Insert Maintenance Question

[jadm]

On the Jotul 550 thread someone brought up the issue of annual maintenance. Manual suggests pulling insert out annually to clean and do general maintenance.

I had another insert for several years prior to this one and never pulled it to do maintenance.

Wondering what other 'seasoned' insert owners so with theirs.

BTW My insert is fully lined and I do have it swept 2x a season.

 

[oconnor]

I was surprised at the requirement to remove the insert, so I looked at the manual. It tells us that when a Direct Connect partial liner is used, the stove must be removed to allow inspection of the flue connector (the plate and liner that a direct connect needs to stay put is refered to as a flue connector in the manual). The full liner install (shown as Canada only - Canada requires full liners, partial liners are not accepted) does not require a removal.

That is consistant with minutes I read of a NFPA code revision meeting, where the assertion was made that full liners were less safe, because the owner didn't need to remove and inspect the system each year. The link is in another post on here somewhere. When I find it, I'll post it as an edit for those who are interested.

With a partial lined direct connect, soot from the clay tiles is going to fall down around the liner, as there is no tight seal in the first clay tile between the liner and tile, except at the blocking plate in the damper. That soot can't be removed without pulling the setup apart, and you can't do that without taking the stove out.

So, for your fully lined system, no need to pull it based on the manual. Just pull the baffle, set a bucket in, and sweep. That doesn't mean that removing the stove isn't "safer", 'cause you can see the whole setup, just that the manual doesn't require it (I'm not pulling my full liner stove out annually - to do so would be safer, not doing so is still safe IMHO.)

The requirement to remove annually is a result of the direct connect partial liner setup, not the stove.

 

[oconnor]

Delete - double post - darn twitchy finger.