Preventing soot build up on wood stove glass

[Hb2cents]

Hi all!

I've noticed this post on my blog has received lots of attention as of late (via google). I thought I would share with folks that are super keen on the topic

http://hb2cents.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/experiment-preventing-soot-build-up-on-wood-stove-glass/

I'm curious if anyone else has tried something similar or has other methods to share. Maybe share them on my blog for those visiting to benefit from. And feel free to point back to this community.

Cheers!

Heather

 

[begreen]

Welcome Heather. Keeping glass clean in a modern stove is usually easy if the stove is run properly. I clean our glass maybe once a month and that is to remove a haze and not a dark soot build up. You hit the nail on the heat with the suggestion to burn well seasoned wood. That allows for a hot fire. The other trick is to not smolder the fire. Modern EPA stoves are designed to minimize this possibility but if the wood is not quite dry it is possible to have a smokey fire in a modern stove. If you see smoke coming out of the stack once the stove is warmed up it is not burning cleanly. If the glass does get sooted up, burning a hot fire will usually burn off the accumulated soot.

I'm not sure about using cornstarch as a cleaner but can't see any harm. Many use wood ash on a lightly damped paper towel. There are also some good glass cleaners that polish the glass and supposedly help it stay cleaner. One is Rutland's stove glass cleaner. This is what I use. It doesn't take a lot. A bottle will last longer than I will.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Welcome to the forum Heather.

For sure good dry wood is the key to clean glass. Like begreen, we get some fly ash on the window and have to clean it occasionally but we never get any black.

Cornstarch is a new one on me. Hopefully some on this forum will give that a try, especially on the BK stoves which are notorious for black glass.

 

[Sprinter]

As I understand it, you're not cleaning the window with corn starch, but just to powder the window to prevent a buildup? Yes, the Blaze King users here may be especially interested in trying it. I would think it would tend to scorch, but it sounds worth a try.

You're dead right about the dry wood. Last season I was burning less than optimum wood and had some blackening after each fire. This year my wood is much better and after a couple weeks of burning, I have no darkening at all to speak of.