How much soot actually exhausts from a wood pellet stove?

[bungalobob]

First post. I am stuck with only one possible location for a pellet stove. Deposit is down on a Harman P68, delivery (fingers crossed) end of November, install for beginning of December. The only location that works for my home is in the front of the house, it will be kitty cornered pointing toward stairs to second floor. The vent pipe will be out through front wall between two windows that are exactly eight feet apart. Will need the direct vent because of proximity to windows, and porch ceiling. Besides the ugly part of this coming out in front of the house, herein lies the question. The vent will come out onto open porch with railings, the flooring is mahogany, (Will lay out bricks in the winter) I am hoping the railing will help conceal the piping to a degree. The dealer says it is okay to just have the pipe come right out with no rise. From what I understand the stove will have no draft in case of loss of power if this is done. I am willing to sacrifice on this, because I eventually will get back-up power, but what I am wondering about is the amount of soot that actually comes out the vent pipe, and should I have at least a little rise in the vent pipe to help with draft? They say these stoves run extra clean. Is this true? I don’t mind some cleanup of the soot after the winter as part of the spring cleaning, but will it be a monster mess? I have seen some pictures and the mess looks bad on some, but is that after a week, month, a couple of years? And how hard is it to clean soot from brick, and windows? Sorry for the long post, just trying to give a lot of info on my situation.
Thanks, hoping to get off the heating oil grid

 

[Wet1]

Welcome Bob!

You can get by without having any rise in the vent pipe, it's not ideal, but it will work fine. Regarding the emissions, I haven't found my stove to be dirty at all. I would expect to see some light ash on the porch here and there. If the railings (are they white?) are within 5 to 7 feet of the discharge, you might notice a slight discoloration (assuming they are white) over time, but I don't think you'll really have much of an issue unless the exhaust exits close to something. It might not be a bad idea to power wash everything once or twice a year to keep everything looking clean.

 

[bungalobob]

Thanks for the info from someone with first hand experience. I won't have five to seven feet to the railings though, more like three to four. They are white plastic railing material. Will they discolor from the soot, or the heat? If its from the soot, that can probably be cleaned I would think, but if it is from heat, that's a problem. Is the temperature that hot coming from the exhaust, any idea what the temp is? Well, thanks for the info on the soot, much appreciated.