Just wondering what needs to be done on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. Just started the last few days. I just shut er down and sweep it all out with a shop vac after a couple of hours. Thanks for all your help.
Stove Cleaning - Help Out an Old Retired Man With Serenity !
- Thread starter Hiskid
- Start date
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bostonfan49
Minister of Fire
Hi there! I’m an old retired geezer myself!
You need to tell us:
Name and age of stove!
A picture if you can.
When did the stove last run and do you have Any problems?
Owners of your type stove will chime in with the best cleaning schedule.
Welcome.....Bill
New Castle Serenity
Just started after I vacuumed it out. Had an issue with smoke so I booted the exhaust fan voltage up 5v and it cleared up.
Thanks for the welcome.
Ssyko
Minister of Fire
Hi Hiskid, welcome
here is you stove's manual with the MFG's recommended maint on pg's 30-33
https://www.tractorsupply.com/static/sites/TSC/downloads/ProdContentPDFs/1172309_Man1.pdf
here is you stove's manual with the MFG's recommended maint on pg's 30-33
https://www.tractorsupply.com/static/sites/TSC/downloads/ProdContentPDFs/1172309_Man1.pdf
Thanks. I had downloaded and read that. I was thinking more of tips/hints that others learned from experienced cleaning
If you find a pellet that burns clean and don't clog up the burnpot there is no need for daily cleaning and you could actually scrape the pot without shutting the stove down. Where the Serenity is awesome is that there isn't much to clean other then dumping the ash pan and vacuuming the firebox as needed. Every ton it's suggested to remove the exhaust blower and clean it along with the exhaust vent. For me I found it too soon at a ton and went 2 ton.
There are pellets that burn that clean ? I just have Lowe's,TSC and HD in a ten mile radius. They have $5.19 bags. Lowe's does offer another premium pellet for a dollar more. Scrape the pot while running. Doesn't that remove the fire ?
Yes there are pellets that burn that clean combined with getting the stove dialed in. Don't waste the money on the green teams though they are just an average pellet.When scraping the pot you just leave a few burning pellets in the pot to keep the fire going.
Who would sell these other pellets ? Not sure what the other Lowe"s brand is. I'm on a fixed income so I don't want to pay much more for a bag. I'm home so I don't mind shutting it off when the sun is warming the porch. Will the cheaper pellets hurt the stove ? So you open the door while it's burning with a metal spoon or something and scoop some chunks out into the ash bin. Do you have a you tube video ?
Who would sell these other pellets
stove shops usually have good options
Will the cheaper pellets hurt the stove
no
yes that is how I scrape the pot, sorry I don't have a video but I would like to put a serenity video series together some time
stove shops usually have good options
Will the cheaper pellets hurt the stove
no
yes that is how I scrape the pot, sorry I don't have a video but I would like to put a serenity video series together some time
I got a quick question. I have my stove torn down for cleaning and I pulled the exhaust fan out of the stove. The paper seal or backing on the exhaust fan ripped up a bit, some staying on the fan backing plate and some sticking to the stove. Do I tear this off and seal it up with something else like high temp RTV?
alternativeheat
Minister of Fire
I don't know why the Serenity would be a whole lot different from the Harman P series stoves. I shut the p61 down every couple of weeks to clean moving parts and dump the ash pan, otherwise I just turn it down low or wait till it goes on it's own low cycle, and take an old paint brush and quickly brush down the ash from the heat exchanger and sides of the stove and the shelf that's inside the stove right into the ash pan when using box store ashy pellets ( hint, wear gloves). I scrape the pot every few hours, you just scrape right under the hot coals and not scrape them out. Scrape the ash off into the pan. Harman stoves ship with a tool to scrape the pot with, it sucks but they supplied one at least. I went to Harbor Freight and bought a good beefy screw driver to scrape the carbon off the pot with. Works great. The pot configuration might be different on the Serenity, the Harman builds an ash line ahead of the burning pellets as they get pushed out.
The really clean burning pellets are usually some softwood but often Douglas Fir and on the east coast usually fairly expensive if you can find them at all. If you can find them, American Wood Product Pure White Pine are not too pricey and very hot burning. In my Harman when I burned these they left basically no residue on the burn pot and what ash was there blew off when I opened the door. I want to say the BTU per lb rating was 8600btu, where the box store BTU ratings tend to run from 7800 to 8000 btu. DF's can get close to 8700-8900btu. Energex softwood, not the hardwood but softwood, deliver a little less ash than the box store pellets and 8200btu. I think the Hardwoods are 8600 but more ash. Green Supreme that Lowes sells here are fairly low btu, they work fine in shoulder season but I wouldn't want to try and heat my house with them in cold weather. I never burned the Green Teams because the stats on the bags suck as bad as any other box store pellet and they want a buck more for them for some reason. TSC gives good heat and high ash, but they may be different here than there, here they are supplied by Maine Wood Products.
I've noticed recently that some brands of pellets are not putting the stats on the bags, Energex being one such producer, I went to their web site and got them there...
Spruce Pointes are moderate ash, not too bad but 8600 or maybe even 8700 btu ( it's been a few years since I burned them). They have a nice fresh evergreen smell to them vs some old chemical pressboard smell. Energex Soft similar but not as strong a smell.
