Cleaning on the fly

[Darren111]

So today was supposed to be stove cleaning day, as luck would have it it's -20°C (about -4°F) today. I read all the time about scraping burn pots on the fly. Now being a newb and not seeing anyone cleaning an eco 65 this way I was dubious to say the least.
So, I shut the stove off and let the pellets in the burn pot burn down to glowing embers. All fans still going (conv, comb and exhaust) I cracked the door just to see what would happen. I assumed I would get a fault of some sort, not so. I did wait till the lower feed auger stopped turning.
Now off I go scraping the embers and the big stuck on clinker (I think it's called) right behind the combustion air holes on the burn plate. To my amazement the exhaust fan still going sucking the smoke and fly ash out the venting.
Now the fun part, the ash pan with lots of half burning glowing pellets. Get the boots on (we got about 6 inches of snow yesterday), get the heavy leather gloves on, open the ash pan door and out the door with a smoking ash pan lol. Emptied that out and put everything back together and burning again. About 30 minutes from shutting the stove off to turning it back on.
So it went pretty well except a little smoke from the ash pan through the dining room to the outside door and almost tripping over the dog on the way out (that would have been really bad).
Anyone with an eco 65 ever try something like this with the stove on heat setting 1? I didn't want to try it. I was going to leave it till tomorrow but the burn plate was getting clogged up on the sides and only had a small channel in the middle left for combustion air. With all that air going through such a small spot it was blowing burning pellets into the ash pan.
Anyways, that was today's adventure/learning curve.

 

[alternativeheat]

I can't help you with the Eco question but I've done my Harman that way many times. In fact I've scraped burning pellets off the pot to clean ( they go out pretty fast in the ash pan). Then I dump the ash pan in my wife's raised bed where I know there is nothing combustible. Next time lock the1 dog in the bathroom for a few minutes, indeed that would have been bad !

 

[rich2500]

On my stove I open the hopper lid, this stops the auger from turning then I scrape the pot quickly( about 10 secs. ) shut the hopper lid and back to burning.If the eco 65 has a hopper lid switch that should work on that stove also. The ash pan waits until I shut the stove off.

 

[Darren111]

On my stove I open the hopper lid, this stops the auger from turning then I scrape the pot quickly( about 10 secs. ) shut the hopper lid and back to burning.If the eco 65 has a hopper lid switch that should work on that stove also. The ash pan waits until I shut the stove off.

It does but I'm pretty sure it only stops the top auger. I'll have to double check. That would solve the problem of pellets feeding onto the burn plate while scraping it. I do know the hopper lid has a 3 minute default. After 3 minutes the stove shuts down, but just to give a quick scrape to clear the built up ashes on the burn plate it would work.

I guess I'm wondering if the stove would get some kind of fault if the door/ash pan door was opened during a normal burn. I know it doesn't in shut down mode. I'd just try it but it's now colder than the -20°C it was earlier and I don't want to shut it down tonight for any amount of time lol.

 

[Darren111]

Here's a pic of the ash buildup on either side of the burn plate. This is about 6 hours after I cleaned it today. And it just keeps getting worse to the point there is about a 3 inch channel in the middle of the burn plate. I just want to be able to open the door long enough to stick a scraper in there and knock that stuff off into the ash pan. Less than a minute. But I don't want the stove to fault out. If no one with an eco 65 answers I'll just try it on a warmer day and see what happens. It's just a pain to shut the stove off and restart it just for that.

 

[rich2500]

I'm sure the stove will throw a vacuum fault code if either of the doors are open long enough but you should be OK to open the door to do your quick scrape without throwing a fault .

 

[TCZON]

We have an Eco 45, and I have cleaned on the fly before. I believe because of the combex blower, cracking the door for a short period of time wont fault it out. I havent had to nearly as much this year since we replaced the door seal. Its been burning like a dream. Well, unless we have an east wind. I need to find a solution to that problem

 

[Darren111]

So today with the ash building up on the sides of the burn plate again I turned the stove down to heat setting 1 and gave it a bit to slow down to that. Cracked the door and reached in with a scraper and cleaned off the edges. No faults whatsoever.
So, a couple things for anyone going to try this. 1-don't take all the pellets off the plate the stove will go out. ( I came close) 2- while scraping the plate there will be lots of hot fly ash, some of this will try to come out the door. Only open the door far enough to reach in.
This is probably not the safest way to do this and no where in the operation manual does it recommend doing this. But, knowing the risks involved (the hot fly ash) I think it is no worse than adding wood to a wood burning stove.