So I recently ran out of pellets, I was burning Genevas for the past year or so. Went down to the local tractor supply and samped a few bags of some other product. 2 bags of Instant Heat and 3 bags of Maines ( the bag with the picture of the stove on it). As soon as I began burning either of these sometime last week, I noticed a marked decline in the way my stove was running. It was smokey in the fire box, when normally there is absolutely zero smoke, and the flame was kind of "lazy"; looked kind of like a slow kindling campfire. I chocked it up to the pellets being a lesser quality as I had just given the stove a solid douching a few weeks prior. However, the other night I woke up from a nap on the couch to the burnpot overflowing with un-burned pellets, considerable smoke in the firebox and a tall weak flame. I Had not changed my typical settings, Manual control-approx. 70deg - fan speed high - feed rate about 4-5ish. This got me thinking something else had gone ary.
So i pull out the shop vac again today and give it another go, empty the ash pan, vacuum the whole inside, vacuum the fine trap in the back, pull the combustion fan cover, vacuum out the chute to the vent pipe (note this had a ton of crud in it and the ESP probe was significantly covered in creosote crud as well). cleaned all the air holes in the burnpot, no blockages there. Turn the stove back on, still running like crap. Take the shroud off the back and watch the combustion fan, spinning just fine. Remove fresh air intake connection from OAK, baffle opens and shuts perfectly fine and decent cold draft coming through the tube, run the stove with fresh air disconnected, still running like crap. Started thinking about door gaskets, cleaned both areas again, scraped areas where they would seat, but nothing notable. Held door closed more tightly than when just latched, but to no avail. still running like garbage. Figured I would check the venting outside and see whatsup. Significant smoke coming out from the top of the jet cap, which correlates to what Im seeing burning inside the fire box. HOWEVER, small screen at the terminus of the jet cap looks quite crudded up with ash and creosote, gave it a solid couple of taps with a broom handle and a good cloud of ash, smoke and black debris shot out all over the snow. Then proceeded to work up and down the entire run of vent with the broom handle until no more ash or debris shot out. Take a look inside at the stove and what do you know, no more smoke, flame returned to normal, and running strong. tomorrow I will make sure to give the whole ventilation a good reaming with one of those dryer vent brushes.
Just goes to show you, if you run into problems and are troubleshooting, you should probably go back to step one, and clean your stove again to completion, just like everyone says.
Just wanted to share the process with everyone on here. This is a great forum with a lot of great information. Lets keep it up.
So i pull out the shop vac again today and give it another go, empty the ash pan, vacuum the whole inside, vacuum the fine trap in the back, pull the combustion fan cover, vacuum out the chute to the vent pipe (note this had a ton of crud in it and the ESP probe was significantly covered in creosote crud as well). cleaned all the air holes in the burnpot, no blockages there. Turn the stove back on, still running like crap. Take the shroud off the back and watch the combustion fan, spinning just fine. Remove fresh air intake connection from OAK, baffle opens and shuts perfectly fine and decent cold draft coming through the tube, run the stove with fresh air disconnected, still running like crap. Started thinking about door gaskets, cleaned both areas again, scraped areas where they would seat, but nothing notable. Held door closed more tightly than when just latched, but to no avail. still running like garbage. Figured I would check the venting outside and see whatsup. Significant smoke coming out from the top of the jet cap, which correlates to what Im seeing burning inside the fire box. HOWEVER, small screen at the terminus of the jet cap looks quite crudded up with ash and creosote, gave it a solid couple of taps with a broom handle and a good cloud of ash, smoke and black debris shot out all over the snow. Then proceeded to work up and down the entire run of vent with the broom handle until no more ash or debris shot out. Take a look inside at the stove and what do you know, no more smoke, flame returned to normal, and running strong. tomorrow I will make sure to give the whole ventilation a good reaming with one of those dryer vent brushes.
Just goes to show you, if you run into problems and are troubleshooting, you should probably go back to step one, and clean your stove again to completion, just like everyone says.
Just wanted to share the process with everyone on here. This is a great forum with a lot of great information. Lets keep it up.
