Cleaning may be over rated

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Harvey Schneider

Harvey Schneider

Minister of Fire
Oct 9, 2012
1,321
Southbury, CT
Maybe I'm lazy, or maybe I'm just getting old, but I just couldn't get myself to clean the flue on my Mt Vernon AE insert last winter. I burned over four tons, and every time I thought about disconnecting the flue and running a brush up there, I would find something else to do. Then through the summer, I just didn't think about it.
Now I have to admit that I do a thorough scrubbing of the stove every week. That includes brushing and vacuuming the galleys behind the baffle and cleaning the ports in the fire pot.
Finally, at the beginning of the heating season, guilt outweighed inertia and lethargy. So I got out my brush, rods and drill motor. I disconnected the flue and ran the brush up and down the flue twice. cleaned out the blower housing and brushed out the internal passages in the stove.
Now comes the surprising part. Altogether I collected less than a cup of dry powdery soot.
So what do I attribute this good fortune to? I think that it has to be a combination of things.
First, a good, clean burning stove. I run it in manual with a medium high flame setting because I find that it runs cleaner that way. Recently published data implies that it also runs more efficiently that way.
The second thing is that I have been burning nothing but softwood pellets. They are almost dust free, burn clean, hot, and produce much less ash (by weight) then I experienced with hardwood pellets.
I may be leaping to conclusions, but I believe that it is the usual trade off of cost vs quality. So take your pick.
YMMV
 
There is a poster on here that tried an experiment and ran his stove without cleaning it other than to empty ash and if I remember right, the stove ran for two or three years before it started having problems.
 
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Hmmm, try that all over again with Stove Chow or worse green supreme pellets and see what happens !! LOL
 
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Better to be safe than sorry but I'll admit I have eased up quite a bit on my Harman. I do keep it clean for the most part but I am not nearly as swift to over do the cleaning as I was last fall. I am on the pot scrape a day and monthly cleaning mode now. This is all my stove requires and I am sure it would run fine much longer also.

Stove cleaning varies by make and model for the cleaning routines. At times I am less than thrilled to do a cleaning but always feel good about it afterwards. Just part of the fun.
 
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Harvey Schneider said:
Maybe I'm lazy, or maybe I'm just getting old, but I just couldn't get myself to clean the flue on my Mt Vernon AE insert last winter. I burned over four tons, and every time I thought about disconnecting the flue and running a brush up there, I would find something else to do. Then through the summer, I just didn't think about it.
Now I have to admit that I do a thorough scrubbing of the stove every week. That includes brushing and vacuuming the galleys behind the baffle and cleaning the ports in the fire pot.
Finally, at the beginning of the heating season, guilt outweighed inertia and lethargy. So I got out my brush, rods and drill motor. I disconnected the flue and ran the brush up and down the flue twice. cleaned out the blower housing and brushed out the internal passages in the stove.
Now comes the surprising part. Altogether I collected less than a cup of dry powdery soot.
So what do I attribute this good fortune to? I think that it has to be a combination of things.
First, a good, clean burning stove. I run it in manual with a medium high flame setting because I find that it runs cleaner that way. Recently published data implies that it also runs more efficiently that way.
The second thing is that I have been burning nothing but softwood pellets. They are almost dust free, burn clean, hot, and produce much less ash (by weight) then I experienced with hardwood pellets.
I may be leaping to conclusions, but I believe that it is the usual trade off of cost vs quality. So take your pick.
YMMV
Click to expand...
So, you have good pellets that you are burning efficiently. The leftover ash isn't much, but if you do the math, wouldn't 8000 pounds of the best pellets (0.3%) leave at least 27 pounds of ash? Do you think your weekly cleanings during the season got out 27 pounds?
 
If your running a 4" flue pipe it will go alot longer without cleaning than a 3", You'll be a surprised how small a flue opening the exhaust will run thru, sometimes all it needs is 1"
 
Hmmm....4" vs 3"pipe, but also I would think the rise and run of the flue pipe would also have something to do with it. The more horizontal pipe and the longer it is, the more time there would be to collect ash.

Either way I'm pretty certain that for safety sake, sticking with the factory recommendations are likely to serve you better. Safe versus sorry.
 
chken said:
So, you have good pellets that you are burning efficiently. The leftover ash isn't much, but if you do the math, wouldn't 8000 pounds of the best pellets (0.3%) leave at least 27 pounds of ash? Do you think your weekly cleanings during the season got out 27 pounds?
Click to expand...
I don't know precisely how much ash I have disposed of. I have emptied the ash vac three times, and the amount dumped is approximately ten pounds each time so it is somewhere close to that number. I have no doubt that some small amount of ash left the vent as particulate, but I don't think that I could estimate that based on ash collected. Small differences in relatively large numbers are unreliable.
 