The really clean burning pellets are usually some softwood but often Douglas Fir and on the east coast usually fairly expensive if you can find them at all. If you can find them, American Wood Product Pure White Pine are not too pricey and very hot burning. In my Harman when I burned these they left basically no residue on the burn pot and what ash was there blew off when I opened the door. I want to say the BTU per lb rating was 8600btu, where the box store BTU ratings tend to run from 7800 to 8000 btu. DF's can get close to 8700-8900btu. Energex softwood, not the hardwood but softwood, deliver a little less ash than the box store pellets and 8200btu. I think the Hardwoods are 8600 but more ash. Green Supreme that Lowes sells here are fairly low btu, they work fine in shoulder season but I wouldn't want to try and heat my house with them in cold weather. I never burned the Green Teams because the stats on the bags suck as bad as any other box store pellet and they want a buck more for them for some reason. TSC gives good heat and high ash, but they may be different here than there, here they are supplied by Maine Wood Products.
I've noticed recently that some brands of pellets are not putting the stats on the bags, Energex being one such producer, I went to their web site and got them there...
Spruce Pointes are moderate ash, not too bad but 8600 or maybe even 8700 btu ( it's been a few years since I burned them). They have a nice fresh evergreen smell to them vs some old chemical pressboard smell. Energex Soft similar but not as strong a smell.
Thanks for that info. Almost as god as wisdom and understanding ;^). God bless.
alternativeheat
Minister of Fire
I'm always up for a blessing as I need all I can get, thank you ! God Bless you too.
FWIW, LG Granules, Energex Softwood, LaCrete and Spruce Pointe are all softwood pellets with pretty high btu ratings and I want to say .5% ash content. Most box store pellets have at least 1% ash content. AWFPWP have .2% ash as do DF's. But ash content is not the whole story of the left behind content of after burn. There can be other particulates in there as well. Sometimes a .5% ash pellet can make more mess than a 1%. And sometimes one 1% pellet can be way worse than another 1% pellet because of other junk in the pellets ( less pure). Of course too, lower btu requires more lb per hour to burn for the same heat of higher btu pellets, thus using more pellets and also leaving behind the resulting ash..
Then there is the idea of how a specific stove and setup processes the pellets into heat as well. One stove and setup might heat well and just perform with a brand another stove hiccups on.. I do believe that both Harman and Serenity burn about any pellet if you can stand either the volume used or the mess of some brands of pellets. I had one brand here that filled my ash pan in 4 days, burning a good white pine or Douglas fir pellet I can go 5 weeks before dumping the pan. Average for a decent box store pellet is about 3-4 weeks but since I clean the stove in two and have the pan out anyway, I often dump it then. But with that off brand pellet I had no choice, that is a mighty dirty pellet. The two worst pellets for my stove so far are Pennington and Natures Own. But that's my stove, one guy on here loved Natures Own !
here is my pot scraper, it's a stainless spatula that I cut the sides down to make it more narrow
My local ace hardware has the AWF pines for 249 a ton so that may be a pellet for Hiskid to try if he has an ace nearby
Deezl Smoke
Feeling the Heat
I have found this very same thing. My 100% douglas fir soft wood pellets burn well enough and the stoves are set for them close enough, that a quick scrape of the burn pot at each shut down is the only daily. I live in western Oregon near Portland so our winters are normally mild and I have to shut down for an hour or two each day or be cooked out of the drafty house. Last year we did have a record cold spell when it got down to about 5 degrees F for several days. But even then, as I have two stoves, I'd start the other one and shut the one running down.
Maybe every 10 bags or so, I'll get out the vacuum and pull the burn pot and ash pan. Vacuum all that is accessible and wipe the window down and dry it. About every other one of these cleanings, I will use the little brush on on of the vacuum attachments and brush the walls down inside the stove. It's surprising how much ash dust builds up and when it does, it creates and insulation effect not allowing the heat to transfer to the metal of the stove as it should.
After a season and a half, I pulled the exhaust motor on one stove, and it was near factory clean so I have not pulled the other as of yet. But then, I have so little horizontal piping and it is directly out of the bottom of the stove, that the exhaust blower does a great job keeping the chimney clean. Your results may vary however.
I think I've only emptied the pellet hoppers once to clean. Probably should again soon, but I keep the last 2 or 3 pounds of pellets in each bag and run them through a course screen colander to remove the settled fines. At first it seemed like a pita to ad a step, but now it is so simple I dont even think about it, I just do it.
I also find that at the beginning if my season, I take the burn pot out to the shop and use a drill bit that just fits one of the side holes, and drill the carbon build up out of the rest of the holes. The holes in the bottom of the burn pot will build up over time and start to close off. This is hard carbon, but still easy to clean with a drill bit or similar. Just dont remove metal with the bit. If you use a drill, you should not see any shiny metal being removed. You can also use a small round file or any other sort of hole cleaner.
Basically, I am comfortable enough with my serenity stoves, I can determine cleaning schedule by feel. They are very forgiving in this respect. At least mine are with the pellets I burn and the way I run them. But they do need to be treated with respect as they are a fuel burning fire containment.
These brushes work well to clean the burn pot. You can get them on eBay or Amazon. I've been using one for a couple of years on my Serenity.
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Thanks. It appears to seal up fine with the original paper gasket so I will leave it for now till next major cleaning session.
To the OP, I have tried a few pellets from tractor supply, home depot, lowes, and Agway. I have found that Appalachian Pellets from Agway burn the best in my Serenity and they are $219 per ton. There is about a quarter to half inch of ash per day.
As for cleaning, I do pretty much what Rich said except my stove only needs deep cleaned once per season. I only run it when I am home. I have a medium size pry bar that I use to scrape the pot when it is burning.
Be sure to do this if you have not already: