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Did a long overdue cleaning today on a Santa Fe, noticed something I'd never seen before. Is this normal? Burning okie platinums..... I assume it's dirty cause it scrapes right off but it just looks Like it's peaking....
It looks like you have a good bit of baked-on fly ash or creosote on your heat exchanger tubes. I have a 1st gen Quad Castille that has the scrapers on all the heat exchanger tubes, but I see your SF only scrapes the middle 4 tubes. Any baked on ash residue is no doubt reducing your heat exchange capability, so I would go in there when the stove is cool and vacuum and scrape as much of that stuff off as you can. I use my shop vac crack tool attachment to scrape off the baked ash that the exchanger tube scrapers don't get. I've also used a dryer lint brush or similar stiff bristled brush and a screw driver to scrape in between the tubes.