I've been burning Somerset premium grade hardwood pellets in my Harmon from the time it was new 2 years ago and I always vacuum and clean the entire inside of the stove, exhaust blower area and fan, and exhaust vent piping. Two days ago I started getting a real bad toxic odor that smelled like plastic burning and seemed to be coming from the back of the stove, around the vent piping. I shut it down and did a thorough cleaning/vacuuming and removed the vent pipe cleanout cap and knocked a bunch of what looked like dried creosote out. I cleaned it all out, cleaned the stove inside and turned it back on. After about an hour the odor returned so I had to shut it down again. I've never had any problem with this stove before but I noticed the bags of pellets seem to have more sawdust then usual in this last ton I've been burning.
What can cause this kind of odor from these stoves? If it's creosote, do I need to disassemble all of my vent piping to be sure it's 100% clean? Could I have some bad pellets?
My flame is burning good, not lazy so there doesn't seem to be a draft problem.
One other thing is that in the past month or so the stove has shut itself down a couple times for no apparent reason. All I do is vacuum, restart and all seems fine until now with the odor.
Thanks guys
What can cause this kind of odor from these stoves? If it's creosote, do I need to disassemble all of my vent piping to be sure it's 100% clean? Could I have some bad pellets?
My flame is burning good, not lazy so there doesn't seem to be a draft problem.
One other thing is that in the past month or so the stove has shut itself down a couple times for no apparent reason. All I do is vacuum, restart and all seems fine until now with the odor.
Thanks guys