Should I service my stove myself, or get a pro?

Last year was my first experience with a pellet stove, and thanks to this board I learned a lot very quickly. As the stove was preexisting with our new home, and I didn't know much then, we had a pro come to service and inspect.

However, throughout the course of the season, I was very diligent with cleaning and maintaining the stove and ended the season with it working great. So, I think I know enough to give my stove a thorough cleaning and look over and fore go the professional inspection this year. Safety is important, however, so what do you think?

With the crazy price of pellets here this year, I'd prefer not to open up the wallet for anything else pellet related this year.

Thanks

Thanks, Guys. Keep my money it is!

About half way through the season last year, I gave it a fairly complete tear down and clean. I also cleaned the pipe 3-4 times with a brush. I remember reading about the leaf blower trick, I'll have another look at that thread (thanks, Macman). I was also thinking about just hooking my shopvac up to the pipe outside (with a good seal, of course) to see if that was useful.

Thanks, guys,

I have an Enviro EF3 which is, by what I've read, one the simpler stoves to maintain.

I did watch the tech last year do his thing, so I don't think I'll have a problem. And, the manual is pretty straight forward.

The only problem I'm expecting is the brick liner: The screws were ceased up good when I tried to get it off last season (lubrucation didn't do a thing). I'll see how I get along this time...I gave up pretty easily the last try.

Anyway, my 4 tons of pellets were delivered yesterday and I stacked and stored them as well (my back is sore today!). So, I'm off to do the cleaning today and fire it up for a test run. It's becoming quite chilly here in the evenings (frost warning tonight) so I may start using it sooner than expected.

If I have any problems with the cleaning today, you can be sure I'll be posting

Well, I managed to give it a very good cleaning yesterday. A couple of things, though:

1) Once I took out the brick liner, there were three additional panels behind that: 2 side and one center. The center piece has installation behind it. When removed, installation remained attached to the back wall of stove. I didn't think much of it then, but wonder now if that's normal? It seems it may have "torn" away from the center panel. I can't imagine it being a problem, though, as everything went back in place fine.

2) The exhaust blower. I vacuumed and cleaned what was accessible after opening the left side panel. As there appeared to be what I'm guessing high temp silicone sealing the assembly itself (and I didn't have any) I didn't attempt to disassemble and clean. I ran the stove last night and all seems great. So, my thinking is to leave well enough alone, keep an eye on things, and if something doesn't seem right with the blower disassemble at that time or get someone in. Would you agree?

Other than that, everything else was taken apart and cleaned. It actually didn't look bad at all. I've seen FAR worse in pictures posted here and around the net. The stove only has 2 seasons of operation, so it could only be so dirty.