First time this year. A few weeks ago I guess it was, Wife started the stove for this season while I was in my shop. I had intended to first do a deep clean, open it up, vacuum well. It's been running about perfect though, so I chose to watch and wait. Yesterday morning, I checked the ash pan (I do so every morning) ... there were some red clinkers in it, I figured must be short on combustion air volume coming through the holes in the burn pot and stove trying to keep hot by pushing more pellets in. I shut it off, let it do it's long cool down thing, and a couple hours after the last fan shut down, I got a small shop vac from out of the shop.
Stove was just "warm", no real heat in it. Emptied the ash pan out doors first, then I spun the wing nut type bolts a half turn loose on the access panel below the lip of the burn pot, lifted it loose, stuck a finger in .... it was plumb full of fine ash. Stuck hose in, almost instantly no ash left. I cleaned the heat exchanger tubes out, cleaned the now cool glass, cleaned the burn pot, and then my Wife put a hand full of pellets in with some starter gell on top, lit it, and after that got to burning well, hit the green "go" button. This morning, after burning maybe 30 pounds of pellets since .... was maybe a table spoon of fine ash in the ash pan.
I love this new Harmon Accentra burn pot I put on a coule years ago, even though it does have it's first row of holes a little further from the auger exit. Just means a slightly longer time to fill before air gets pulled through, but when the new start pile with flame hits that first row of holes, they go to town. When I mounted it, I added 4 holes on that short row to finish it out, and while it still has fewer holes than the OEM longer Vermont Castings Reliance burn pot did, the holes are slightly larger and I recall measuring then and figuring in area times hole numbers, will flow about the same volume of air. I love the larger access opening secured with wing type bolts .
Yeah, no issue, just bragging on the old stove. I've stockpiled an extra combustion / exhaust blower and a extra auger drive mortor with gearbox, have a good OEM thermocouple too. New flue a couple years ago. Old stove might see 50 years one day.
Stove was just "warm", no real heat in it. Emptied the ash pan out doors first, then I spun the wing nut type bolts a half turn loose on the access panel below the lip of the burn pot, lifted it loose, stuck a finger in .... it was plumb full of fine ash. Stuck hose in, almost instantly no ash left. I cleaned the heat exchanger tubes out, cleaned the now cool glass, cleaned the burn pot, and then my Wife put a hand full of pellets in with some starter gell on top, lit it, and after that got to burning well, hit the green "go" button. This morning, after burning maybe 30 pounds of pellets since .... was maybe a table spoon of fine ash in the ash pan.
I love this new Harmon Accentra burn pot I put on a coule years ago, even though it does have it's first row of holes a little further from the auger exit. Just means a slightly longer time to fill before air gets pulled through, but when the new start pile with flame hits that first row of holes, they go to town. When I mounted it, I added 4 holes on that short row to finish it out, and while it still has fewer holes than the OEM longer Vermont Castings Reliance burn pot did, the holes are slightly larger and I recall measuring then and figuring in area times hole numbers, will flow about the same volume of air. I love the larger access opening secured with wing type bolts .
Yeah, no issue, just bragging on the old stove. I've stockpiled an extra combustion / exhaust blower and a extra auger drive mortor with gearbox, have a good OEM thermocouple too. New flue a couple years ago. Old stove might see 50 years one day.
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