chimney cleaning issue on New Englander stove

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EODdad

New Member
Oct 7, 2010
8
Central Illinois
In another life I worked as a chimney sweep and know the importance of a yearly chimney cleaning. I recently purchased a New Englander model 13 - N stove and hope to use it alot. It has a ceramic "board" on the inside top of the stove which will prevent the soot/ash from falling into the firebox when I sweep the chimney. Thus the soot/ash I brush loose from the chimney will just build up on the top of ceramic board, not a good situation.
The only reasonable solution I can think of is to put the stove on bricks or something that is not flammable and then slide the bricks out, disconnect the stove and lower it, then push the stove over a few inches and brush the flue. This will allow me actually remove the soot/ash and keep me from hitting the ceramic board w/my flue brush and cracking it.
Does anyone have any other suggestions?
Thanks much,
John
 
There are sheet metal screws on the left side of each burn tube. Take out the screws, drop the tubes and remove the baffle. Sweep the crap down into the firebox and put the baffle back in.

There should be instructions for removing the baffle in the manual also. Page 15. Be sure to put the tubes back in the right order.

Piece of cake.
 
Thanks for your response/suggestion. My concerns are: 1) that the sheet metal screws will seize up due to the heat in the firebox and will shear off when I try to remove them and 2) the Englander stove service department told me that the the baffle becomes quite brittle and with the handling required to remove and replace it as you suggested, it might easily crack. Are my concerns unfounded?
 
Yes indeed you should be concerned about snapping off the bolts, I snapped two of them off our daughters NC 30 this fall. I should of removed these before its initial first fire & treated them with anti sieze compound. We had to drill out the front two burn tube retaining screws & install new hardware as needed. We treated the new fasteners with anti sieze compound & assembled the tubes & baffle boards to spec. The baffle boards are quite brittle after a season of burning. Note: I managed to remove the two rear screws for the rear burn tubes without incident & treated them also. The screws do not need to be installed very tight, just snug a bit
 
Thanks for sharing your learning curve experience and the suggestions. Is there an anti seize product that you used that was made to stand up to high temp environments?
 
I used nickel anti seize for stainless steel made by neverseize. There are many mfg of this product including a grade made by the locktight corp.
 
All I can tell ya is that I am going into season five with the NC-30 and haven't dicked up a screw or a baffle board yet. And I take them out twice a season for cleaning the chimney. Sometimes move one board over the top of the other to get a mirror view up the pipe. The screws are just sheet metal screws and they just keep the tubes from turning or falling out so you don't tighten them. Just barely snug them. And of course be gentle with the baffle board. Easy to break just like a lot of other things if you handle it wrong. Or stick a poker through it.

I did buy a spare pair of boards when they were doing the pre-season deal this year with a full gasket and board set discounted and free shipping. My gaskets and boards are still good but spares when it is your only heat and you know you are gonna need'em someday ain't bad to have around instead of running around wringing your hands in the middle of a snow storm.
 
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