What stoves can run for several days w/o shutdown to scrape and poke holes in the fire pot

[m159267]

Been running my Harman two weeks burning up to a bag a day w/o a shutdown or cleaning. Sounds more like a pellet problem to me. Weather supposed to get warm so will clean today or tomorrow.

+1
Very dependent on pellet brand ash content. The Greenways I burned last year were very ashy requiring more maintenance. Burning Henry County pellets this year -- very little ash.

 

[SidecarFlip]

I wanted to get another stainless pot because mine is warped, but the $250 price tag stopped me. I only paid $650 for the stove. Ill probably try to make one. I'd like to have two. One to soak in drain cleaner while the other is getting dirty.

If you burn pellets or a corn/pellet mixture, they don't need to be stainless, the can be low carbon sheet but must be at least 1/16" thicj to resist warpage. The only time you need stainless (300 series) in a burn pot is rinning straight corn and even a HR pot will last for years. Where you need stainless is in the agitator/stirrer because it's constantly exposed to an oxidizing flame (if the stove is running with the correct a/f ratio) and an oxidizing flame will slowly erode stainless but will erode at a much faster rate, normal steel. I've made them both ways. a 300 series stainless stirrer last me a year to a year and a half whereas a plain steel one lasts half a season. In defense of the steel one, the materials and fabrication aspect is much cheaper, about half.

There is a bit more to fabbing burn pots than buying some low carbon of 300 series sheet. The holes have to be a certain number and diameter and the side have to taper in relationship to the stirrer swept area, plus, it must locate in the proper place and be in alignment with the stirrer/agitator. Thats a lot of holes to drill by hand. Much easier to have a sheet machine perforated and laser cut the components, something we do here all the time. Manually making each component might be a labor of love, but IMO, love is about 15 minutes long......

 

[Bioburner]

Ran the Bixby on corn for 6 weeks without opening the door and it shutdown because I forgot to empty the bin of bisquits after a week and half. Harman PC45 seems to never need tending of the burn tray. Countryside grinds up ash or clinkers but needs its weekly full cleaning.

 

[bbfarm]

Never scrape the burn pot. The versa grate system in the st croix stoves keeps it clean. I do shut dwn and clean weekly though because a clean stove is a happy stove

 

[Doug Doty]

I'm going to pull and soak my burn pot this afternoon before restarting the stove. I am considering chamfering the bottom holes from the underside without enlarging at first, I am sure any ash that gets into a hole would be more likely to go on through if the hole is increasing in size as the ash goes down through the hole. I am also going to fab up a manual loop agitator with a friendly bent handle that approximately fits the inside of the pot front to rear to do a daily left and right shuffling of the contents without putting my hand in the fire. If I can go in through the door give it a few swipes I too think I could run several cause days w/o a shut down. I'm not getting any thing that justifies the word scrape just ashes that have not fallen through the drop holes

 

[Tonyray]

when my Harman ramps down to a Maint burn, I open the door, use a gasket scraper under the ash/pellets for maybe 20 seconds..
I do this maybe every other day....most times there is barely anyhting in there to scrape. but I do it anyways.
no shutdown required...
remove and empty the ash pan also without any shutdown..

 

[woodmakesheat]

I'm new to this as well - first year burning pellets - such a relief after cutting/splitting wood for 2 years (which in turn was a massive cost savings compared to 800 gallons of oil per year - heat only.) So far my Englander 10-CPM gets the ash drawer emptied and pot removed and dumped (easier to remove it than scrape in stove) once a week (~11 bags burned.) There is very little to scrape and have yet to see an air hole get clogged. After a month and a half of burning, I reached up and swept the ash off the top of the firebox. Tools used: long hot gloves (hate to wait for stove to cool much after it shuts off), plastic 1.5" wide putty knife and a flat head screwdriver (for anything stuck to the burn pot.) Process takes about 20 minutes total - nothing compared to slaving over a wood stove. Not burning anything special - HD Fireside Ultra or Stove Chows. The stirrer grinds up any clinkers that might form and pushes them through the burn-pot holes so the amount of ash produced seems to be irrelevant - it just piles up on lip around the burn put and then falls into the traps on either side.

