Good afternoon everyone, I am now the proud owner of a second quadrafire Santa Fe. My small Maryland rancher now has one (first one 2 yrs ago) in the finished basement and a new one on the first floor, and I am off the grid and loving it. I am vested in taking the best care of these stoves and had concerns for best performance.
I have no problems with either one, and maintain them over and above the usual schedule - clean daily, complete vacuum weekly. Clean ash pan 2x/wk, clean feeder monthly. PM once a year by technicians prior to shut down. I run both on high right after cleaning for 30 min to keep creosote down, but they usually burn 24/7 on low occasionally med. Temp set at 68-70ish. Using Penwood pellets (new to me, the old ones were mixed soft/hard and I liked them, but they were dc'd). I do not like the Penwoods so far (1 ton) they burn with lots of tough clinkers, may upgrade to Henry County?,,, Will burn 3 tons this year but maybe 4 next.
Questions
1. I have not had the chimney cleaned on the first one. The new one is too new to need it. The techs that do the pm would be ideal, but they don't usually do that. Should the chimney be cleaned yearly by a chimney sweep professional now that I will rely on these exclusively? Should I do it myself? Dont want to damage anything, and want it done right.
2. The basement one burns more than upstairs in that basement is below ground and cooler. Heat moves upstairs on a temperate day. It maintains on low. Upstairs kicks off frequently because of that now it is early spring. I think because of this I may be concerned of creosote build up on this one. Is running on high each day enough to cure that concern or should I be worried about build up?
3. Opinion on pellets?
Long post, apologies. However, when I had no heat for 10 days and it was 9 degrees out, the downstairs unit saved our butts, as did the kind responses and support from this forum. Many thanks for that!
I have no problems with either one, and maintain them over and above the usual schedule - clean daily, complete vacuum weekly. Clean ash pan 2x/wk, clean feeder monthly. PM once a year by technicians prior to shut down. I run both on high right after cleaning for 30 min to keep creosote down, but they usually burn 24/7 on low occasionally med. Temp set at 68-70ish. Using Penwood pellets (new to me, the old ones were mixed soft/hard and I liked them, but they were dc'd). I do not like the Penwoods so far (1 ton) they burn with lots of tough clinkers, may upgrade to Henry County?,,, Will burn 3 tons this year but maybe 4 next.
Questions
1. I have not had the chimney cleaned on the first one. The new one is too new to need it. The techs that do the pm would be ideal, but they don't usually do that. Should the chimney be cleaned yearly by a chimney sweep professional now that I will rely on these exclusively? Should I do it myself? Dont want to damage anything, and want it done right.
2. The basement one burns more than upstairs in that basement is below ground and cooler. Heat moves upstairs on a temperate day. It maintains on low. Upstairs kicks off frequently because of that now it is early spring. I think because of this I may be concerned of creosote build up on this one. Is running on high each day enough to cure that concern or should I be worried about build up?
3. Opinion on pellets?
Long post, apologies. However, when I had no heat for 10 days and it was 9 degrees out, the downstairs unit saved our butts, as did the kind responses and support from this forum. Many thanks for that!
. You have come to the right place for the questions you ask, a clean stove is a happy stove
![[Hearth.com] maintenance advice for me? Thank you!](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/98/98566-75b5e6d1e3813ab767a4e556b70b5af3.jpg?hash=iZpC7LgzVs "[Hearth.com] maintenance advice for me? Thank you!")
