My older Whitfield Advantage IIT free-standing pellet stove is collecting black soot on the fire brick backing although my fire seems to burn a solid yellow color with none of the "black tips" I read about. It hasn't always done this and I have been trying all sorts of suggestions from here and elsewhere. I have cleaned everything out with my shop vac, in every area I can get to - the same way the guy from the stove shop did it when I first moved in here. I believe it has to be lack of intake air and/or air leaks in the burn chamber. The damper seems to either choke the fire or let it burn yellow but I have yet to see pellets "dancing" in the burn pot, as I have seen mentioned here. A couple years ago I replaced the door gasket as well as the window gaskets. One thing about that has me puzzled though. The front window on the door did not appear to have a gasket along the bottom edge, so I replaced it the same way. Apparently this is to keep the window cleaner. However, this seems to defeat the purpose of having a good seal on the door. Can anyone shine a light on my problems? It's getting cold here in the north country...
Black Soot in Whitfield
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Overfireinthehole
Minister of Fire
It’s called an air wash. It allows a very small amount of air to flow across the glass helping keep it clean. Almost every stove has one. Have you taken the exhaust blower off and cleaned it? Have you brushed the pipe? Have you cleaned behind the two 45 degree panels and stuck a bottle brush or vacuum crevice hose in behind the hollow walls they allow access to? If everything is really clean, and you don’t have something obstructing the intake, and the door gasket is good, and the exhaust blower motor is working properly, about the only option left is that your stove is old and has a cracked firebox somewhere that is allowing air to bypass the burnpot.
My Pellet stove did that when Chimney Pipe needed Cleaning. Black Nasty Stuff. I had screen for anti birds in it. Sooted up and reduced airflow.
I suspected the air wash but thought it could be causing the soot. As for the rest, by exhaust stack is clean and I replaced the exhaust blower a few years ago. I have vacuumed every nook and cranny I can find. Never had problems with birds here. For the most part it works okay and gets a lot of use. I just know that it hasn't always had this soot problem. One thing that is odd, that the soot is always a little heavier on the left side. But you may be correct - it might be time for it to retire!
No, the air wash has nothing to do with your soot problem. Worst case should be just feathery fly ash almost the same color as the pellets. If it happened to be black, it would be feathery black, not fine carbon soot.
Assuming you’re sure the damper is sliding along with the handle, check the air intake under the burn chamber. Is it completely open or could something be blocking it? Do you have an external intake vent that could be blocked? A snake camera might come in handy to check this out.
Also, have you checked your exhaust pressure switch hoses lately? Are they dried out or disconnected, and is it possible you might have an exhaust fan failure in progress? I had to replace my hoses with high-temp replacements and add clamps so that cutoff switch worked correctly. A chimney blockage backed up black soot in the burn chamber and filled up my house with smoke because the stupid local installer never set that up correctly.
If you have a fan motor failure in progress (yes, even the new ones go bad once in a while, and I also replaced mine), and all the hoses and hardware are working correctly, the stove should automatically safely shut down after you light it and it runs for a short time. But don’t panic, there might also be an electrical problem preventing the exhaust fan from working. Just take it one step at a time.
And, although this is not part of your soot problem, those glass gaskets that were open on the bottom, were on backwards. The Advantage II-T has larger mounting clips on the top edge of the glass panels that act as a baffle with an open vent to the room air. If it’s open on the bottom, you might be risking having hot ash bounce into the room.
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