St Croix Prescott "EX" Cleaning

[DrEvil]

Hey all, I just picked up a 2001 Prescott EX and would like to know how to get this thing clean enough to touch off.

It hasn't had a deep clean in what looks like a looong time. Everything seems to be in order, had to swap out the control board, and ignitor is bad, but I don't mind firing it manually for a little while.

I tried lighting it on the back of my truck, but it was feeding too fast and it kept putting it self out. I was just using wax, I didnt have any of the gel that most people use. Is it feasable to get it burning before hooking it up and then working out the details when I install it?

I am new to pellets as you can tell. Long time wood burner but man... what a difference!

Thanks

 

[DexterDay]

When starting a fire manually. Light the pellets and get them going pretty good. Some people use a little propane torch. Once they get established, make sure the feed rate is set to a low setting. After a few minutes, you can bump it up to your desired heat setting.

To clean. If its outside, I would use an Air compressor with a nozzle. I had a buddy make me one that has a 1/4" flexible air line thats 18" long. So I can get in every nook and cranny. Also use an assortment of long dryer brushes to clean the full exhaust path. Then I would remove both blowers and clean the fins on the combustion blower and the squirrel cage on the convection blower (compressed air again) then lubricating both with oil (if the motors have oil ports). Make sure the intake is clean all the way to the burn pot (no dog hair or dust bunnies) clean burn pot and all holes. Vacuum hopped out and possibly lube the bearing or bushing for the auger. Also check the vacuum switch hose and blow it clean (actually disconnect this before cleaning with air or using leaf blower making sure to blow away from the vacuum switch. Try to always avoid high blowing or sucking pressurrs to this swit h. Then check all gaskets. Do the dollar bill test to the door gasket (open door. Place bill half way into stove. Shut door on bill. If you can easily remove the gasket, then the door latch must be tightened or gasket replaced.

If you have a leafblower, you can use this also. Do a search under leafblower or leafblower trick. There are also videos on Youtube that will show you how to do this.

Make sure you have a combustion blower gasket if you remove the blower. These tear easily and should be replaced every time you take it off.

Prob some I missed. But this will keep you busy for a couple hours. Good luck and welcome to the club.

 

[unklechuckles19]

Best way to clean the stove is to take the leaf blower to the exhaust and open the front doors. Let it blow until you don't see any dust, then take the blower around to the front and point it up into the heat exchanger tubes and run air up in there. The air compressor works, but I've found the leaf blower to work a bit better. When I clean customers stoves, and my own St. Croix's I use the leaf blower or leaf vacuum method's and haven't had any problems. Ignitor is an easy fix, shouldn't take more than about 20 minutes. Off hand, I believe your stove takes a shorter ignitor than the newer ones, and the newer ones will not work (too long, stick out so you can't put the burn pot back in the stove) so make sure who ever you're getting the ignitor from knows it's the older, shorter style ignitor.