burnpot ash

  • 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

zrock

Minister of Fire
Dec 2, 2017
1,677
bc
In my Big E Breckwell after a week the ash is caked on the sides of the burnpot like concrete. I just replaced the burnpot and never noticed that on the old pot. I scrape the pot daily with a screwdriver and probably not getting the sides as good as i should. But man is that hard. Is hard buildup normal? I clean everything weekly and scrape the pot down to bare steel but thought i was going to have to get the hammer this week
 
Lots of impurities in pellets this last few years. I built a stainless pot for my big-e and once a month itgets blasted. Somtimes it looked like the pot warped a 1/2 inch but it was just glass
 
Good to know... I thought the buildup was the ss pot separating as it had the look of steel when I scraped it

Sent from my SM-G903W using Tapatalk
 
One thing iv noticed as well. If i bring in a bag of pellets the day before I need them and then dump them in the hopper I get less ash on the glass. So it's basically giving the pellets 3-4 days to climatize and dry out

Sent from my SM-G903W using Tapatalk
 
Sounds like you have clinkers.
Some say you get them from too much moisture in fuel. Others say its caused by impuritys in the fuel.
The hell if I know.

I scrape mine with a 5-in-1 tool weekly.
Last week when I cleaned my stove the clinkers were unbelievable.
Only change to operation was running the stove at higher heat level for much longer (the deep freeze we just had) and burning Hammer's Hot Ones.

I resorted to scraping the burn pot liner with a wood chisel/hammer and still ended up soaking the pot liner in a 50-50 mix of ATF and Acetone to loosen the carbon.

Normally the 5-in-1 tool gets it clean with just a chipping motion.

---Nailer---
 
Would have never thought of using atf to clean the pot... I notice it's worse on lower heat settings if I turn it down to 1 it's pretty thick. Think I'll go pick up a gasket scraper or something better than my screwdriver..

Sent from my SM-G903W using Tapatalk