Cleaning St. Croix hidden ports with a leaf blower.

[BIG WATER]

After reading kast's thread that described how the service guy used a leaf blower to thoroughly clean all the hidden spots.
Yep I tried it. It blew a small cloud of soot even though I had the door and ash pan closed. ( two hours dusting & mopping)

Zeta had a good suggestion using a home made attachment with a narrow hose on the end of the shop vac to reach difficult spots.

My question is where does the exhaust port on the stove side of the combustion fan enter the stove. The schematic from the manual does not illustrate the details.

Is it behind the fire wall with the ash trap doors ?? I fished a wire around in there and could not locate it from either end.

By the way. Stove works like new again. No lazy flame. Thanks alot

 

[rjnicholsjr]

I use a vacuum attachment I got from a hardware store to clean out the hard to reach spots on my St Croix Hastings. It fits on the end of any standard vacuum hose then has a smaller hose with brushes and tools to attach to it. I use the small hose to fish into any openings inside the stove and snake it around to try to pull out as much ash as possible. Only problem I run into is when it finds an occasional pellet and the pellet clogs the hose, then I have to shake that one pellet out of the little hose.

 

[slls]

Leaf blower. LMAO.

 

[Xena]

Zeta had a good suggestion using a home made attachment
with a narrow hose on the end of the shop vac to reach difficult spots.

It wasn't really my suggestion. I got it from our good friend
Mike from ESW. I duct tape a skinny hose onto the end of
my Loveless drywall vac. The thing will suck the paint off
the walls if I'm not careful, so it pulls the junk from up in
behind the ash traps and beyond very good.

My question is where does the exhaust port on the stove
side of the combustion fan enter the stove. The schematic
from the manual does not illustrate the details.
Is it behind the fire wall with the ash trap doors ??

I have no clue. Just finished cleaning my stove and worked
a coathanger in the ash traps, all around in there.
The ports are probably at an angle that you just can't get
with a coathanger. Judging by the way the stove works,
the ports would have to be behind there to travel through
to the exhaust blower.

 

[BIG WATER]

The rest is a mystery. Until I completely disassemble the stove. That may be a while.

 

[krooser]

I'm going to have to get my leaf blower set-up put together to show you guys a simple way to keep your stove clean. Now that I replaced my broken camera I'll get some pix posted. Maybe this weekend...

 

[Xena]

Use the VACUUM side of the leaf blower and hook it up to the
end of your outside vent pipe. You use the leaf blower to SUCK
everything out of the stove. A 215 mph suck job works wonders.

edit: I saw you posted the above in mkmh's thread. Unfortunately
it won't work for setups like mine since I have a 15' vertical up the chimney
vent terminated at the top with a rain cap. Sounds like a good
option for those with a direct vent setup though.


krooser if you're going to take pics why not go one
step better and shoot a video of your leaf blower trick
being performed? Even though I won't ever do it, I think
many of us would enjoy watching the video.
(broken image removed)

 

[krooser]

Use the VACUUM side of the leaf blower and hook it up to the
end of your outside vent pipe. You use the leaf blower to SUCK
everything out of the stove. A 215 mph suck job works wonders.

edit: I saw you posted the above in mkmh's thread. Unfortunately
it won't work for setups like mine since I have a 15' vertical up the chimney
vent terminated at the top with a rain cap. Sounds like a good
option for those with a direct vent setup though.


krooser if you're going to take pics why not go one
step better and shoot a video of your leaf blower trick
being performed? Even though I won't ever do it, I think
many of us would enjoy watching the video.
(broken image removed)

Can you shoot video with a Kodak Instamatic? Who knew?

 

[tinkabranc]

This is the attachment I use with my ash vac to get into all the nooks
and crannies on the stove, it's especially useful for getting into the small
area under the burnpot where the ignitor lives.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006FKJGO?smid=AF8EGQ3KRZQB6&tag=dealt28625-20&linkCode=asn

 

[Xena]

Can you shoot video with a Kodak Instamatic? Who knew?

I guess I just assumed that most people who can afford
a luxury item like a pellet stove, own a digital camera with video mode.
Silly zeta.
(broken image removed)

 

[mkmh]

After reading kast's thread that described how the service guy used a leaf blower to thoroughly clean all the hidden spots.
Yep I tried it. It blew a small cloud of soot even though I had the door and ash pan closed. ( two hours dusting & mopping)

Zeta had a good suggestion using a home made attachment with a narrow hose on the end of the shop vac to reach difficult spots.

My question is where does the exhaust port on the stove side of the combustion fan enter the stove. The schematic from the manual does not illustrate the details.

Is it behind the fire wall with the ash trap doors ?? I fished a wire around in there and could not locate it from either end.

By the way. Stove works like new again. No lazy flame. Thanks alot

I also wonder where the exhaust port is, as it definitely isn't accessible with a coat hanger. This has to be where my stove was plugged when I was having problems last week, but the extreme Vac job with the shop vac and duct tape took care of it. This is pretty much the same as Krooser's trip, though i'm guessing I may not have achieved quite the same suction. Nevertheless, it was enough to dislodge whatever mess was in there, and teh stove it running better than it was in years.

 

[krooser]

Well, I juryrigged a vent adapter together this afternoon to allow me to clean my stove from the exhaust vent.

Took a few pix of the adapter, took pix while the leaf blower was sucking tons of ash outta the stove, too. Then I went into my office to download the pix to my computer only to find the camera (my new Instamatic) doesn't work with Windows 2000... crap.

So now I either buy a new computer with Vista, buy an Apple or find a camera that works with my OS.

By the way the stove cleaning went really well. Hint... don't aim the exhaust of the leaf blower at your wife's car that she just washed... don't ask me how I know!

Film at eleven...

 

[pastera]

I am going to try this on my Lennox Traditions. It looks like there are two exhaust ports at the bottom of the heat exchanger tubes that can't be cleaned by any means I can see.
Currently the stove seems to put out more heat on the right side than the left - it may be that the exhaust port on the left side is plugged.

Aaron

 

[krooser]

I am going to try this on my Lennox Traditions. It looks like there are two exhaust ports at the bottom of the heat exchanger tubes that can't be cleaned by any means I can see.
Currently the stove seems to put out more heat on the right side than the left - it may be that the exhaust port on the left side is plugged.

Aaron

One thing this deal won't clean out is any heavy creosote deposits. I'd try to get a coathanger or some romex electrical wire up inside the stove thru those "ports"... that may loosen things up allowing the suction to clean it up pretty good.

Good luck.

 

[kb richard]

Leaf blower worked great for blowing off the vacuum cleaner filter outside.