Flu Lessons

[tbear853]

Sometimes we learn again, old lessons we once knew.

Lately my stove has been running "poorly", lazy flame, unburned pellets, black sooted door glass shortly after cleaning, you all know. I first thought was a flu issue, was looking to buy parts to change it, looked at correspondence with Bill A. here for ideas. I became convinced that maybe the TC was bad after all. I cleaned the stove, thought maybe was a door seal but tried a dollar bill, it was tight.

In reviewing my notes, etc. I saw where this old stove was running might near perfect last season. I had forgotten just how good. I tested both my TCs, have even got one on order .... but last night I retested them, both test great by testing for signal with changing heat and continuity. I know I can change my combustion blower any time now, it owes me nothing, it has a like new still fore box.

Still, every time we've tried it this season, we've shut it down. I knew was running great last season after some issues.

Yesterday I decided to clean the flue. It's out a wall behind the stove 3-1/4 feet counting a 45* adapter, a tee with cleanout cap outside, 5 feet straight up, a 90* turn and a horizontal termination. I was thinking of adding more vertical pipe. I have a 13 or so amp Craftsman 2 speed leaf blower / vacuum / mulcher, it's a two hand deal.

My cleanout cap is easily 5 feet off the ground. First I put the vacuum on the clean out, and my goodness, the huge black cloud that exited the blower nozzle. Then I put a round blower extension on it and stuck it up the cleanout well past the stove branch, hit high. 2nd cloud out the flu termination. I meant to vacuum it with stove doors open, but I can do the stove with a smaller vac.

Today I did a good stove clean since the stove was cold, vacuumed every thing, heat exchangers, combustion air supply, lower part of burn pot, got the glass squeaky clean, etc.

Stove is running into 4th hour now, there ain't a wooden cooking spoon worth of stuff in the ash pan, and most of what is there is from the starting.

About perfect.

I think part of it is the long non heating seasons allows one to forget the basics is part of it, and then like yesterday took me awhile to get the clean out tee cap off. I think was mainly very slight corrosion of the galvanized steel with the 4 indented slots where you insert and twist it 90 degrees to secure it. I coated all those surfaces with nickel anti seize and just pushed it up into the tee, no twist lock. I'll make a securing strap to make it easier getting off .... and then it'll be an easy 5 minute chore after shutting the stove off for a periodic clean.

 

[tbear853]

Is into hour 11 now, glass looks like I just cleaned it, A coffee cup would hold the ashes twice over. Thursday we were talking about just stop using it, maybe get someone to help move it out. We were talking about no more pellets to be hauled in, etc. Today (well, Friday) it's a different deal, it is good. I can come up with a way to move pellets easier, even if just using buckets so Wife con get them in if need be with no strain. She has brung bags in before, but I know the chore it is for her.

Lesson is "Clean that Flu".

 

[bogieb]

Yeah, we sometimes do need to get back to the basics. Had an oopsie with my P61a when I started it up for the season. I always unhook the OAK and the end with newspaper for the summer as well as bagging up over that. I had gotten the newspaper out when I reattached the OAK, but it was overfilling the firepot with pellets.

Finally decided to go thru the whole thing again (it had been running peachy last spring), so unhooked the OAK, looked up it and saw I'd also put in a piece of insulation prior to installing the newspaper. Once I removed that, it has been running great - imagine that

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Here’s a video of it!

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[tbear853]

That's a lot of dust there ................

 

[Burnin Since 1991]

Here’s a video of it!

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thank goodness no one has to breath that... oh wait

 

[tbear853]

Just thinking, planning. I've got an old round brush, it's a snug sliding fit through a pellet vent flue pipe. I'm not sure of what material the bristles are made of, but it was given to me by that stove dealer when I bought the stove, he didn't give me a pole, and my first flu setups would not have worked with a pole so easily anyway unless disassembled. I cleaned the pipe a few times, but between standing on a roof and disassembling dirty stove pipe, I was always a mess when finished. I even have extension lengths of 2.5" Shop Vac hose that I used a few times pushing upwards from below.

Initially, in 1992, my flu was a temporary assembly and it was a few years before I improved it as I enclosed the open carport leaving only one open end at the opposite side. Flu then was easily 12 feet straight up first through a roof and then past a second roof as it passed through a ring like bracket, and before I could clean it, had to take some of it apart to lower the vent cap just to remove it from the pipe.

