How do I clean this?

[Curve]

I have a VistaFlame VF55. It's bee working GREAT I have been cleaning it about every 10 days. There is 1 area I haven't cleaned yet, and when I tried this evening, I can't get my ash vac attachment to fit. See picture below...any tricks on how to reduce the size of my vac attachment to fit this hole?

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Thump on the firebox wall and vacuum what falls.

Get a flexible shaft and insert it into the hole and attach a low speed drill and let it whip around and vacuum.

Attach a piece of flexible hose to your vacuum and run that around in there.

Attach a leaf blower in suction mode to the exhaust system and thump on the firebox wall. Use the flexible shaft and drill with the leaf blower vacuum running. Use an air compressor with the leaf blower vacuum running. Etc... and etc ...

In short plenty of elbow grease and application of suction.

 

[DexterDay]

^^ What he said ^^

Only thing I would add, is a small flexible shaft brush. Such as a dryer lint (for the inner lint trap) brush or refrigerator coil brush.

One like this one... Its by far my favorite brush. Fits in between the heat exchange tubes and cleans them well.

 

[JonSkow]

I have the VF100 FPI and have that same setup. I was thinking about the brush Dexter shows before I break down and get one of the cleaning kits. I bet the brush may work better.

 

[corkman]

that whole section is removable.loosen the other circle and then try to lift that panel upwards till it touches the pellet drop chute then pull forward.this will expose the combustion path which you can clean out aswell.its a bear to get out at 1st .if you have any anti seize on hand put a dab on the four tabs around the edge and it will be easier next time around

 

[P38X2]

Hardware store plumbing section. You should be able to find a PVC reducer in there. Then, go over to the plastic/rubber tubing section and get a length of hose that'll suit your needs. Usually this route is cheaper than looking for shop-vac branded accessories.

.....this info in addition to the above posts should have you more than covered.

 

[nailed_nailer]

Like Corkman said the whole lower panel will lift out for cleaning.
Makes it easy.

I also have made some Vac attachments for folks here.
It reduced the size of your vac hose down to about 1/2"
Easy to make or you could bodge one together with flex tubing and duct tape.
---Nailer---

 

[Curve]

that whole section is removable.loosen the other circle and then try to lift that panel upwards till it touches the pellet drop chute then pull forward.this will expose the combustion path which you can clean out aswell.its a bear to get out at 1st .if you have any anti seize on hand put a dab on the four tabs around the edge and it will be easier next time around

Thanks for all of the tips. I will have to try to pull this out next time Corkman. For now, I cut a small piece of 1/2 inch tubing and attached it to my hose vac. It got all of the visible ash.

 

[Eatonpcat]

As already stated above, remove that piece to clean behind it. Not the easiest piece to remove, but she will come out.

 

[corkman]

you will see the slider damper once you remove that piece.be sure to mark where it is set to before you move it to vac out the exhaust path.then reset to where it was

 

[Eatonpcat]

you will see the slider damper once you remove that piece.be sure to mark where it is set to before you move it to vac out the exhaust path.then reset to where it was

What do you use to mark it, I've tried a sharpie, and scratching a line and neither works very well??

 

[JHASS]

That panel comes off, on mine I have to use a flat blade screw driver to get it started.
I scribed a line on the damper so that I could get it back into position. Makes it easy to get
a 3" brush in there to clean out the pipe up to the fan, then the vac hose fits right in.