help with stage 3 creosote?

[elevensies]

This is my second season with the GM60, and it's been running perfectly for us, but I have to say I'm a little surprised that it took this long for the baffle to randomly fall down during a fire (such poor design, imo). Yesterday I lit a small top-down (cold stove) with only two medium splits on the bottom and a bunch of small stuff on top. Just as the small stuff was fully lit and the two big splits were starting to smolder, the baffles fell down. Not completely down, so they weren't sitting directly on top of the logs, but they were hanging by one corner and I'm certain they would have dropped completely with a full fire going.
It seemed the most common advice for this problem was to cut the air and let the fire go out so the baffles can be moved back into place. I did so, and I tried a couple times to go in with my welder's gloves and move the baffle after letting it all sit for a while, but the flames would start back up as soon as I opened the door. Eventually, it seemed that everything was out and the coals were also going out without spreading, but later I found that the two entire medium splits were black and had just smoldered for... over an hour? Two hours? because of course I can't actually shut the air down all the way with this stove. The window was totally covered in dripping creosote. I got the remaining wood out (filling the place with smoke, what a mess) and everything then cooled down pretty quickly. The inside of the stove is now covered with hard, shiny, drippy stage 3 creosote. It's a thin layer, but yikes. I haven't looked at the flue, but I expect it's the same or worse as the flue temp hovered around 200 through all of this.
How on earth should I deal with this? Is it thin enough that I can burn it off, or am I in danger territory? I've attached a photo of the glass, where you can see that I was able to use ash to wipe some of the creosote off, but couldn't get any further. The other photo is the back of the stove, which is black and shiny. No flue photos yet, but probably safe to assume it looks a little worse than this. Second question, what could I have done differently once the baffle had fallen over a full fire? Thank you all for any advice you can offer.

 

[EbS-P]

How much build build up in your chimney do you get when it’s swept? A good hot fire will clean up the firebox and window. What’s in the stove is not really a concern in my amateur opinion. What’s in the chimney is what starts chimney fires. Fires in a firebox are completely normal.

 

[elevensies]

We swept at the end of last season and had very little, like maybe half a cup. I did a sweep this season already because I had seen some black flakes blow out of the chimney, and it was hardly worth touching it, almost nothing. I would think that if the flue was covered in this thin layer of drippy shiny stuff, there's probably a little bit of fluff underneath it, but it's not a thick buildup. Just before lighting this fire, I had cleaned the catalyst, and noticed that the buildup just inside the stovepipe had some texture to it, so more than the normal smooth powdery layer but not very much at all.
I suppose the inside of the stove is common sense, fire is fire! Thank you for that.

 

[stoveliker]

Yes, I agree about the stove. A hotfire will clean it up. Cat stoves regularly look like that from burning low.

The pipe, you may be right. But you won't know until you have a look...

 

[elevensies]

Thank you! I'm about to start a new fire, with confidence. My assumption that the flue would be worse than the firebox was... well... there's this saying about assumptions, you may have heard it? I had to wait for the hubs to get home to help me get into the flue, and we found that it's completely normal. A little more buildup than we're used to seeing, but still less than 1/8 inch. So it turns out we don't need to throw this stove in the river and we'll chalk this up to a learning experience. Thanks again for your help.

 

[elevensies]

I'll keep this on the same thread since it's related to the creosote issue, but we're hoping someone might be able to help us solve the mystery of why we can now smell smoke from the back of the stove. It's only since we had this creosote buildup a couple days ago. After this happened, we cleaned the inside and outside of the stove, including the cat. No issues getting the fire going, there was a good draft, and everything behaved normally. Once the fire got to the stage where the last bits of actual wood are burning down and the flames are getting small, with the flue temp dropping to 350-400 or so, we noticed a faint smoke smell in the room. A sniff test confirmed something coming from the back of the stove. There was no visible smoke. I wiped down the surfaces thinking maybe something landed on the stove top while we were removing the wood on Friday, but no change.
I wondered if the gasket on the access panel on the back of the stove was failing. This morning I removed the heat shield, and there was a thin layer of white/light gray powder concentrated just above the access door and then fanning out below it, all the way to the bottom. It could have been coming from the access door or the pipe connection at the stove top, but we have double-wall pipe and that didn't make sense to us. I removed the access door and the gasket seemed to have been leaking as there was a buildup of creosote on top of the gasket it one small area (it had also been cut halfway through in two places, apparently installed this way at the factory...). I cleaned everything up, cleaned the entire back of the stove to ensure no soot residue that could put off a smell, and installed a new gasket. I started a fire this evening, and everything was going well, until the fire got to the same stage, burning off the last of the wood and some small flames, and I can smell smoke again. It's faint, but clearly coming from the same side on the back of the stove.
We can't figure out what could be happening. There's no smoke or smell coming from any other area of the stove, just the one side on the back. I did run my finger down the seam on that side, where the back and side cast iron pieces are joined together, and there was a bit of black soot on my finger. It's odd that this only started after we had this heavy creosote buildup, and nothing else has changed.
Very confused. We'd be greateful for any ideas, it's about to get quite cold again here.

 

[stoveliker]

If a gasket got impregnated with creosote, it can seep through and off gas on the outside of the gasket that is in contact with air.

 

[elevensies]

That's what I was thinking, but putting on a new gasket didn't solve the issue. I just don't know what else it could be. I would think that if it was the stove pipe connection at the collar, there would have been white powder on the stove top as well, not just on the heat shield.

 

[moresnow]

Did you re-gasket with oem factory gasket?

 

[elevensies]

Yes, the OEM factory gasket from Hearthstone, and I was careful about applying it properly within the channel.