55-SHPEP summers heat burn pot full NEED HELP

need help with my fathers stove its a 55-shpep. there was a lot of dust in the home so we did a dollar bill test, seems like many parts of the gasket was flat and not making a tight seal. he squeezed the rope gasket and pulled it out a liitle and it past the dollar test and the dust has reduced considerable, will change in summer.. NOW the issue as you see in photo, the burn pot is filling up with ash and its not blowing into the ash tray. i thought it could be mosture or blower issue. background.. the stove had a full cleaning in early january, using green team pellets stored in garage. its still cold in ny please help..

WOW! When you say "full cleaning" do you know what that consisted of? When was the vent last cleaned? The ash definitely does not look right.

sorry it has an OAK also, hich was tested with a business card and has suction. cleaning leaf blower pipe, ash vac stove and removed plate and vac, dollar test door gasket removed gasket and combustion blower vac behind firewall, cleaned out hopper etc

these pics are from an overnight, it was clean before

Did this problem just start?

Yes Thursday vacuumed out by Saturday it filled up again,not as bad (assumed it was moisture in bag of pellets)!! vacuumed again and this is what happened overnight! Told him not to light again because I was concerned of fire in stove

Yes...it does "seem" like something is up with the pellets. Can he grab some "fresh" stuff to try? Also, if his last cleaning was January and he burns roughly a bag or so a day he is probably close to do a complete cleaning again. And like imacman always say, he needs to take a mallet to be back of the firebox to dislodge anything that might be stuck up there. He also should check his bottom three numbers to make sure nothing has changed. Maybe check the burnpot cradle to make sure it is sung against the back wall.

Thanks for the input. I'm going to switch the pellets and do a clean out I was looking to stretch it out to march but I will do now. You don't think it has anything to do with the blower??

Possibly...wouldn't hurt to pull it and take a look....at this point since it just started happening, it looks like air flow issue or bad pellets maybe????????

So you do his cleanings? I hope there's some cold ones in it for you afterwards! lol

If fresh, dry pellets don't make any impact on that problem, regardless of what you said was done to clean it, and unless the combustion blower is bad, you have a dirty stove.

Also, a bad door gasket will not cause any significant amount of ash to exit through the door....the firebox area is negative pressure....air will only go INTO the stove there. Excess dust in the house would cause ME to look into the exhaust pipe coming off the stove.

How old is the stove? How many tons (or bags) of pellets have gone through it?

The dust might be from a leak in the exhaust piping, as imacman says. Venting or termination might be plugged, although the vacuum switch should shut it down.

I do not own a englander so excuse me for asking. Is that normal to have burned pellets that close to the auger flight drop tube. That would make me worried about a burn back to the hopper. Not to scare the op, but just to solve my curiosity.

That is not normal and the fire should go out if the burn back gets much further up the drop chute provided the gasket on the hopper lid is good and the lid actually closes tightly.

That stove and vent (this includes the OAK and vent termination cap) needs a major cleaning, all gaskets need testing, and the combustion blower needs at least a good cleaning. Dust in the house can be from fines, an exhaust leak, or the normal crud in the air being circulated by the convection blower.

Verify that the stove is in the proper burn mode and the settings are what they should be for the lower three displays.

have we pulled the 3 removable plates from the firebox and cleaned above and behind them? stove looks to be plugged up in the heat exchange areas, follow the below steps for a good " plates off" cleaning
1. clean the firebox area as usual, then, remove burn pot, brick panel and ash drawer
2. pull the ash rake rod out and hold it out , while holding, lift up the top baffle to remove it from its resting point lower into the firebox area and remove from the unit, thoroughly clean all buildup from around the tubes and the back "shelf" area behind the plates. locate and clear the holes in the floor of this shelf (3 on the left 2 on the right as i recall)
3. at the base of the back firewall to the left and right of the burn pot cradle there are 2 removable plates (roughly 4 by 5 inches) each has 2 screws (5/16") holding them on, remove the screws and vacuum the area behind these plates.
4. take a mallet or hammer , and tap tyhe back firewall above these openings to shake down any buioldup clinging in the upper reaches of the chamber behind the firewall. this steel wall is fairly robust so you can bing around on it relatively hard to shake this ash down. then, vacuum out the openings again.
5. re-assemble the uit and fire it off, you should see a much tighter flame patern and the burn pot should be able to self clean a lot better.

this cleaning generally should be done monthly if the unit is used as a constant heat source.

Thanks smokey, Everyday on this site I learn something new!

thanks all challenge overcame. the blog gets us out of another "jam" cleaned stove again new pellets and good as new. will work on dust issue and major cleaning shortly. apprieciate all the help