Beginner maintenance for Vista Flame 100

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
  • Hope everyone has a wonderful and warm Thanksgiving!
  • Super Cedar firestarters 30% discount Use code Hearth2024 Click here

fitzy16

New Member
Jan 3, 2022
3
Boston
I've searched the forum a bit but wanted to see if there was an easier way to just find all of the basics of cleaning/maintenance. I have always been nervous about fire and we just bought a house with a pellet stove (Vista Flame 100). Everyone said it was so great to have a pellet stove and it seems like once we get the hang of the maintenance it will be but for now as first time home owners it's intimidating. At first it wouldn't turn on so we had a maintenance guy come, he did a full cleaning and fixed the igniter. It worked well for a few days but then wouldn't turn on again. He came back and said the burnpot had an excessive amount of buildup so the air couldn't get through, he cleaned it out and it worked again. We were given a Rigid wet dry vac, and from this forum it looks like we should use a drywall dust bag and a HEPA filter. How often should we be vacuuming out the whole stove? Weekly? He said we could just empty the burnpot debris back into the stove. When we empty the ash pan, should we just vacuum or dump out somewhere else? The manual is making me worried about the fire hazard of disposing ash. We will likely be burning the stove about 12 hours per day during the winter. If there is a thread with maintenance tips please direct me to that or any advice you have. I have watched a lot of youtube videos too and I see them vacuuming but I am not sure how often that should be. Thank you!
 
The stove you have is the second line of Enviro. Same stove same parts.
The manual tells you what to clean and when. It also you how to take it apart
and put it back together.
You can burn the stove 24/7. I have the same stove only in the Enviro line.
In the 20 years, I have used it never had a problem with hot ash. All the
burning is done in the burn pot never in the ash drawer. When you turn
the stove off it will run through a cool down so all burning is complete
by the time the stove turns off. I turn my stove off once a week for basic
cleaning use a wet-dry vac with a fine dust bag and put it outside(vac) incase
of hot ash but like I said never had one
If you do not have a manual here is one
https://woodstovepro.com/store/pdf/VistaflameVF100Manual.pdf
 
  • Like
Reactions: fitzy16