We are in our 4th season with our Napoleon NPS40- wow, time has flown!
We clean our stove well and regularly- usually once a day- and we tear it down and give it a "big clean" about twice a season, once in mid-season and then again at the end of burn season.
We have it "professionally cleaned" every other year or so just to get trained eyes on it, to see if we've missed anything. We always get compliments on the care we take with our stove.
When we do the "big clean" we take the Shop Vac outside and run the hose and extensions as far up the vent pipe as they will go. Our stove sits on a 45' angle in the room, so we have one 45' bend in our vent pipe inside. We can run the Shop Vac hose and extensions up as far as this bend, and we vacuum the other end of the vent pipe as best we can when we pull the combustion fan motor.
Yadda yadda yadda we clean the stove. We've never done the "leaf blower trick" until yesterday (yes, Christmas day, but it was all good!) however.
All our big "family Christmas" was done, and we were just hanging out at the house, so we decided to try our own version of the leaf blower trick. We have a direct vent out the side of the house, so we didn't have to get onto the roof. Our Shop Vac has better suction than our leaf blower on reverse, so we decided to use the Shop Vac as opposed to the leaf blower.
We waited until the stove was stone cold, then did a daily clean/vacuum as usual. My husband took the curved end piece off of the external terminus of the vent pipe. He ran the Shop Vac hose and extensions up the vent pipe and vacuumed the vent pipe out thoroughly. Then we fitted a plastic food container over the external end, one that was small enough that it would be snug over the vent pipe and allow for suction. My husband cut a small hole in the bottom of the container into which he could fit the end of the Shop Vac hose. We coupled the Shop Vac hose, the plastic food container and the external end of the vent pipe together snugly, opened the stove door, turned on the Shop Vac and let 'er rip.
Yeah- we were surprised at the amount of soot and ash that was deposited in the Shop Vac dust bin- especially since we'd already cleaned the stove and vacuumed out the vent pipe. In fact, we've already done a "big clean" this season, so it was even more surprising to get that much soot out of the stove.
When we started the stove back up, another big POOF of soot came out of the vent pipe- and-
The stove has been burning so much more cleanly since our version of The Leaf Blower Trick. It's burning like new now!
I'd been unhappy with the way the stove was burning, even though we keep it as clean as we do. It seemed that we could barely get 24 hours out of it before the burn pot started filling up with ash and the flame got lazy. When it's running well, the pellets burn to almost nothing before a new auger full of pellets drops- and that wasn't happening anymore, despite daily vacuuming, and meticulous vacuuming under the burn pot.
The (modified) Leaf Blower Trick seems to have solved that issue. I just got up with a bit of a sinus issue- went in and looked at the stove- and the burn pot is almost ash free. We are coming up on 24 hours of burn time and the burn pot is almost as clean and as free of residual ash as when we started the stove up yesterday. This is a big improvement.
Just wanted to hop onto the forum and sing your praises again, Pellet People! Without you, we would have never known about The Leaf Blower Trick, and we would have been scratching our heads (and calling the service guys out) when really, what we needed was simply to get the soot out of the nooks and crannies in the stove. Thank you again!
We clean our stove well and regularly- usually once a day- and we tear it down and give it a "big clean" about twice a season, once in mid-season and then again at the end of burn season.
We have it "professionally cleaned" every other year or so just to get trained eyes on it, to see if we've missed anything. We always get compliments on the care we take with our stove.
When we do the "big clean" we take the Shop Vac outside and run the hose and extensions as far up the vent pipe as they will go. Our stove sits on a 45' angle in the room, so we have one 45' bend in our vent pipe inside. We can run the Shop Vac hose and extensions up as far as this bend, and we vacuum the other end of the vent pipe as best we can when we pull the combustion fan motor.
Yadda yadda yadda we clean the stove. We've never done the "leaf blower trick" until yesterday (yes, Christmas day, but it was all good!) however.
All our big "family Christmas" was done, and we were just hanging out at the house, so we decided to try our own version of the leaf blower trick. We have a direct vent out the side of the house, so we didn't have to get onto the roof. Our Shop Vac has better suction than our leaf blower on reverse, so we decided to use the Shop Vac as opposed to the leaf blower.
We waited until the stove was stone cold, then did a daily clean/vacuum as usual. My husband took the curved end piece off of the external terminus of the vent pipe. He ran the Shop Vac hose and extensions up the vent pipe and vacuumed the vent pipe out thoroughly. Then we fitted a plastic food container over the external end, one that was small enough that it would be snug over the vent pipe and allow for suction. My husband cut a small hole in the bottom of the container into which he could fit the end of the Shop Vac hose. We coupled the Shop Vac hose, the plastic food container and the external end of the vent pipe together snugly, opened the stove door, turned on the Shop Vac and let 'er rip.
Yeah- we were surprised at the amount of soot and ash that was deposited in the Shop Vac dust bin- especially since we'd already cleaned the stove and vacuumed out the vent pipe. In fact, we've already done a "big clean" this season, so it was even more surprising to get that much soot out of the stove.
When we started the stove back up, another big POOF of soot came out of the vent pipe- and-
The stove has been burning so much more cleanly since our version of The Leaf Blower Trick. It's burning like new now!
I'd been unhappy with the way the stove was burning, even though we keep it as clean as we do. It seemed that we could barely get 24 hours out of it before the burn pot started filling up with ash and the flame got lazy. When it's running well, the pellets burn to almost nothing before a new auger full of pellets drops- and that wasn't happening anymore, despite daily vacuuming, and meticulous vacuuming under the burn pot.
The (modified) Leaf Blower Trick seems to have solved that issue. I just got up with a bit of a sinus issue- went in and looked at the stove- and the burn pot is almost ash free. We are coming up on 24 hours of burn time and the burn pot is almost as clean and as free of residual ash as when we started the stove up yesterday. This is a big improvement.
Just wanted to hop onto the forum and sing your praises again, Pellet People! Without you, we would have never known about The Leaf Blower Trick, and we would have been scratching our heads (and calling the service guys out) when really, what we needed was simply to get the soot out of the nooks and crannies in the stove. Thank you again!
