Breckwell BigE/Cleaning glass

[smith10210]

I have a Breckwell BigE and wondering if anyone else has problems with your glass getting dirty. Mine gets dirty very quickly and is a pain to clean. Its super hard to get clean. With my wood stove I could just run it hot and it would take care of itself... I'm to the point of not cleaning it anymore.... There is no point of even having glass on the door itself breckwell should eliminate it. I also have a QuadraFire Castile insert and it does get dirty but not even close to the type of build up that the Breckwell has and it is just of matter of some windex and a few paper towels very simple, quick and wipes off with a pass or two.Thanks for any info...

 

[hearthtools]

If this is the Big E pellet stove?
If the the stove was working like it should then the glass would just whipe off with any glass cleaner.

If you are getting a stickie build up then something is wrong
Air not adjusted right
Venting blocked or needs to be cleaned
No vertical rise in your pipe
Ash pan door Not shut and sealed
Front door not shut and sealed
Combustion blower failer.
Combustion Chamber cleanouts need to be cleaned and put back together.

 

[kinsmanstoves]

Breckwell tells you to clean the glass daily by wiping it with a dry cloth. THIS HAS TO BE DONE. Lift the lid and there is a sticker telling you what to do each day. When the stove is off you need to use a little window cleaner and let it sit a little while then wipe it off. Please contact me for any other questions about Breckwell products. I can be reached at 330-876-0200 or [email protected] Eric

 

[buildingmaint]

My BIG E has the small window and it gets dirty fast . I use just plain water and a paper towel, I don't use window cleaner because I don't think alcohol and fire mix well. Smith10210 I recieved some emails saying you sent me a private message but my box was full . Sorry about that but I can't seem to find a way to delete them. How can I help you.

 

[kinsmanstoves]

If you use any type of alcohol while the stove is cold (and no fire) there will be no problem. By the time you relight because the alcohol will have evaporated. The window is only a couple inches by a couple inches, not like you are using jet fuel to clean it, oven cleaner or windex will be no problem. Eric

 

[buildingmaint]

Eric , I was just looking at my glass and I noticed that only the sides of my window have gasket material on them and no gasket material on the top and bottom . I s this correct ? Or do I need gasket material on the top and bottom also ? It has been that way since I bought the stove . My stove has the small window.

 

[kinsmanstoves]

The window is not fully enclosed with gasket to allow for the air wash of the glass. The stove runs on a "negative pressure" system to this is one of the inlets for air. As the air comes into the stove from around the glass it "should" help clean the glass. Lift the lid on the stove and there should be a sticker indicating what Breckwell tells you to do and when to do it.

The Big E is a great stove. It is a big ugly box that makes a lot of heat for little money. The Big E is my best seller and has outsold all my other stoves combined. I have put them in Kitchens, front rooms, garages, and basements. I have seen them with vent ducting the air into duct work and into a front room from the basement. This is a very good stove and I fell it can whoop a Harman's butt...... This is in a street fight with shanks of metal or pieces of chain.....

Eric

 

[smith10210]

If this is the Big E pellet stove?
If the the stove was working like it should then the glass would just whipe off with any glass cleaner.

If you are getting a stickie build up then something is wrong
Air not adjusted right
Venting blocked or needs to be cleaned
No vertical rise in your pipe
Ash pan door Not shut and sealed
Front door not shut and sealed
Combustion blower failer.
Combustion Chamber cleanouts need to be cleaned and put back together.

Thanks for the replies everyone. Its a new stove with a few hours on it so i dont think I have any problems with the chamber cleanouts. The build up is not stickie but alot darker and harder to clean than my qudra fire. I run it on the high/low setting also maybe thats part of it since its running the whole night.. I can eventually get it cleaned with a good amount of work. Ive tried adjusting the air but not to sure where to set it. If i pull it out all the way which allows more air it just blows all the burning pellets out of the fire pot if i push it in all the way I get alot of flame( wide and kind of slow moving) but seems OK.. So i just adjust according to breckwells recommendation to pull the handle about an inch out when running on setting 3 or more. I replaced my wood stove with this and hooked it up to the existing 6" vent pipe with the appropriate adapters 6" to 3", and vent piping with a 3" inch tee and clean out(duravent pellet vent). Its a straight shot up through the roof also. How do you check for the appropriate clearance for the front door gasket?. I have read alot of complaints about how quickly the glass gets sooted up on this unit so I think my problem is normal but thought I would ask.

 

[smith10210]

My BIG E has the small window and it gets dirty fast . I use just plain water and a paper towel, I don't use window cleaner because I don't think alcohol and fire mix well. Smith10210 I recieved some emails saying you sent me a private message but my box was full . Sorry about that but I can't seem to find a way to delete them. How can I help you.

I had some questions about the stove since you own the same one minus the amount of glass on the door.

