So before the burning season, I had gone through and done a thorough cleaning of the inside of the stove. I removed the stove pipe and cleaned both the horizontal and vertical runs with a brush. I got up on the roof, removed the cap, cleaned it, ran a brush through the pipe and felt good about the cleaning I did.
The one thing I didn't clean was the combustion blower. I didn't have a gasket for the blower, and last time I tried cleaning it without replacing the gasket, I was barely able to get it back together. I knew that the blower should be cleaned, so I had put an order in for some new gaskets and they arrived on Monday.
In the interim, I had a trip out west overnight on Wednesday. When i left Wednesday morning, the stove was running well, putting out really good heat, nice clean glass and no issues. On Wednesday night, I got a call from my wife saying that there was a problem with the stove. She said that the glass was completely black, and that she couldn't see the flame. She opened up the door and burning pellets spilled out the front of the door and onto the floor. (A caution to those who don't have a proper hearth!) The burn pot was completely full and the pellets were piled about 4" high. None of them were burning completely.
She shut down the stove and left it for me until I got home.
My first thought was that the intake must of sucked a leaf up against it or something to cause such a drastic change in one day. I got home, checked the intake, no blockage. OK, maybe when the stove shut down and the suction was gone, the leaf fell off. I cleaned the glass, took a handful of pellets and put them in the burn pot and lit them with torch. Normally when I light pellets this way, the fire either gets blown out by the airflow when the door is closed, or the flame drops off significantly. Nothing happens, a nice tall pretty flame keeps on burning. OK, not getting any air as I suspected.
So I take apart the combustion blower, yep, pretty dirty. I cleaned this off, went up to the roof, the cap was nearly completely blocked. Wow, not even two months after I cleaned it, and it's blocked??? So I cleaned the cap, ran the brush through the pipe put it all back together.
Works wonderfully again. Nice bright flame and excellent heat.
What I still have a hard time grasping is how quickly it went downhill. In a matter of 12 hours, the stove went from running well to being completely blocked. I imagine it must have hit some critical point where the pellets started to not completely burn, which caused an exponential growth in the build up.
Just wanted to share my story and re-iterate the power (or lack of) of a dirty stove.
The one thing I didn't clean was the combustion blower. I didn't have a gasket for the blower, and last time I tried cleaning it without replacing the gasket, I was barely able to get it back together. I knew that the blower should be cleaned, so I had put an order in for some new gaskets and they arrived on Monday.
In the interim, I had a trip out west overnight on Wednesday. When i left Wednesday morning, the stove was running well, putting out really good heat, nice clean glass and no issues. On Wednesday night, I got a call from my wife saying that there was a problem with the stove. She said that the glass was completely black, and that she couldn't see the flame. She opened up the door and burning pellets spilled out the front of the door and onto the floor. (A caution to those who don't have a proper hearth!) The burn pot was completely full and the pellets were piled about 4" high. None of them were burning completely.
She shut down the stove and left it for me until I got home.
My first thought was that the intake must of sucked a leaf up against it or something to cause such a drastic change in one day. I got home, checked the intake, no blockage. OK, maybe when the stove shut down and the suction was gone, the leaf fell off. I cleaned the glass, took a handful of pellets and put them in the burn pot and lit them with torch. Normally when I light pellets this way, the fire either gets blown out by the airflow when the door is closed, or the flame drops off significantly. Nothing happens, a nice tall pretty flame keeps on burning. OK, not getting any air as I suspected.
So I take apart the combustion blower, yep, pretty dirty. I cleaned this off, went up to the roof, the cap was nearly completely blocked. Wow, not even two months after I cleaned it, and it's blocked??? So I cleaned the cap, ran the brush through the pipe put it all back together.
Works wonderfully again. Nice bright flame and excellent heat.
What I still have a hard time grasping is how quickly it went downhill. In a matter of 12 hours, the stove went from running well to being completely blocked. I imagine it must have hit some critical point where the pellets started to not completely burn, which caused an exponential growth in the build up.
Just wanted to share my story and re-iterate the power (or lack of) of a dirty stove.
