I tackled the sweeping today. It's been 3 yrs. I got 2 quarts of soot and sote which surprised me a bit. I was expecting under a quart. This may be because I tried out the DVL damper last season. It fits the flue collar too loosely and I think it was adding air to the pipe. It's out now so we'll see. The only work the stove has had done on it up to this point has been a door gasket. I knew that the baffle side insulation was breaking down and torn and some firebricks in the back were cracked from me slamming in long splits too hard. I will try to do better.
After sweeping, I removed and replaced the ratty baffle side insulation pieces. I used a generic, 1.5" ceramic wool from Lynn Mfg for this. We'll see how it does. I then replaced 3 rear firebricks with new pumice bricks. The side bricks are getting spalled and I think I may swap them for the floor bricks next year. The floor bricks look really good. Keeping an inch of ash on them seems to help protect them well. My 6 or 7? yr old homemade Hogwildz special baffle gasket was bunching up and broke apart so I pulled it. I will make a new one.
I wrapped it up before dark. That's all the bending my knees were going to take. I still want to remove the blower and clean it. I will do that soon when I make the new baffle gasket. We only use the blower when it's very cold out so no hurry there. The old gal is ready to burn and still looks good going on 14.
![[Hearth.com] Season 14](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/301/301294-7400501a1f100478e4d782002bfee882.jpg?hash=wG-PJAyATl "[Hearth.com] Season 14")
After sweeping, I removed and replaced the ratty baffle side insulation pieces. I used a generic, 1.5" ceramic wool from Lynn Mfg for this. We'll see how it does. I then replaced 3 rear firebricks with new pumice bricks. The side bricks are getting spalled and I think I may swap them for the floor bricks next year. The floor bricks look really good. Keeping an inch of ash on them seems to help protect them well. My 6 or 7? yr old homemade Hogwildz special baffle gasket was bunching up and broke apart so I pulled it. I will make a new one.
I wrapped it up before dark. That's all the bending my knees were going to take. I still want to remove the blower and clean it. I will do that soon when I make the new baffle gasket. We only use the blower when it's very cold out so no hurry there. The old gal is ready to burn and still looks good going on 14.
