Confusion over self-cleaning burn pots?

[wilyum]

Is the maintenance on these types of pellet stoves that much less than stoves without agitators? Cant you routinely stir the ashes yourself a few times a day with a poker, in essence, doing the same thing an agitator is doing? My worry is having to shut down and cool the stove each day for a couple hours to clean the pot when its -40 outside...small cottage no with no back up heat, things will cool down quite quickly.

 

[Bioburner]

Some stoves can go weeks without tending nothing more than keeping the hopper full. What if one wants to leave for a weekend? Bottom feeders are good for this but a couple stoves have a bottom that opens and drops the buildup and restarts,Mt.Vernon. Some just go into a high fire and blow out the ash several times a day. Ecotech. The more hands off you want of your stove usually the more the cost but importing of Chinese stoves with fancy controllers is challenging the market. Hardly ever necessary to let a stove go cold before tending and cleaning.

 

[rona]

I have owned a Quad AE and a Bixby which are both considered self clean pots. The AE cools down a little and dumps the pot then relights the pot and resumes burning. The Bixby slices off the top which normally saves the fire and drops the ash in the ash bucket then the top fuel that is still burning drops into the pot and keeps burning as fuel is dropped on top of the flame. The only time the fire goes out is about every 3 weeks when I shut down to clean the unit otherwise I add fuel to the hopper on the go as well as removing the ash bucket and dumping it on the go. It has a safety switch that prevents it from dumping unless the ash drawer is in position. The Harman PC45 could be called a self cleaning pot as the pot is fueled from the back and pushes the ash towards the front which falls into the ash bucket

 

[wilyum]

We dont even turn our stoves off to clean out and I would expect that is the case with most stoves. At worst it only needs to be off for 5 minutes

This makes sense to me, not sure why most manuals say the stove needs to be off and cool, guess for added safety. How do you clean it while its running, just break up and turn the coals like the agitator does?

 

[Bioburner]

Most stoves for safety, will trigger shutdown if the door is open for very long because the vacuum switch opens and the stove thinks venting blockage or other safety issue. I have a stove that if the door is open for more than 15 seconds will go to shutdown mode. Most will go for half minute or so, enough to give the pot a quick poke or scrape.

 

[wilyum]

bottom/back feed, air burst, trap door pot, agitator, that pretty much sums up the self-cleaning options out there? Besides the burn pot, is the maintenance schedule pretty much the same from unit to unit? all things being equal like pellet quality, on/off setting, etc.

 

[TimfromMA]

Most stoves for safety, will trigger shutdown if the door is open for very long because the vacuum switch opens and the stove thinks venting blockage or other safety issue. I have a stove that if the door is open for more than 15 seconds will go to shutdown mode. Most will go for half minute or so, enough to give the pot a quick poke or scrape.

I have an ash vac. I about every 10 bags or so, I will quickly open the door and vacuum out excess ash that has built up around the burn pot. I will also give the ash pan a quick vacuuming.

 

[Bioburner]

No the stove maintenance recommendations are from daily to monthly. You can download most stove operations manuals online to further your knowledge. Some of us tweak regularly to get the most out of our pellets heat, some just want to feed and forget. There are stoves out there that have little changed for when they were introduced in the 80s

 

[TimfromMA]

Usually, the igniter is the firs thing to go bad. I keep a spare igniter on hand and have familiarized myself with how to replace it because you just know it's going to fail at 2AM in a blizzard with -20 windchill with noone available to fix it for several days.

 

[Bioburner]

Bone up on or practice a manual start. Darn hard to beat a good torch. I like a Bernzomatic TS4000. Abit spendy but sure beats being cold.

 

[TimfromMA]

I have never manually lit a pellet stove. This one is my first and the igniter has never failed.

 

[Bioburner]

I have never manually lit a pellet stove. This one is my first and the igniter has never failed.

You just jinxed yourself. Better make an order for one now

 

[hockeypuck]

MAP gas (yellow bottle) works great in a jamb. Have not bought propane torches in forever. Be careful with MAP gas.. it is hotter and gives off bad fumes.