Ambient said:
Hmmm....4" vs 3"pipe, but also I would think the rise and run of the flue pipe would also have something to do with it. The more horizontal pipe and the longer it is, the more time there would be to collect ash.

Either way I'm pretty certain that for safety sake, sticking with the factory recommendations are likely to serve you better. Safe versus sorry.
Click to expand...
Just for the record, My stove has a little over 20 feet of 4" vent, all of it vertical.
I am sure that I would notice some degradation in performance long before there was any possibility of a safety issue. From experience, I think that there is an equal risk that, all of the disassembling and reassembling of the vent may cause safety issues, as lack of cleaning.
I'm of the school of thought that, if it is working well, you don't need to fix it.
 
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Harvey Schneider said:
Just for the record, My stove has a little over 20 feet of 4" vent, all of it vertical.
I am sure that I would notice some degradation in performance long before there was any possibility of a safety issue. From experience, I think that there is an equal risk that, all of the disassembling and reassembling of the vent may cause safety issues, as lack of cleaning.
I'm of the school of thought that, if it is working well, you don't need to fix it.
Click to expand...

I realize your management is based on facts and not on an assumption. My eyebrows were raised when I initially read the title, my immediate thought was for the casual reader who might take take a comment meant for promoting discussion and instead read it as potential gospel. You know, the one's that when combined with youthful disregard for what is common sense and finding a shortcut because we read it on the internet. A.K.A. we're all "smarter than the average bear".

These pellets I fired up last night save me $60+ dollars a ton over the softs I can buy, but I have to do the cleaning more often. So I'm paying myself to clean as opposed to handing over more $$$$ to a vendor. They are very ashy and the pipe has a run to the outside wall. I know I will have to clean the pipe also because of this brand of pellet. I also determined, like you that last year, that burning the LG's softs I had far less maintenance. If there was a closer source for soft pellets I would make the switch. The cost and the time to drive and pick them up far outweighs the potential gain of less maintenance.
 
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Ambient said:
I realize your management is based on facts and not on an assumption. My eyebrows were raised when I initially read the title, my immediate thought was for the casual reader who might take take a comment meant for promoting discussion and instead read it as potential gospel. You know, the one's that when combined with youthful disregard for what is common sense and finding a shortcut because we read it on the internet. A.K.A. we're all "smarter than the average bear".

These pellets I fired up last night save me $60+ dollars a ton over the softs I can buy, but I have to do the cleaning more often. So I'm paying myself to clean as opposed to handing over more $$$$ to a vendor. They are very ashy and the pipe has a run to the outside wall. I know I will have to clean the pipe also because of this brand of pellet. I also determined, like you that last year, that burning the LG's softs I had far less maintenance. If there was a closer source for soft pellets I would make the switch. The cost and the time to drive and pick them up far outweighs the potential gain of less maintenance.
Click to expand...
I understand and respect your position on cleaning vs cost. That was precisely my point.
For some the savings are more important than the convenience, for others the reverse is true.
I am getting to the point where I have to pick my chores wisely. I have difficulty doing the vent cleaning by myself. If I had to hire a local chimney sweep every ton to do it for me, I might as well pay for the premium pellets.
There has been so much on this forum extolling the virtues of constant cleaning, that I thought I would present another perspective on the task.
 
Harvey Schneider said:
I understand and respect your position on cleaning vs cost. That was precisely my point.
For some the savings are more important than the convenience, for others the reverse is true.
I am getting to the point where I have to pick my chores wisely. I have difficulty doing the vent cleaning by myself. If I had to hire a local chimney sweep every ton to do it for me, I might as well pay for the premium pellets.
There has been so much on this forum extolling the virtues of constant cleaning, that I thought I would present another perspective on the task.
Click to expand...
Your perspective is completely valid. I burned Okanagan Douglas Fir along the way, had next to no ash in the vertical rise as a result. Most was contained in the stove and brushed down into the ash pan nearly monthly. Try that with the average Energex or Stove Chow pellets and the stove would probably conk out. the dealer told me a 4" vertical rise flue using those pellets would only need annual cleaning. I suspect he is right.
 
One of our locals dealers runs a Harmon P68 for the entire heating season in the showroom. It does not get cleaned at all. Only a daily quick scrape of the burn pot, and an emptying of the ash pan after every ton of pellets. In 6 years, not once did the performance of the stove suffer. ( The stove does get a thorough deep cleaning in the off-season) They do this to show consumers how well the unit is designed for actually using it as a primary heat source.
 
Cory S said:
One of our locals dealers runs a Harmon P68 for the entire heating season in the showroom. It does not get cleaned at all. Only a daily quick scrape of the burn pot, and an emptying of the ash pan after every ton of pellets. In 6 years, not once did the performance of the stove suffer. ( The stove does get a thorough deep cleaning in the off-season) They do this to show consumers how well the unit is designed for actually using it as a primary heat source.
Click to expand...

