Cleaning smell from hopper fire

[hockeyfun1]

I have a St Croix Ashby pellet insert and a fire started in the hopper in the winter. I let it just flame out rather than put water on it. There's a sticky substance everywhere inside the hopper and the stove and it has a burnt smell.

Today was 90 degrees and the stove is smelling so I want to clean it. This happened about 6 months ago. How can I remove the smell?


I already shop vacced out the pellets when it happened.

Since I had a hopper fire, due to probably low airflow, is my stove shot? I dont really want to use it anymore since NG is so cheap but I will keep it there for looks.

 

[Don2222]

Hello
I worked on the same model stove with a similar problem. The stove had sticky brown and black all over the inside.
We got a can of Acetone from Home Depot
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Klean-Strip-1-gal-Acetone-GAC18/100141096 and cleaned and scrubbed the whole inside including removing the auger motor and auger for 6 Hours! We had to clean the hopper and the auger.
In this case it was a very bad bag of wood pellets that was loaded with creasote. This is the only time I have ever see. This happen.
See pics and detail here!
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/st-croix-auger-is-not-a-dipstick-but.105736/#post-1375622

After cleaning and switching brand of pellets, the stove has been working fine.