The carports 3.5L12 roof was then easy to walk on shingles & I was younger. Sure ... it made for a good draft ... but cleaning it was a Royal PITA. I know I didn't clean it out every year, likely not even every second year at times. The carports 3.5L12 roof is now slick steel & I'm now older.

I now only have a 5 foot vertical flu pipe from the tee up, and then there is an easily removable terminating elbow. It turns 90* and terminates before reaching the first roof, easily reached on a ladder as it is maybe just over 11 feet from the ground below.

I could tie a 7+ foot piece rope to the brush, drop the rope through the pipe and tee with the bottom of tee clean out cap removed, then climb down the ladder, wrap an old tee shirt or other rag around the rope where it exits at the cleanout cap, secure the rag to the tee (string, zip tie, etc), and pull the brush downwards through the pipe, the rag controlling the flu dust. When the brush has been pulled through to the rag, simply let it and the rope and the rag drop into a pail held up underneath.

With the cleanout where it's at, I can also run one of the 2.5" flex hoses of my big shop vac into the branch that goes to the stove. Follow up with the big blower / vacuum .... & trash the by then black sooty rag.
Seams easier and safer to me.

 

[tbear853]

And yesterday I swapped on a box like horizontal flu cap in place of the old round tapered one, and the stove is breathing even better now. I did it as a test as no matter which way the round one was pointed, wind was fighting the stove. This new one has a sloped side facing any wind coming straight in at where the opening was, and I guess that slope deflects the wind up and over. Was a test, but looks like I'll add a brace now, it works so well.

I added the expanded mesh to keep birds out, it was painted already when I found it on the road side all those years ago.

 

[tbear853]

Water in clean out cap?

We were away for the Christmas with family, but just before Christmas, when I wrote the above post (#8), I forgot to ask about others maybe finding water in the SS clean out cap. I know moisture is a byproduct of combustion, I know it will condense on cold surfaces, like exhaust piping.

On the day I swapped that pictured vent cap up top, I had removed the SS cap on the lower end of my clean out tee. I neglected to say that I found that cap full of water, like you filled it under a faucet.

I had just had that cap off maybe 3 weeks earlier in first of December, cleaned it, and reinstalled it with the nickel anti seize on it, and we had run the stove on low maybe 2 weeks total since. If not for a cleanout tee, it'd been a mess. Attached for reference is a picture as it's existed since at least 2020 (changed after we re-roofed). I had a tapered horizontal termination on it, had experimented with a longer horizontal run (over that open carport window), but this what is now except the new "rectangle/trapezoid" horizontal cap that is now facing the camera (and which I braced before leaving)

Anyway, it surprised me at the quantity of water accumulation in just a few weeks, and I wondered if anyone else had seen such in such a short time? My old clean out cap had a couple small holes in it that let water drain, maybe I added them and simply forgot, you certainly would not want holes draining black sooty water in a house.

 

[Whitenuckler]

I could tie a 7+ foot piece rope to the brush, drop the rope through the pipe and tee with the bottom of tee clean out cap removed, then climb down the ladder, wrap an old tee shirt or other rag around the rope where it exits at the cleanout cap, secure the rag to the tee (string, zip tie, etc), and pull the brush downwards through the pipe, the rag controlling the flu dust. When the brush has been pulled through to the rag, simply let it and the rope and the rag drop into a pail held up underneath.

I cleaned my stove pipe for the first time since new this fall. I have a tee behind the stove (which is tucked into a corner of the basement) and a tee out side that is fairly low to the ground. I had bought a duct cleaning brush with rods kit (the type you screw together, then tape) and could be used in a drill. I tried it out but it was almost impossible to use it with just the caps off the cleanouts. No way I could use the drill. The only place I could use it easily was from the nozzle down. Next year I'm going to find a 4" SS brush (or synthetic??) and rig up a pull rope system. It's only a fine dust in there. I just want to make sure I clean and inspect every inch of it. For me the delicate part is past the combustion blower, and being careful arounf the ESP probe. I have bottle cleaning brush for there, and my small size shop vac hose can pass by to go into the tee.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Maybe your stove isn’t on long enough to heat the pipe long enough to evaporate the water? Does it short cycle a lot?