Ok today I did my usual shut down and clean out. I also went out and opened the T and cleaned the excess ash out of the external part of the pipe and there was much more ash than I expected. We've been burning as main source of fuel since October but I still didn't expect this much. This is my first year so I'm still learning. If warm weather ever comes I hope to get this thing running a bit better, it's producing ash that is still in the form of pellets also instead of a nice complete burn.