Thanks for the input everyone! I completed the dollar bill test in several spots and all seems well with the door seal. I went ahead and cleaned the blower and, so far, all seems well. I have the stove on a lower setting and have more heat. I cringe at the thought of how much fuel I may have wasted.
Good to hear your stove is running better. I'm going to guess, from the most frequent forum postings, that at least 3/4 of the pellet stove performance problems are the result of ash buildup somewhere in the system. Be advised that burning lower quality pellets, as well as running it on low speed, will both result in more ash build up, and thus require more frequent cleanings. Recognizing the flame quality and color when it is burning optimally (vigorous whitish yellow vs 'lazy' orange flame) is typically the first indication when a stove is not burning as efficiently and needs a good cleaning and / or or a better quality pellet, or an air leak fixed, usually in that order, it seems.
Keep your eye out this spring at your local hardware or big box store for a sale on electric leaf blowers, the kind that is a combo vacuum and blower type. Usually you can pick one up on sale for $25 - 40. They really do the best job of pulling loose ash out of the bowels of your stove, including the combustion blower, after you've done a normal scraping and vacuum cleaning of the ash traps and heat exchanger.
My leaf blower just crapped out doing my post - 2nd ton deep cleaning, so I used a dryer vent lint brush, coming in from the back side of the stove, to loosen any clumped ash in the stoves exhaust pathway, then stuck my shop vac hose in there with a rag as a seal between the vac hose and the vent collar to generate as much suction as possible. That worked OK, but the shop vac, even with a new vac bag in it, doesn't generate as much cfm suction as the leaf blower does. Nor is it nearly as fun as watching the leaf blower 'ash dragon' blow all the loose ash out of your stove into the yard !! Lots of entertaining You Tube videos on that process.
In my stove there is access to about half of the combustion blower fan area from behind the cast plate that normally sits in front of it. So at least every other week or so during the heavy burning season, when I'm cleaning the heat exchanger and the ash traps behind the cast bricks, I get in there with a 1" paint brush and a screw driver to brush / scrape whatever ash has accumulated on the fins and base of the blower. Not sure if your stove model has the same access to the combustion blower, but if so, it is worth the short time it takes to do it. As you apparently found as the problem with your stove, it is a critical component of a pellet stoves proper functioning.
In the spring at the end of the burn season, I pull both the combustion and convection blowers out and thoroughly clean and blow them out with compressed air, then I spray a light coating of high temperature graphite spray onto the blower fins and 'squirrel cages', which help prevent rust and crud build-up in the off-season and seems to reduce the ash and dust build-up on it during the next burning season. I also lube the bearing shafts with some 3 - in - 1 oil while I have it out, hopefully prolonging the life of the blower motors.
I think most everyone would concur that the best way to do the thorough annual cleaning is to take the stove outside and blow out the entire stove with compressed air. My stove is a PITA to get down the 2 flights of stairs and out to the garage where my compressor is, so I just do a good vacuuming and then leaf blower cleaning, as well as sweeping the vent with a vent brush, and that seems to work fine, especially now that I'm burning 100% soft wood pellets throughout the burn season.
Putting a dry-z-air packet in the burn pot and in the ash pan helps keep summer moisture from rusting the steel parts of the stove. I also stuff a rag into my vent cap to keep birds and other critters from flying into or setting up house in my venting over the summer. Put a note in your stove to remind you the vent is plugged up before your first start-up in the fall !
Most of this is preventive maintenance stuff that seems to be the best way to prolong your stove's functional lifespan and reduce frustrating breakdowns. Before I found this forum and 'got religion', as it were, on maintaining and troubleshooting it, I threw multiple hundreds of dollars in parts and repairs at it in one season, but now am into my 2nd burn season without a single breakdown or 'misadventure'. "Your results may vary", but certainly there is something to be said for prevention vs having to fix something after it breaks down, usually at an inopportune time, that could have been avoided with some simple maintenance.
Hope you find this forum as helpful as I have, and stay on as a regular visitor and contributor.
