Woke up to the smell of smoke...

Coming from my basement Harman P61..

Not sure what happened but the ash box was FULL of half burnt pellets.

It was too hot to mess with this morning but anyone have any idea what could have went wrong?

I had just scraped the burn pot Sunday evening and the ash box was about 1/4 full.

I was burning Turman pellets.

It was a little scary.. It wasn't enough smoke upstairs to set the smoke alarms off but there was a good amount of smoke in the basement (no smoke alarms - think i might put one down there ). It's a daytime basement that is used as a garage so i was able to open up the overhead doors and clear it out pretty fast.

My first thought is a super clean and then see how it operates. Its a big mess now.. gooey creosote everywhere...

This is a old picture from after I installed it.

Sounds like the venting and stove might be clogged.

Yep just had this happen to us a few weeks ago....caused quite the fire in the box...
completely shut my stove down......
Check gaskets...check ash bin for bowing on front top and bottom edge....check thumb screws and plate under burn pot as well...
good luck.

I'd lay some money on it not being the Turmans....But hey, I am willing to admit my bias here.
Clean the pipe and all is good.

Definitely sounds like an airflow issue -- clean the vent, monitor, and report back!

A Harman is supposed to be a "smartstove" as some say. It doesn't have a vacuum switch to sense a pipe clog?

Look what I started.....

I was gonna say it was you, But I figured I'd let the others have fun trying to find the perpatrator!

Haha. Yes. It was me.

I would agree.. airflow issue.. Going to clean it good tonight and see what happens.

How many tons burned after the last exhaust path cleaning?

There is a negative pressure switch.

Eric

Had the same thing happen to us, minus the smoke condition. My wife started the stove around 2am to take the chill off and we woke up to the pellets (Turman) all backed up and barely any fire. I completely disassembled the stove (Whitffield Quest Insert) and cleaned the stove and the SS chimney insert pipe as well. Reassembled and runs better than it has all season.

The stove was installed this past August. So the vent hasn't been cleaned yet. I've burned about 1 ton through it this winter.

Just got done cleaning the stove. What a mess! Lots of gooey creosote. The stove seems to be running fine now. I ran it on high for awhile to burn off some of the creosote. I'm going to do another cleaning this weekend. Hopefully the creosote will harden up a bit so I can get it out the vent.

I'll be inspecting the combustion fan area more often from now on.

I had a similar problem a couple of years ago. I had a lot of creosote build up and had a fire in my vent. I cleaned the stove and found a bunch of ash behind the combustion fan. Since then I've tried to make sure to pull the fan out once or twice a season so that I can clean behind it.

What did you find that caused the issue?

Pulling the combustion fan impeller and using a wire brush to clean it is part of my monthly cleaning. Also spray it with dry graphite from time to time.

As best as I can tell it was a result of a dirty stove. (ashamed face)

I didn't need to see that, must wash image from retinas.

Have you got a plan for cleaning that poor stove?

Any pics of the creasote?

Does it look like this oily goo? See my pics
http://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/st-croix-auger-is-not-a-dipstick-but.105736/#post-1375622

Poor stove.

Hello

From my recent experience, a can of Acetone at Home Depot will help alot with the cleanup!
Acetone is used in Nail Polish Remover and does take the paint off when rubbing hard so be carful! Works good to get the creasote.

what's up with that OAK (i thinks thats what it is)? Where does that go? How does that terminate? I suspect the stove is quite starved of air if you've only got 1 ton through it and you have that type of buildup. Your glass get dirty within a day or so?

I cleaned it last night.. didn't take any pictures of it clean though.

The crazy thing is this all happened overnight. It was relatively clean, or so I thought, the day before..