Hello,
Can anyone provide any insight into why my Whitfield Pellet Insert might be producing fewer and coarser ashes than before? I have a Whitefield Profile 30-INS and after technicians came to troubleshoot a problem last year, the consistency of the ashes changed. I used to have to clean the stove's ash catch much more often than I do now and the ash was much finer than now. I am burning the same Lignetics pellets as I had previously.
Some background: the stove was installed in a pre-fab fireplace and so the installing company told me I'd need a new stove pipe for the stove. When I balked at the additional $1000 for the pipe, they told me they could put in a few feet of pipe above the flue. The flue was sealed and a plate with a hole for the pipe was put in. They also (after they realized the chimney could never be cleaned as a result of their installation) put in a t-cleanout off of the stove pipe. I empty this regularly, but its never more than 1/5 full of fine ashes. The fine ash that is in the clean out used to make up all or the majority of the ash that was in the stove's ash catch. It now seems that there is no fine ash in this stove.
A local company I called suggested that the stove might be getting too much air, so I closed the stove's damper some, but I haven't noticed any change in the ash consistency.
My concern is that the fine ash is blowing up the few feet of stove pipe and then falling back down onto the plate/chimney flue, which I can't clean out. It seems this would be a real fire hazard. Where else could the ash be going? Or why has the consistency changed? There is about 1/3 to 1/5 of the ash in the stove's ash cathch as there used to be.
Do you all have any thoughts/suggestions?
Thanks for your help,
Asher
Can anyone provide any insight into why my Whitfield Pellet Insert might be producing fewer and coarser ashes than before? I have a Whitefield Profile 30-INS and after technicians came to troubleshoot a problem last year, the consistency of the ashes changed. I used to have to clean the stove's ash catch much more often than I do now and the ash was much finer than now. I am burning the same Lignetics pellets as I had previously.
Some background: the stove was installed in a pre-fab fireplace and so the installing company told me I'd need a new stove pipe for the stove. When I balked at the additional $1000 for the pipe, they told me they could put in a few feet of pipe above the flue. The flue was sealed and a plate with a hole for the pipe was put in. They also (after they realized the chimney could never be cleaned as a result of their installation) put in a t-cleanout off of the stove pipe. I empty this regularly, but its never more than 1/5 full of fine ashes. The fine ash that is in the clean out used to make up all or the majority of the ash that was in the stove's ash catch. It now seems that there is no fine ash in this stove.
A local company I called suggested that the stove might be getting too much air, so I closed the stove's damper some, but I haven't noticed any change in the ash consistency.
My concern is that the fine ash is blowing up the few feet of stove pipe and then falling back down onto the plate/chimney flue, which I can't clean out. It seems this would be a real fire hazard. Where else could the ash be going? Or why has the consistency changed? There is about 1/3 to 1/5 of the ash in the stove's ash cathch as there used to be.
Do you all have any thoughts/suggestions?
Thanks for your help,
Asher