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Depends on the stove, the installation and other circumstances, of course. But in general, I would say the accumulation of creosote and the resulting decrease in draft.
BrotherBart said:
hahahah ........... Ye Ole' BB , back in action.
I think "lack of maintenence" covers a wide band of things and that statment says it best.
Since we have our stove and chimney "professionally" cleaned, our stove doesn't heat the house as well. The sweep was an idiot, but of course we didn't realize that until it was too late. He pushed all the gunk into the stove, did not disassemble the chimney pipe at all. We have a Hearthstone Phoenix with a chamber above the firebox where the air bends around into an area you can barely access at the top of the stove. He poked around from the front at the soot and creosote that dropped down and did who knows what. Any theories on what could have gone wrong? We took apart the chimney from the stove to the ceiling, there was gunk piled up in the pipe into the stove, so we made the idiot guy come back and actually remove the creosote/etc. However last winter the stove made the house warmer than it is doing now, our thermostat around the corners and down the hall would read 70+ when the stove was going for a while, now we never get the house as warm. We are burning similar wood and haven't done anything different with the windows or anything. We are trying to figure out what the problem is.
Dont know if this happened to you or if you took out the secondary burn chamber (SBC)........Some Like It Hot said:
When i cleaned my chimney i took out the secondary burn chamber and put a paper towel in the tub that supplies the SBC and after the stove was clean and the SBC was put back in i cleaned out under the stove and took the compressed air in the can for computers and blew out all the air inlets and even tho i put a paper towel in the air supply of the SBC gunk still got down inside the air tube.
I caught it before the first burn but can amagine that if the gunk was left in there the stove would of run half of what is supposted to.
Just some food for thought. ......................
Ok I had a phone chat with Bethel. BB you are very close on that one. The object of the phone call was to secure 3 stoves for hearth.com Donor program to get off the ground. They will be shipped next week.
According to this expert, overseeing 50,000 stoves made a year, is total through cleanning fly ash removal. Its fly ash that clogs secondary burn chambers, the air inlets, both secondary and primary. What I do is haul my stoves outside and blow them out. It can't be done in the home. Its PITA ,but you know what, they plain work better the run and opperate as they should.
With all the ash removed one can see the actual joints one can dab a spot with gasket refractory cement. One can see and check the air flow watching the ash cloud up and leave.
The cloud of ash, will expose all little leaks including gasket leaks. The average owner does not do enough to clean up their stoves. It might mean a little dissesembly
to get at nooks and crannys. We might have to be a bit inovative and duct tape a smaller diameter extention to our shop vac to get it into remote places
My chimney and stove smells during summer? Did you really make an effort to clean it out.? Ohers pay to have them cleanned and serviced.
Its ok to understand the extent to what is required , to achieve like new stove preformance. There is more than empting the ash bucket.
According to this expert, overseeing 50,000 stoves made a year, is total through cleanning fly ash removal. Its fly ash that clogs secondary burn chambers, the air inlets, both secondary and primary. What I do is haul my stoves outside and blow them out. It can't be done in the home. Its PITA ,but you know what, they plain work better the run and opperate as they should.
With all the ash removed one can see the actual joints one can dab a spot with gasket refractory cement. One can see and check the air flow watching the ash cloud up and leave.
The cloud of ash, will expose all little leaks including gasket leaks. The average owner does not do enough to clean up their stoves. It might mean a little dissesembly
to get at nooks and crannys. We might have to be a bit inovative and duct tape a smaller diameter extention to our shop vac to get it into remote places
My chimney and stove smells during summer? Did you really make an effort to clean it out.? Ohers pay to have them cleanned and serviced.
Its ok to understand the extent to what is required , to achieve like new stove preformance. There is more than empting the ash bucket.
I'd say that's true. We tend to focus on the stove and the chimney, but the outlet really accumulates a lot of fly ash over time. It was a messy job, but I used to disassemble the pipe and scoop out all the ash on my boiler once every couple of years, and was always surprised at how much had accumulated. Obviously, it was taking up vent space.
Eric Johnson said:
I agree as well. The top chamber of my stove had a bunch (and I mean a BUNCH) of ash when I went to clean the stove. Looked as though it had not been cleaned in some time. Draft improved instantly!!
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