Hey all--
It's been another 2 or so years since I posted. This year we have officially had our Mount Vernon AE pellet stove for 10 years!
I've been through 4 baffles (my first one barely lasted a year), 4 igniters, 1 burn pot, 1 rope gasket, 1 set of clips for the ash pan, and a combustion blower. To be fair, most of these failures were in the first 5-7 years.
In the last few years, (I assume) the part quality have been better. Or I'm just getting lucky? I know the igniter redesign years back definitely helped.
So, this year, the wife and I decided to put hardwood floors in so in early Nov we put the stove on magic movers and slid it out of the room. We laid down the new floor and slid it back into the room right before Thanksgiving and we lit it for the first time with no problems.
On New Years Eve this last year we realized our boiler zone on the same level as the pellet stove was frozen. I didn't have time to deal with it so we shut and drained that zone off and heated that floor completely with the pellet stove for ~week. I did finally find the frozen pipe (no splits luckily) and thawed it with my heat gun. I have NEVER had a frozen pipe before this year; this year is something else!
I'll be honest, I maintain my stove but I hardly ever open it. I empty the ash pan and fill it until it needs a cleaning. I can usually tell it needs a cleaning by the wispy-like flames. I usually pass my chimney brush through every ton and I do one good cleaning with the leaf blower at the end of the season than seal up the OAK and exhaust with foil tape and put a couple DampRid in the burn area.
I always try to put up posts that get people talking. How has your winter with the pellet stove been? What does your maintenance schedule look like? How do you close up your stove? What parts are you finding are failing on you?
It's been another 2 or so years since I posted. This year we have officially had our Mount Vernon AE pellet stove for 10 years!
I've been through 4 baffles (my first one barely lasted a year), 4 igniters, 1 burn pot, 1 rope gasket, 1 set of clips for the ash pan, and a combustion blower. To be fair, most of these failures were in the first 5-7 years.
In the last few years, (I assume) the part quality have been better. Or I'm just getting lucky? I know the igniter redesign years back definitely helped.
So, this year, the wife and I decided to put hardwood floors in so in early Nov we put the stove on magic movers and slid it out of the room. We laid down the new floor and slid it back into the room right before Thanksgiving and we lit it for the first time with no problems.
On New Years Eve this last year we realized our boiler zone on the same level as the pellet stove was frozen. I didn't have time to deal with it so we shut and drained that zone off and heated that floor completely with the pellet stove for ~week. I did finally find the frozen pipe (no splits luckily) and thawed it with my heat gun. I have NEVER had a frozen pipe before this year; this year is something else!
I'll be honest, I maintain my stove but I hardly ever open it. I empty the ash pan and fill it until it needs a cleaning. I can usually tell it needs a cleaning by the wispy-like flames. I usually pass my chimney brush through every ton and I do one good cleaning with the leaf blower at the end of the season than seal up the OAK and exhaust with foil tape and put a couple DampRid in the burn area.
I always try to put up posts that get people talking. How has your winter with the pellet stove been? What does your maintenance schedule look like? How do you close up your stove? What parts are you finding are failing on you?
Stay Warm...
