Problems with the Prescott EXL again...

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mooney

New Member
Nov 27, 2007
29
Boston, MA
I had posted back in December about having issues with my Prescott. It had turned out that it needed a good cleaning and I removed both the combustion fan and the room circulating fan and it was burning like a champ.

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/48595/

Well, the last 2 weeks or so, it's been running on 3 and has been backing up due to poor combustion. Black on the walls and glass, dark orange flame. Yuck. So again, I took it apart and this time I cleaned it all and did the leaf blower trick. You could eat off this thing it's so clean.

That was yesterday. I cranked it back up last night and had it on 3 again. This morning I came down to the same poorly burning stove.

What gives? Is this a pellet issue? They've all been stored in my basement for months. I'm really at a loss to understand why the combustion is so poor. The air intake is wide open.

Thoughts?
 
I remember your thread. I don't remember if you've been cleaning
the ash traps, and also tapping on the metal above the ash traps
so that all the junk falls down. I rap on that metal back until no
more stuff falls down, then I attach a smaller, more flexible hose
to my vac and shove it in the trap as far as it will go.
Also didn't see you mention this time around if you checked
the exhaust for blockage...bends or horizontal runs where ash tends
to build up quicker. I would do both of those things if of course
you haven't already.

edit: I've never burned the Fireside Ultras. This season I've
used Omalley, Cleanfire, and Lignetics with no issues.
 
Good tips. I've clean the ash traps once a week and use a flexible brush that I shove up there to get as much as possible out. I forgot to mention that this last cleaning I took the stove off the chimney pipe and ran a brush through all of it. Other ideas?
 
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