I was gone longer I wonder if it would be dangerous to have the ash mustache build up any more...

After 14hrs the flame still has a little vigor in it but I'm very hesitant to let it go longer. When home I usually tend to it every few hours.

Thoughts...?

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2 and 1/2 weeks just fill hopper and dump ash bucket on the fly. Using corn/ Indeck pellets mix. Heat level on 6 and using a thermostat set at 70.

Other than filling the hopper and pulling the rods I don't touch ours until the weekend when I shut down and clean. Never scrape the burn pot. Versa grate is awesome

Every Sunday for me.

Longest Ive gone was about 2 weeks. Could have gone longer but I wanted to see the flame again.

Usually once a week. Takes about 2 weeks before the glass starts to get dirty. As far as scraping the pot, I haven't exactly figured out how to do that with the thing burning, without removing the flame guard, so I don't do anything with it until Saturday mornings.

With my Lemon of a Thelin..2 days ( if it is still running) The new Harman we are getting...I will be happy if it is 2 days..Its what I am used to

The longest I've gone so far on my new stove is 5 days. That's 5 days of only filling the hopper and nothing else. Hopefully that will NEVER happen again. I was getting nervous after the 2nd day but on the 6th day it was still chugging along fine when I finally had a day off and did the usual cleaning.

Aside from pellets. Every 2 weeks. 24/7 burn.

Three days with the hopper extension on the PC45. Makes for a nice weekend away. The Bixby with extension 4 days no touch. Really long weekend. Over 6 weeks with only filling the hopper and weekly biscuit removal and then forgot to take them out and fouled the works.(was an extreme test) The cleanup was not that much ash in exchangers. Can tell if the stove needs a real cleaning as the temp probe starts ramping up the room fan as the exchanger gets covered in ash raising the exhaust temp.

Wow I am jealous of all the posters here, I have to clean mine daily and we burn through about 2 bags a day.

mystove said:

Wow I am jealous of all the posters here, I have to clean mine daily and we burn through about 2 bags a day.

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2 bags now with the cold snap or 2 bags in general?

MuchoBueno said:

2 bags now with the cold snap or 2 bags in general?

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If I run it 24 it is 2 bags.

Harman recommends that you do a quick scrape (Remove ash mustache) every time you fill the hopper... But I've gone a few days without doing so, but if you're there to fill the hopper, pop the door and pull down the ash.. Only takes 10 seconds.

My 25PDVC and 25 EP both get shut down once a week for cleaning. I have gone longer, but this is what I'm comfortable with.

One 40lb bag. Then I have to put another bag in the stove. If I don't the stove runs out of pellets and the fire goes out. That's when the wife says something like I AM COLD dear. When that happens I get up off the the nice soft couch and go fetch me some more to those pellets that come in a 40 lb bag and put them in the stove. I have to manual start the fire with MAP torch since I am too cheap to buy a new electric starter that stopped working last year. Every four bags I usually let the fire go out so I can thoroughly clean the burn pot from clinkers. Every 3 weeks I empty the ash pan and do a complete front side cleaning with paint brush, shop vac, and remove all 8 pieces of metal, which includes the ash pan. If I were burning oil I could get me a lot more quality time on the couch.

One week. No scraping, just filling the hopper. This cold snap, I burned 18 bags, but I think that was too much between cleanings. The week before I burned 13 bags and that was fine, so I think my stove can take about a 2 bag a day average over a week, and that'll be fine.

7 days. 10 in shoulder seasons.

Pretty pellet-dependent. With the Indeks I tested couldn't do more than a few hours without the flame becoming severely choked. Lignetics, Blazers and Big Heat easily go overnight. Could go longer but I don't let it.

3 weeks not counting hopper fills. I could go longer but why tempt fate?

The biggest issue with not scraping the ash off of the lip of the burn pot is that the ash buildup there, re-directs the flame directly into the glass (as opposed to burning straight up and down, after removing the ash). You can certainly leave it that way, but what I've learned is that if you choose to do that, it won't take long before that glass is permanently scarred. I've seen it happen in a couple of stoves. In theory, it certainly shouldn't happen, given that these things are designed to have a fire, but it will happen. Harman knows it will happen, and I believe it's one of the biggest reasons they've trained their dealers to educate their customers to frequently remove the ash.

Enigma869 said:

The biggest issue with not scraping the ash off of the lip of the burn pot is that the ash buildup there, re-directs the flame directly into the glass (as opposed to burning straight up and down, after removing the ash). You can certainly leave it that way, but what I've learned is that if you choose to do that, it won't take long before that glass is permanently scarred. I've seen it happen in a couple of stoves. In theory, it certainly shouldn't happen, given that these things are designed to have a fire, but it will happen. Harman knows it will happen, and I believe it's one of the biggest reasons they've trained their dealers to educate their customers to frequently remove the ash.

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Actually my flame doesn't move toward the glass, it gets somewhat higher and lazier but always straight up. Maybe my draft is good enough to prevent that.