My installer said that the newest iteration of the 52i was specifically designed so that all the cleaning is done from the front during the heating season and it should not be necessary to pull the stove out except for the annual cleaning.
 
Peterfield said:
My installer said that the newest iteration of the 52i was specifically designed so that all the cleaning is done from the front during the heating season and it should not be necessary to pull the stove out except for the annual cleaning.
Click to expand...
Before we decided on the P61 we thought long and hard on the 52i ( 2013) and we were told basically the same thing if using 4" liner up our chimney. I believe it with good pellets but burning BBS ashy pellets I have my doubts about that, at least in my liner as it has a gentle S turn in it.. But who am I to argue, I don't own a 52i !!
 
alternativeheat said:
Before we decided on the P61 we thought long and hard on the 52i ( 2013) and we were told basically the same thing if using 4" liner up our chimney. I believe it with good pellets but burning BBS ashy pellets I have my doubts about that, at least in my liner as it has a gentle S turn in it.. But who am I to argue, I don't own a 52i !!
Click to expand...

Yeah, feel the same way. As soon as I build my rail extension gizmo, I intend to pull it back and get into the fine's box and flue.
 
Peterfield said:
Yeah, feel the same way. As soon as I build my rail extension gizmo, I intend to pull it back and get into the fine's box and flue.
Click to expand...
Well see that's the other thing, that fines box needs tending more than once a year. I clean mine monthly in fact and depending on the pellets I'm using it may or may not be jammed full. At 65 and only aging, mechanic all my life so get pretty sore, I did not see me see myself pulling an insert for a whole bunch of years. So free standing it was. As beautiful as the 52i is, as much as we loved it, had to pass on it. The real clincher though being radiating heat as well as convection and ease of cleaning. But that's us, not you LOL !!
 
alternativeheat said:
Well see that's the other thing, that fines box needs tending more than once a year. I clean mine monthly in fact and depending on the pellets I'm using it may or may not be jammed full. At 65 and only aging, mechanic all my life so get pretty sore, I did not see me see myself pulling an insert for a whole bunch of years. So free standing it was. As beautiful as the 52i is, as much as we loved it, had to pass on it. The real clincher though being radiating heat as well as convection and ease of cleaning. But that's us, not you LOL !!
Click to expand...

In my case, I was thinking of a free-standing stove and did a lot of research and took my wife to a couple of pellet stores. When she eyed the Majorca Brown Accentra 52i, she turned to me and said I could buy any stove I wanted, as long as it was that one.
 
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I clean my stove top to bottom weekly and the vent pipe monthly. I hardly ever get anything out of it, and I run box store pellets. I used to do it weekly but stopped because it was just too clean to justify it. I could probably get away with 3 month intervals on the vent but it doesn't take a lot of work to clean my set up. At first in my head I thought there should be way more ash in there so I took the whole thing apart and made sure it wasn't stuck anywhere in there but it wasn't.
 
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Dr.Faustus said:
I clean my stove top to bottom weekly and the vent pipe monthly. I hardly ever get anything out of it, and I run box store pellets. I used to do it weekly but stopped because it was just too clean to justify it. I could probably get away with 3 month intervals on the vent but it doesn't take a lot of work to clean my set up. At first in my head I thought there should be way more ash in there so I took the whole thing apart and made sure it wasn't stuck anywhere in there but it wasn't.
Click to expand...
I was doing my vent at 1 ton using good pellets, wasn't worth it, not enough ash. So I moved it out to two tons with crap BBS pellets and it's about worth doing maybe. But I have 4" venting too. I could see where the really good super low ash pellets like Okanagan DF or AWF pure white pines could go a whole season in my case.
 
Last edited:
Harvey Schneider said:
I understand and respect your position on cleaning vs cost. That was precisely my point.
For some the savings are more important than the convenience, for others the reverse is true.
I am getting to the point where I have to pick my chores wisely. I have difficulty doing the vent cleaning by myself. If I had to hire a local chimney sweep every ton to do it for me, I might as well pay for the premium pellets.
There has been so much on this forum extolling the virtues of constant cleaning, that I thought I would present another perspective on the task.
Click to expand...
The cost vs cleaning is right where I'm at with my new stove. My old stove loved NEWP, now I hear they aren't a great pellet. I have three brands to try this year, I will decide if it is worth the extra $ for the better, lower ash pellets and go from there. I'm thinking it will be worth it to get the soft wood for the extra hundred or so it will cost me for the year.
 
To each his/her own. Not cleaning the stove routinely and annually would be similar to not bathing until you itch _g
 
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