Creosote in Harman P61A

[jcbart]

Today, while cleaning my stove, I noticed sticky black soot on the inside parts of the stove. I first noticed it with my last cleaning, however, every cleaning before that I never had any problems with any creosote build up. I have been running the stove in stove temp mode pretty much all winter, and lately at very low settings, between 1 and 3. Could this be causing it? I recently switched pellets from Hamers and Homesteads to American Wood Fiber and Stove Chow, so maybe it's the cheaper pellets?

Every time I clean the stove, usually once every 7-10 days, I do a thorough cleaning exactly as is specified in my owner's manual, so I know the problem's not a dirty stove. What I've been doing is reversing my shop vac to blower and sticking the nozzle all the way into the flue passageway next to the combustion blower to blast out all the accumulated ash. Could I have damaged the exhaust gas probe (ESP) by doing this and perhaps that is what is causing the creosote build up? I've attached some pics to show what the build up looks like. I spent a lot of time today scraping away at it with a drywall scraper.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Could be a number of things.

I'd start by cleaning the esp, the exhaust system, and checking my gaskets.

 

[aaronnoel]

I had that last year, for me it was a bad burn pot gasket, good luck.

 

[rickwai]

burning on low for a long time will cause this. Also not all pellets are the same.

 

[Honda]

I had this problem last year as well, My back wall looked identical to your pic. It was worse with low temp settings on stove temp. I replaced my flame guide, it was warped and did not seat all the way back to the auger tube. This helped. I also replaced the ashbin door gasket, creosote problem solved. I had a terrible time with lazy flame, creosote, and dirty burn for a good portion of last winter. I also replaced the combustion blower, as it was 7yrs old. I did all of these around the same time, but noticed a big improvement in the dirty burn category after the comb motor replacement. So, don't know if this helped, just wanted to share my experience. I am on my third flame guide in 8 years, probably because I always run on stove temp and in spring and fall run on low heat settings alot.

 

[Lousyweather]

I always clean with a scraper anyhow......check the deposit and see if it is actually creosote.....drop it in a cup of water....if its creosote, it'll start to dissolve within a few minutes....if its ash or carbon, it wont dissolve.

zzzzzyou could certainly have damaged the exhaust probe by hitting it with the vacuum end...its actually pretty common......

"I just cleaned my stove and now it wont run..."....or...."I just cleaned my stove and now the Status light keeps blinking 3 times...."