A HAMMER
!
No, I'm not nuts... ok maybe a little. Some of you know I'm a big advocate of cleaning your stove with a leafblower (the suction side hooked to your vent). Well I've been doing a little experiment the last few weeks.
I haven't done ANY maintenance to my St. Croix Pepin stove for almost four weeks.... I haven't even opened the door. I DID clean the ashpan once but that's it... nothing more.
I cleaned my stove using my leafblower before Thanksgiving and really didn't touch it since. It was pretty spotless at that point.
The object of this deal was to see how long I could go without any noticeable decrease in heat output. Well the last week or so I did notice that my heat output was starting to drop... not by a whole lot but it certainly was not operating as efficiently as it had before.
The St. Croix's have a Versa-Grate that rocks side to side and moves back and forth and keeps the firepot pretty clean. The Uncle Jed's pellets I use are a softwood pine and burn pretty clean, too... and that helps. No clinkers to worry about.
My intention was to throughly clean my stove as most owners would do THEN use my leafblower with the vacuum bag attached to catch all the ash that comes out of the stove from the two-sided wall behind the combustion chamber ( and other nooks and crannies). Well I got a little tired tonite and figured I'd just clean my stove and use the leafblower tomorrow.
Then the light bulb went off (it's about time!)... how about using a coathanger or other probe to TRY to get as much ash out from behing the back wall WITHOUT using my leafblower. The ash would settle out in the ash pan and I could easily see how much actually came out.
So, after about 15 minutes of fiddling around with a coat hanger and a piece of ROMEX wire I got about 1/4 cup of ash out of the stove. I knew there was more hiding behind that back wall. Then I spotted a hammer...why not!
A did about two minutes worth of tapping on the back wall... not banging trying to break things.... just tapping on the steel wall.
I was amazed... I got more than three cups of ash out of the stove. Remember, I had just vacuumed my stove and got all of the visible ash out of it. THREE CUPS... that's three cups that many owners didn't even know could hide there.
Try this next time you're DONE cleaning your stove. Pretty amazing...
!No, I'm not nuts... ok maybe a little. Some of you know I'm a big advocate of cleaning your stove with a leafblower (the suction side hooked to your vent). Well I've been doing a little experiment the last few weeks.
I haven't done ANY maintenance to my St. Croix Pepin stove for almost four weeks.... I haven't even opened the door. I DID clean the ashpan once but that's it... nothing more.
I cleaned my stove using my leafblower before Thanksgiving and really didn't touch it since. It was pretty spotless at that point.
The object of this deal was to see how long I could go without any noticeable decrease in heat output. Well the last week or so I did notice that my heat output was starting to drop... not by a whole lot but it certainly was not operating as efficiently as it had before.
The St. Croix's have a Versa-Grate that rocks side to side and moves back and forth and keeps the firepot pretty clean. The Uncle Jed's pellets I use are a softwood pine and burn pretty clean, too... and that helps. No clinkers to worry about.
My intention was to throughly clean my stove as most owners would do THEN use my leafblower with the vacuum bag attached to catch all the ash that comes out of the stove from the two-sided wall behind the combustion chamber ( and other nooks and crannies). Well I got a little tired tonite and figured I'd just clean my stove and use the leafblower tomorrow.
Then the light bulb went off (it's about time!)... how about using a coathanger or other probe to TRY to get as much ash out from behing the back wall WITHOUT using my leafblower. The ash would settle out in the ash pan and I could easily see how much actually came out.
So, after about 15 minutes of fiddling around with a coat hanger and a piece of ROMEX wire I got about 1/4 cup of ash out of the stove. I knew there was more hiding behind that back wall. Then I spotted a hammer...why not!
A did about two minutes worth of tapping on the back wall... not banging trying to break things.... just tapping on the steel wall.
I was amazed... I got more than three cups of ash out of the stove. Remember, I had just vacuumed my stove and got all of the visible ash out of it. THREE CUPS... that's three cups that many owners didn't even know could hide there.
Try this next time you're DONE cleaning your stove. Pretty amazing...
