Need advice st Croix stove

[Josh2121]

Hey guys.
I'm seeking advice,
Currently I own a st Croix pellet stove. It heats up great in 1-2 heat settings although 3-5 the flame is huge and the ash accumulates quickly.
I do a full cleaning of my stove daily which take me about an 30 minutes. To my knowledge I clean and bang out everything. I've replaced gasket and the exhaust fan, and I have an outdoor air intake. It hasn't made a difference sadly.
Is there something Im not doing here?
Should I just get a new stove?
Any advice is appreciated thanks

 

[jzm2cc]

You didn't say if it's a corn burner or pellet, but all models suffer if not cleaned properly in exhaust channels.

Sounds like your stove is burning very rich due to low air flow.

A quick procedure is the leaf blower trick which sucks ash out of the stove. Look on YouTube for videos. Should help burning quality, in not then you'll need to manually clean exhaust channels behind burnpot. Also assuming your door and ash pan gaskets are in good shape.

 

[stovelark]

Definitely an air flow issue- StCroix's are not easy to clean. Take out all the traps and tap stuff loose inside thoroughly. Are you sure exh pipe is good and clean?? Does adjusting the air damper make any difference in how flame looks? If not, she has a clog most likely somewhere. Good luck, good heaters, but not an easy group of stoves to clean. What model??

 

[rona]

Hey guys.
I'm seeking advice,
Currently I own a st Croix pellet stove. It heats up great in 1-2 heat settings although 3-5 the flame is huge and the ash accumulates quickly.
I do a full cleaning of my stove daily which take me about an 30 minutes. To my knowledge I clean and bang out everything. I've replaced gasket and the exhaust fan, and I have an outdoor air intake. It hasn't made a difference sadly.
Is there something Im not doing here?
Should I just get a new stove?
Any advice is appreciated thanks

You still got junk in the exh system. Different ways of cleaning but one easy way is use a leaf blower to suck out from the exh pipe outside the house. Open the door of the stove inside the house and I tape the blower to your exh pipe outside and it will suck a huge amount of soot right through the stove leaviing it clean. You can use a rubber hammer and bang on the sides of the burning area that will loosen soot etc. You can also try shoving a flexible cable into the cleanout holes and tighten a drill on the end outside the stove turn the drill on at a low sped and it should gradually feed into the exh system. I have a picture of a St Croix sawed in half that shows basicall the inside of the stove and how it can get plugged. Onced you get it clean it is suggested you run it wide open as in number 5 for maybe half a hour once every couple weeks as this will blow out any accumulation of soot.

 

[alternativeheat]

Maybe one of the seasoned St Croix owners will chime in but I know that those stoves have an extra hatch or two to remove and wire out the ash that builds in the unseen chambers. This has been discussed in the forum in the past. Good stoves but they do need that extra cleaning step done periodically. It should not need cleaning every day though.

 

[heat seeker]

There are the two cleanout doors, one on each side of the burn pot. Newer stoves have another one behind the ash pan, near the top of the ash pan cavity. See your manual. The company's web site has a great cutaway photo of the stove, and you can get an idea of the airflow in the stove.

The sheet metal wall that's directly behind the faux brick has a second wall behind it, about 1" away. That runs the width of the stove, and can clog with ash. You can take the top baffle out, pull the tube scraper out, and use a mirror to see down into that passage. If you shine a light into the cleanout doorways, you should be able to see that light in the mirror.

Keeping the stove clean in quite easy, if done regularly. I run my exhaust blower and run a rod through the passages whenever I shut the stove down.

The Leaf Blower Trick works very well. So well that I haven't pulled my exhaust blower out in a couple of years. There was nothing in that cavity to clean. I may take it out this fall to clean the impeller, but it won't be necessary.

 

[MSmith66]

St. Croix stoves are a little difficult to clean, I post, years ago, a diagram of the passageway of a St. Croix pellet stove which did help a few folks. A newer Stove has a trap door in the ash area just above the back wall secured with 2 1/4" screws.

 

[alternativeheat]

It sounds like you have some hatches to take off and wire out. Should be behind the fire brick at the back of the stove. Not sure if the Prescott has the extra clean out hatch at the ash bin area or not. You can probably down load a PDF of the manual at StCroix's web site. I did that for each stove I was considering before we bought the P61.

 

[MSmith66]

Thank you for your input. I got some great advice here. I never heard of the leaf blower trick before. But I'll implement it this weekend.
Ive played with the damper, and it didn't help my cause. I pull out the exhaust fan weekly and give it a good cleaning
I'll include photos of what the inside and outside of my stove looks like. the model is prescott exl. I bought it used so I don't have physical owner manuals. I Have relied on this great site for help, and YouTube View attachment 201006 View attachment 201007

The damper in the back should only be opened a very little. The pencil test is the only opening you need. To much air will not do it any justice. Begin by opening the damper, the flapper should be at a 90 degree or horizontal. Place a #2 pencil into the tube and let it rest on the bottom of the tube, close the damper until the flapper touches the pencil and pull the pencil out. This is all the opening you should need. Before you perform this, you should have cleaned the area out behind the back wall. It is difficult to explain unless you talk to someone that has done it.
If the damper adjustment does not do the trick, please fell free to call me and I will talk you through it. Mike 315-651-0204