Still a little smokey...

I had a thread a couple of weeks ago about my smokey accentra. I was getting a lot of smoke smell in the house, and I thought I had the situation cleared up by re-caulking the exhaust and all...and I don't smell smoke in the house anymore. I had bad pellets, too, which I think were contributing to the troubles...and those are used up now, and I've switched over to my supply of super-duper O'Kanagan pellets.

The glass is still getting dirty really fast. Its improved a little with the okies, but not much. I'm also noticing intermittent smoke from the chimney outlet. I'll occasionally see a puff of smoke waft past my living room window, even thought the stove has been running for hours. Previously, the only time smoke was ever visible was on start-up. once the fire gets going, no more smoke.

I'm wondering if my door gasket is just a tad leaky. I did the dollar bill test, and it seems tight along the sides...less so along the top. I think someone had previously mentioned tightening/adjusting the door latch. I looked at it, and if there is some adjustment to it, it isn't obvious to me. It does make sense to me that the gasket wouldn't fail over night, but slowly flatten out over time. I have also noticed that there isn't much of any resistance when closing the latch; I don't feel the door squeezing tight when I push the latch down.
Still, there is enough vacuum for the stove to function. flame perks up when closing the door, and all that. auger starts up when the door is closed, and ceases to function when its open, so there is enough negative pressure for it to "function"; I'm just thinking maybe not quite enough neg pressure to function optimally.

So: could it be that the door gasket is worn?
can the door latch be tightened?
if so, how?

Ok, think I found the answer.

I talked to a local harman tech over the weekend...he didn't think that a door gasket problem was likely, at this stove's age. I did fondle a brand-new accentra's door, too see how tight it was to open/close, and yeah, it does take a LOT more effort than on mine. so I was skeptical.

But the tech also said that it sounded like a "draft issue" somewhere. Could also just be some crud getting burned-off. He recommended cranking the stove up high and letting it get real hot for a bit...kind of like blowing the carbon out of an old car.

So I tried that at home, by switching over to stove temp mode. The stove did get very hot, but there still wasn't much of a flame. It sits low in the pot, looks kind of "milky" instead of sharp...but still, tons of heat. The flame has been like this for a while, but I thought that it was just running low, because it isn't terribly cold out yet.

Then it dawned on me where there may be an air leak: the slide-plate cover. After letting the stove cool down (and another session of scraping the most horrendous crud off the glass...way more than there should be), I opened up the back of the stove and felt around that box...and yes, it was loose. (doh!).

The reason it was loose is because when I cleaned it the first time, I dropped the wing nut that secures it, and it dropped down under the stove where it likely never will be seen again. The cover seemed to stay in place just fine without this nut; it has a tab on the top that seemed to secure it well enough--it seemed to me like the wing nut was just a bit extra, so I didn't bother putting it back on.
Well, this was probably fine for a while, but it eventually jiggled loose. So, I found a nut in my odds-n-ends hardware drawer that fit, and put it on there and snugged it up.
stove is now running like new. flame is higher, no longer orange and milky, but yellow and much brighter. I can see more of the inside of the stove. Glass is clear still after 12 hours. (before, it was dirtying up that soon!)

So: chalk it up to a dumb mistake on my part. :red: