Some Questions For The Experts

[drekick1]

So, I have been burning for almost two weeks. We love it, house has never been warmer. Just wanted to throw a couple questions out there. Everything I have learned so far is from this forum. Thanks for all the help! Here it goes:
1. Should I have to clean the glass doors on a daily basis?
2. How often should I clean the bricks?
3. Should there be soot on the rain cap?
4. Everybody keeps saying that the pellets should "dance" in the burn pot. I can't get that to happen no matter where the restrictor is set. Is that ok?

This is what I have been doing.
Daily- wiping the glass, pull the rod to clean the heat exchange tubes, brush the ash and break up anything in the burnpot with a screwdriver.
Every other day I vacuum it out.
Am I on the right track?

 

[Arnold]

I'd say you have a good handle on it.

I shut my stove down once a day for a thorough vac of the inside, clean out the burn pot & wash the glass.

I just shut it down & go eat breakfast. By then it's off & cool enough to clean. Open door, sweep the ash off the door insides & glass, pull the burn pot & scrape, pull the baffle & vac it and the tube heat exchanger area, reinstall the baffle & burn pot (note: some stoves burn pots are not removable) & vac out the ash pan, shoot the glass with a shot of windex, wipe it dry with newspaper, refill the hopper with pellets, do a quick wipedown of the outside...........start to finish 15 minutes........tops.

I have a loveless ash vac with the attachments........well worth the investment.

Enjoy the stove.......keep it clean & it will keep you warm.

Tom in Oh

 

[poconoman]

drekick1, you're worrying TOO much. Enjoy the stove and follow what the manual suggests. If it makes you feel better, shut down, cool, and clean the stove inside every 3 days.

 

[imacman]

4. Everybody keeps saying that the pellets should "dance" in the burn pot. I can't get that to happen no matter where the restrictor is set. Is that ok?.........

Just a quick question.....I don't remember if you mentioned it before, but can you explain what your exhaust pipe set-up is? (how many elbows, lengths of pipes, etc. Is there any vertical pipe in it, or is it a straight out the wall horizontal vent?

Did you hook up an OAK to the stove?

 

[drekick1]

Don't know what a OAK is. A tee where it comes into the garage, then up five feet a 90 over three feet a 90 and up five feet through the roof.

 

[imacman]

An OAK is an Outside Air Kit....brings fresh air into the stove from outside the house for burning.

Also, is your pipe 3" or 4"? You have a lot of pipe going horizontal and a lot of 90 degree bends.....you could have a draft problem.

 

[Scoop]

You got one too many 90s. Only two recommended in most apps. This is definately going to affect your stove performance in my humble, non-expert opinion.

 

[drekick1]

The pipe is 4" all the way. How can I tell if I have a draft problem? How can I solve it? This is how the dealer told me to do the install. No OAK installed. I could go strait up to elimnate two 90's but the rain cap would only be about 2 feet from the side of the hous.

 

[poconoman]

The pipe is 4" all the way. How can I tell if I have a draft problem? How can I solve it? This is how the dealer told me to do the install. No OAK installed. I could go strait up to elimnate two 90's but the rain cap would only be about 2 feet from the side of the hous.

Again, your manual TELLS you how the exhaust is to be installed. It should even tell about the OAK. The manual is the BIBLE for your stove.

Take pics of the piping and post them.

I only have ONE 90 and that's the T cleanout and ONE 45. No draft problems whatsoever.

 

[Arnold]

The pipe is 4" all the way. How can I tell if I have a draft problem? How can I solve it? This is how the dealer told me to do the install. No OAK installed. I could go strait up to elimnate two 90's but the rain cap would only be about 2 feet from the side of the hous.

Again, your manual TELLS you how the exhaust is to be installed. It should even tell about the OAK. The manual is the BIBLE for your stove.

Take pics of the piping and post them.

I only have ONE 90 and that's the T cleanout and ONE 45. No draft problems whatsoever.

Pretty sure I can see two 45's in your pictures................???

 

[Scoop]

My manual for my USW Stove 6039 says to use not more than 180 degrees of elbows "to maintain adequate draft. Each elbow or reduces draft potential by 30 to 50 percent. Use no more than 180 degrees of elbows, either two 90s or a 90 and two 45s."

Since you are pushing the draft through the pipe the extra resistance of another 90 is going to affect the stove performance. The simple solution is to always run at a high exhaust fan and draft setting. However the vent pipes are going to require frequent cleaning as the elbows are ash traps.

The fact you are running 4 inch pipe helps the draft process somewhat.

 

[krooser]

If you want to clean the stove daily that's fine... mine gets a vacuum and the ash pan dumped once per week... If you burn a very clean pellet like an Okie or Bear Mountain you can go MUCH longer without cleaning since the ash content of the pellets is so low. I CAN go as long as 12-14 days without opening the door.

During the warmer seasons, with the stove running on "low", I'll clean the glass every couple of days.

My recommendation... after every ton of pellets burned use a leaf blower to suck the ash out of your stove and vent pipe. There are MANY threads here explaining how to do this... it cleans out all the "hidden" areas of the stove that collect ash and can plug your stove and keep it from running correctly.

Good luck...

 

[poconoman]

The pipe is 4" all the way. How can I tell if I have a draft problem? How can I solve it? This is how the dealer told me to do the install. No OAK installed. I could go strait up to elimnate two 90's but the rain cap would only be about 2 feet from the side of the hous.

Again, your manual TELLS you how the exhaust is to be installed. It should even tell about the OAK. The manual is the BIBLE for your stove.

Take pics of the piping and post them.

I only have ONE 90 and that's the T cleanout and ONE 45. No draft problems whatsoever.

Pretty sure I can see two 45's in your pictures................???

OOPS! You're right, but that's acceptable.

 

[drekick1]

I can re-vent and elimnate two 90's. I would have a straight run from the T of about 13-15 feet. Would this make a major difference? I would have to cut another hole in my garage roof. Don't want to do that unless I have to.

 

[Scoop]

That seems like a radical move but that is the way it should have been installed originally. I would burn for a while, clean often and see how you make out.

You will also have to clean the glas doors often. For a quick, hot clean I use a ball of paper towells, get in there quick do a wipe of the glass so I can see the flame. The Ash comes off easy when it is hot. You may however get some soot migrating into your house doing this.

 

[poconoman]

Can you go through the wall and go up? This way you don't have to make another hole on the roof.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

I can re-vent and elimnate two 90's. I would have a straight run from the T of about 13-15 feet. Would this make a major difference? I would have to cut another hole in my garage roof. Don't want to do that unless I have to.

Could you replace two of those 90 degree ones with a 2 45 degree jobs like poconoman has?

Take a real good look at his picture. Getting rid of the additional restriction is going to help.

 

[drekick1]

Just checked the manual this is what it says: No more than one tee and 180° of elbows (one tee with two 90° elbows, one tee with one
90° and two 45° elbows, etc.).

 

[poconoman]

Just checked the manual this is what it says: No more than one tee and 180° of elbows (one tee with two 90° elbows, one tee with one
90° and two 45° elbows, etc.).

There you go. Either go straight up and eliminate one 90.

Again, if you don't want another roof hole, go through the wall, (need a wall thimble) tee, go up.

 

[drekick1]

Just checked the manual this is what it says: No more than one tee and 180° of elbows (one tee with two 90° elbows, one tee with one
90° and two 45° elbows, etc.).

There you go. Either go straight up and eliminate one 90.

Again, if you don't want another roof hole, go through the wall, (need a wall thimble) tee, go up.

Shouldn't I be ok, I have one tee and two 90's.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Just checked the manual this is what it says: No more than one tee and 180° of elbows (one tee with two 90° elbows, one tee with one
90° and two 45° elbows, etc.).

Yes, I saw that, however the manual also provides a shaded vent map, it is a bit confusing to use. Two 90 degree bends is a EVL of 10 the Tee is an EVL of 5, that brings us to an combined EVL of 15 before the EVL of 5 for the 10' of vertical and an EVL of 3 for the horizontal run which is a total EVL of 23. This looks like it places you very close to the border line and would account for not being able to get the dance going.

Getting rid of one of those 90 degree bends and 3 feet of horizontal, should drop you down into the range where your "restricter" will actually allow you to control the air flow (the lightly shaded area on page 9).

 

[poconoman]

Just checked the manual this is what it says: No more than one tee and 180° of elbows (one tee with two 90° elbows, one tee with one
90° and two 45° elbows, etc.).

There you go. Either go straight up and eliminate one 90.

Again, if you don't want another roof hole, go through the wall, (need a wall thimble) tee, go up.

Shouldn't I be ok, I have one tee and two 90's.

Get rid of one 90. The two 90's are chocking your stove.

 

[Scoop]

Just checked the manual this is what it says: No more than one tee and 180° of elbows (one tee with two 90° elbows, one tee with one
90° and two 45° elbows, etc.).

There you go. Either go straight up and eliminate one 90.

Again, if you don't want another roof hole, go through the wall, (need a wall thimble) tee, go up.

Shouldn't I be ok, I have one tee and two 90's.

Get rid of one 90. The two 90's are chocking your stove.

I'd say give your present set-up try. Dancing pellets is a bit of an exaggeration. If your pellets are dancing you'r draft is likely too rich and most of your heat is going up the pipe.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Just checked the manual this is what it says: No more than one tee and 180° of elbows (one tee with two 90° elbows, one tee with one
90° and two 45° elbows, etc.).

There you go. Either go straight up and eliminate one 90.

Again, if you don't want another roof hole, go through the wall, (need a wall thimble) tee, go up.

Shouldn't I be ok, I have one tee and two 90's.

Get rid of one 90. The two 90's are chocking your stove.

I'd say give your present set-up try. Dancing pellets is a bit of an exaggeration. If your pellets are dancing you'r draft is likely too rich and most of your heat is going up the pipe.

It really isn't an exaggeration, the dance is simply movement in the burn pot that makes certain that the ash gets ejected up and out of the burn pot when new pellets hit.

You can have a completely quiet burn pot with no motion and while most of the ash will get ejected it frequently isn't enough. This is also when you will start to see soot begin to stick to the glass, shortly after that the flame will begin getting lazy.

The trick is to get the draft set for the pellets you are burning.

The OP is within range with his venting, however it isn't ideal, as he has no control over his fire, and will lead to more frequent cleaning than is normally needed and with off spec pellets a lot of head banging. Been there, done that, have no damper must have things just right.

Now after a solid week of burning it is time to shut mine down and clean it out, this week it is time to remove and clean my convection blower.

 

[Wood Nugget]

Try your set up for the rest of the season the way it is. try different pellets too. I find on my leyden it is very hard to get the pellets to dance. a few of them barely "shimmy", or there are burning pellets flying out of the pot. This stove will burn fairly dirty if you run it on low all the time. I mostly run it on low, but every morning turn it up to the highest setting for 30 minutes and this seems to clean it up.

As far as your cleaning goes, the lopi web site has a pretty good video to watch on cleaning and also cleaning instructions. My routine is as follows:
Every day as needed sweep ash through trap doors on side of burn pot to ash drawer. Stir pellets in burn pot with that hook tool and also tap pot to make some ash fall through the holes. Use scraper on heat exchanger tubes.
Empty ash drawer as needed. (probably not recommended, but i do all this while stove is running.)

Once a week (the manual says to do this once a ton, but it needs to be done more often) i shut down the stove and remove fire brick and heat exchanger deflectors. Remove 2 panels behind fire brick. Vacuum all this stuff and also into all the holes and crevices you can find. Use wire brush and coat hanger to poke around in the holes. On top you can also remove the 2 round circle buttons with a screw driver to clean in there. If the hopper happens to be empty, I also vacuum it out. Replace every thing and fire it back up.

Every ton, I do all the above, plus clean the pipe and completely clean the inside back of the stove (fans and such)

Hope this helps