 

[buildingmaint]

My BIG E has the small window and it gets dirty fast . I use just plain water and a paper towel, I don't use window cleaner because I don't think alcohol and fire mix well. Smith10210 I received some emails saying you sent me a private message but my box was full . Sorry about that but I can't seem to find a way to delete them. How can I help you.

I had some questions about the stove since you own the same one minus the amount of glass on the door.

Well fire away , I'll try to answer any questions you have . God knows more then a few people on this forum have helped me out in the past. There are a lot of very knowledgeable people on here.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

jumping in here but im not real familiar with the unit , we build a similar one , albiet larger the glass thing caught my eye, years ago we used to leave the top of the glass gasket off on our pellet units for airwash, have a better system now, but anyway, does your fire tend to come out towards the window? if the pot is removable and seats in a cradle and meant to sit down flush , check to make sure it is seated properly, if not some times the fire will run toward air this can leave a harder deposit on glass instead of soot. i dunno if this fits with that model as i have not examined one at length, but may be possible

 

[smith10210]

jumping in here but im not real familiar with the unit , we build a similar one , albiet larger the glass thing caught my eye, years ago we used to leave the top of the glass gasket off on our pellet units for airwash, have a better system now, but anyway, does your fire tend to come out towards the window? if the pot is removable and seats in a cradle and meant to sit down flush , check to make sure it is seated properly, if not some times the fire will run toward air this can leave a harder deposit on glass instead of soot. i dunno if this fits with that model as i have not examined one at length, but may be possible

Yes the fire tends to go towards the glass somewhat. I cleaned the glass today and tried white vinegar,windex and ended up using grease lightning with citrus wiped 80% of it off in one wipe and then just used a straight razor blade to get the really black stuff off took about 3 mins looks like new. I wish these stoves could get hot enough to just burn it off like my wood stove used to.... I checked the gasket and it seems to be fine when I open the door I can see an indentation around the gasket where it is meeting the unit itself. I guess Ill have to do this everyweek.... It just gets so dark on the sides of the glass...

 

[baskinglizards]

Hi, we have a Big E and also have that problem of the glass getting dirty really fast. We were told that this was a common problem with this stove. After just a few hours of operating the stove, the glass is covered in soot. We used to have to use Softscrub to clean the hard brown residue and it would take nearly an hour of scrubbing to get it off. We then bought some stove glass cleaner and conditioner, comes in a squirt-type bottle in the form of a blue creamy paste and contains silicon; didn't do a good job of cleaning the glass (not as good as the Softscrub), but works great as a conditioner for the glass. We use the Softscrub to clean the glass, rinse with water, then apply the glass conditioner and we've found that this has helped a lot in making the glass easier to clean. The more you use it, the easier it is to clean the glass over time. After a while, we didn't even need the Softscrub to remove the residue, most of it would come off just by wiping it with damp paper towels. Wiping the soot off every day rather than letting the brown residue accumulate also helps.

 

[jtp10181]

I recieved some emails saying you sent me a private message but my box was full . Sorry about that but I can't seem to find a way to delete them.

When in the inbox check the box on the right of the message and then go to the bottom and hit delete.

 

[Jtrasap]

I also have a Breckwell Big E. This will be my second season using it. I can't complain at all about the heat that it puts out but the quality of the stove is not that great. I have a 3500+ SF old two story farm house that is about as drafty as they get and this stove, which is rated at up to 2200sf, still keeps it nice and warm. I only heat the first floor during the day and the stove has no problem keeping it in the low to mid seventies with outside temps in the high twenties to low thirties. At night I only heat two rooms on the first floor and I open up the second floor so that the heat will rise upstairs and knock the chill off. At night with outside temps in the low twenties it would keep our upstairs bedrooms in the low to sixties which I think is great considering the size of our house and how drafty it is. I have the same problem with the glass on my stove and am still not to happy with the cheapish build quality of the stove but I really can't complain considering that I was paying about $600/month running my propane furnace in the cold months and am now paying about $350/month for pellets.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

i looked at one in our local TSC (small window type)i see that the gasket is only on the two vertical edges of the glass. this is different from how we used to do it as we only left the top section open. granted , i still dont know the way the unit moves its air around in there , but im struck that the airwash might work better if the bottom was gasketed as well leaving just the top open. has anyone tried that? now if ya seal it all the way up it aint gonna stay clean at all, but with top and bottom open , the air wouldnt be able to go both up and down at the same time to wash the glass, should only come from one direction.

just a thought, not a critique. i agree its a solid heater.

 

[johnnywarm]

I have a Big-E for the secound season now. My glass got dirty last season because we had bought soft pellets(pine) thinking that where premium.

This year so far we have had very little glass cleaning to do. We bought hard premium pellets(green team) and even have a hotter bigger flame.


We do have the big window and enjoy it very much.


JW