Gave the neighbors a good soot bath... sorry no pix from THAT... I was too busy having fun with the leaf blower AND 140 psi of compressed air...
I was amazed that after I did my usual 'after one ton' routine... I vacuumed everything I could find, sucked out the ash with the leaf blower all the while tapping the firebox sides, using a bottle brush to clean out the ash traps... after all of that I fired up the leaf blower again and used compressed in every place inside the stove... an amazing amount of ash was still hiding in every nook and cranny.
I did a little personal experiment this year... after my shortened heating season ended in late feb. when we started a major living room remodel, I temporarily put my stove on my front porch... under cover but not covered up with a tarp or anything. I didn't clean it, either. I've always heard the advice to throughly clean everything before you shut the stove down for the summer... so I did the exact opposite. I did nothing...
I can hear the gasps already... yeah I know it's an expensive piece of equipment that deserves my care and attention but I wanted to know how bad the stove would get without doing a spring cleaning nor providing any sort of preventative maintenance. I'm happy to report that the stove looks pretty darn good inside... the soot got a little 'heavy'... no doubt from picking up moisture (a late spring snow actually buried part of the stove for a day!). Everything else looks perfect... I guess the way I treated it would be no worse than sticking it in an unheated garage or a damp basement. Now I know.
There's a little surface rust on some of the outside surfaces... pretty minor. I bought some good stove paint from my dealer and will sand it and give it a shot of color. Should be ready for a test burn tonite... anybody else run their stove in their driveway?
I was amazed that after I did my usual 'after one ton' routine... I vacuumed everything I could find, sucked out the ash with the leaf blower all the while tapping the firebox sides, using a bottle brush to clean out the ash traps... after all of that I fired up the leaf blower again and used compressed in every place inside the stove... an amazing amount of ash was still hiding in every nook and cranny.
I did a little personal experiment this year... after my shortened heating season ended in late feb. when we started a major living room remodel, I temporarily put my stove on my front porch... under cover but not covered up with a tarp or anything. I didn't clean it, either. I've always heard the advice to throughly clean everything before you shut the stove down for the summer... so I did the exact opposite. I did nothing...
I can hear the gasps already... yeah I know it's an expensive piece of equipment that deserves my care and attention but I wanted to know how bad the stove would get without doing a spring cleaning nor providing any sort of preventative maintenance. I'm happy to report that the stove looks pretty darn good inside... the soot got a little 'heavy'... no doubt from picking up moisture (a late spring snow actually buried part of the stove for a day!). Everything else looks perfect... I guess the way I treated it would be no worse than sticking it in an unheated garage or a damp basement. Now I know.
There's a little surface rust on some of the outside surfaces... pretty minor. I bought some good stove paint from my dealer and will sand it and give it a shot of color. Should be ready for a test burn tonite... anybody else run their stove in their driveway?