 

[Bioburner]

Well the 20-30 seconds it takes to get a ball of pellets the size of a walnut glowing good is a small firing of acetylene-propane. Been using the same bottle for all kinds of other purposes for over seven years.

 

[MountainSean]

My old Whitfield has no igniter. I used a propane torch for the first year and a half but wasn't really happy with it. I switched to a butane cooking torch, the type you would use for Crème Brulee, and it works great. Takes maybe 30-45 seconds to get a small fire going, then just close the door and hit start.

To the OP: A self cleaning burnpot can be a good thing and a bad thing. Good because it reduces the work you have to do to maintain your stove unless you like that sort of thing (I do) and bad because it is just something else to break and expensive to fix. For maintenance on my stove all I do is shut it down once a week, scrape the grate, empty the ash and start it up. The longest I went was 10 days without any cleaning and while my grate was just as clean as day 1 there was enough ash in the stove that it came pouring out when I opened the door. That owes more to the low ash capacity of my stove rather than the ash content of my pellets and your mileage will vary on how much maintenance you have to do.

 

[TimfromMA]

I'm not sure ho I would do a manual start on my St Croix if the igniter died. Normally when I push start, the stoves runs the blowers checking to make sure everything is sealed. It will then fill the burnpot with pellets then activate the igniter. If I were to do a manual light, do I wait until the stove fills the burnpot then hit it a torch? Should I start a small filer first then hit start? If I do this, will it be smothered when the stove dumps a whole bunch of pellets in very quickly during its normal start up?

I dont know.

 

[MountainSean]

I'm not sure ho I would do a manual start on my St Croix if the igniter died. Normally when I push start, the stoves runs the blowers checking to make sure everything is sealed. It will then fill the burnpot with pellets then activate the igniter. If I were to do a manual light, do I wait until the stove fills the burnpot then hit it a torch? Should I start a small filer first then hit start? If I do this, will it be smothered when the stove dumps a whole bunch of pellets in very quickly during its normal start up?

I dont know.

Hit the start button then wait until it dumps a bunch of pellets then open the door and fire them off. I am not sure on a St. Croix if the open door will turn the unit off or just cut the auger feed as they are a brand I don't deal with personally but most brands will just stop the auger motor if the stove passed the initial vacuum check. If you don't want the blow torch route or are worried about leaving your door open during a start up cycle you could just squirt some alcohol based hand sanitizer on the pile of pellets and light them with a match which takes about 5 seconds to do.

 

[Bioburner]

Our Ecoteck is similar to the Hastings in startup cycle from what I read of your manual. I wait till the pellets have loaded and open the door and shove the torch into the pile of pellets and get a bunch of the pellets about the size of a walnut glowing-burning and shut the door down watching for the pile to ignite sometimes feathering the door a bit to not snuff out the fire. Took a couple attempts to figure out the right sequence.

 

[Bioburner]

few idiot fueled pranks

Good grief, restriction on hand sanitizer? They would go totally nuts if they seen-knew what can be done with powdered coffee creamer or milk replacer.

 

[Bioburner]

Its used as a special effect for movies etc to simulate bombs and gas explosions. Scare the $%&# out of firework crowds as it is both some noise as well intense heat.

 

[SwineFlue]

I'm not sure ho I would do a manual start on my St Croix if the igniter died. Normally when I push start, the stoves runs the blowers checking to make sure everything is sealed. It will then fill the burnpot with pellets then activate the igniter. If I were to do a manual light, do I wait until the stove fills the burnpot then hit it a torch? Should I start a small filer first then hit start? If I do this, will it be smothered when the stove dumps a whole bunch of pellets in very quickly during its normal start up?

I dont know.

Like Bioburner said, it may take several attempts to learn the proper technique for your stove. Practice it a few times until you know that you'll be able to light it if/when the ignitor dies.

 

[TimfromMA]

Do tell what can be done with that?

I take it you've never seen Mythbusters.