Hampton GC60, Black "Stuff" on the Inside?

[crizpynutz]

Hello, so this is my first full season burning with my stove. I had a few months at the end of last year where I burned about 1 ton. I still had an end of season cleaning done.

This year I have burned about a 1/2 ton of Hamer's and now about 8 bags of Okie gold pellets. I'm noticing that with the Okie I'm getting a black "soot" on the inside of the stove. I'm not sure if soot is the right term, but I can wipe it off with a rag or vacuum it so it's not sticky or anything, but it does coat the sides and firebox liner and is deep black.

First question is, is this okay, and second is, if not what do I need to do?

 

[crizpynutz]

Attaching some pics where you can see the "black" soot with ash sticking to it, the door already getting black. This is set on 5 manual as well right now. This just doesn't look right.

 

[crizpynutz]

Sorry for the sideways pics...

 

[crizpynutz]

So, I had it running (Hi/Low) on the thermostat which is how I've run the stove 90% of the time since I've owned it. I had the thermostat set at 70 but the stove couldn't seem to get the temp above 65. I turned it to manual, jacked it to setting 5 and after a half an hour it got to 70...but that seemed to max out a bit. The flame would rise and fall a bit as well. It chunked threw a bag of pellets in hours. All this within 24 hours of cleaning.

I noticed the dark/black ash/soot starting a week or so ago but at least the stove seemed to be working, so I cleaned it:

- took out all the parts (burn pot, burn pot liner, agitator, fire grate, firebox liner and baffle)
- I wiped down the interior of the stove with a dry towel and vacuumed everything I could get the hose access to from there
- I wiped down the glass using a glass stove top cleaner
- In total I have burned under 1 ton since the off-season cleaning by the service guy

I'm not an idiot, but I'm inexperienced and unsure what else to do. I basically shut down the stove last night and turned on my oil. I have a call out to the place I bought the stove and had it serviced, but they haven't been the most communicative and I'm having trouble getting help from them.