 

[SidecarFlip]

I'm going to pull and soak my burn pot this afternoon before restarting the stove. I am considering chamfering the bottom holes from the underside without enlarging at first, I am sure any ash that gets into a hole would be more likely to go on through if the hole is increasing in size as the ash goes down through the hole. I am also going to fab up a manual loop agitator with a friendly bent handle that approximately fits the inside of the pot front to rear to do a daily left and right shuffling of the contents without putting my hand in the fire. If I can go in through the door give it a few swipes I too think I could run several cause days w/o a shut down. I'm not getting any thing that justifies the word scrape just ashes that have not fallen through the drop holes

Soak it and the stirrer on a bucket of water for an hour (it's warm today) and use a putty knife and a small hammer (on the putty knife to dislodge the carbon, it will come right off. Don't beat on the pot itself, but you can drop it on the concrete face down, that helps too. Use some scotchbrite to finish the job and clean the stirrer fingers

You can enlarge to bottom row and the 2 adjacent rows to aboot 1/8" but no more and radius the stir fingers too. The sharp edges are an invitation to hang on carbon. Keep in mind when you enlarge the holes, your pellet bed will get more air so you might have to alter the a/f ratio to obtain a nice burn without the 'blowtorch' effect. You don't want a blowtorch. That is an oxygen rich flame and will erode the stainless stirrer, right now, plus it's hard on ash carryover into the venting and combustion blower. You want a sharp flame but no jet engine in the firebox.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Ran the Bixby on corn for 6 weeks without opening the door and it shutdown because I forgot to empty the bin of bisquits after a week and half. Harman PC45 seems to never need tending of the burn tray. Countryside grinds up ash or clinkers but needs its weekly full cleaning.

Sounds interesting. The only 'bisquits. around here are the ones my dog leaves in the front yard to run over with the lawnmower....

 

[chken]

I don't know why it matters as it is really not a big deal to do but since mine won't run for days without a shut down and scrape / poke, and I see and understand that the Harman's can run for days without having to shut down to scrape and clean the fire pot I am wondering if others have a design that will also. Is the Harman bottom feed setup really that good at pushing the ash up and out and is this the whole of why it works so well, does it really work that well. I certainly think there are others that are great stoves but what about ones that are hands off like I think I am understanding the Harman's are. I will run this stove this season but we are building a new open concept barn style house on a new piece of property we are closing on Wed. and it will certainly be set up to work well with a free standing pellet stove right from the design phase and I am thinking Harman as of now but interested in what else I should be considering, I don't want to have blinders on. Parts availability and prices are a little factor but minimal interaction with the stove on a daily basis will be important also as I will be less interested in tinkering daily by next year. Harman has some edge as we have solid dealers for them around here.

It just seems wrong to shut down for a scrape / poke even for a few minutes on a real cold day, I just don't like it.

I never open the door to scrape the firepot in the Piazzetta while it's running. A shutdown and daily scrape is recommended. Having said that, my stove has been running extremely well, and I haven't done a thing since last Sunday other than load 8 bags. I'll shut it down tonite and give it a good scrape and vac.

 

[Tonyray]

I never open the door to scrape the firepot in the Piazzetta while it's running. A shutdown and daily scrape is recommended. Having said that, my stove has been running extremely well, and I haven't done a thing since last Sunday other than load 8 bags. I'll shut it down tonite and give it a good scrape and vac.

Even though many here with Harmans [Including myself]can go quite a long time between cleanings/scraping etc,
it's more or less a personal thing when it comes to jumping the shark with a scrape or pulling ash down to the ash pan once a day or now/then. only takes few seconds.
Flame drops down to Zilch till u close the door then ramps back up.
kinda like the guy that wipes his car down after it rains.... Can't hurt, but does help keep it clean longer..

 

[Doug Doty]

Soak it and the stirrer on a bucket of water for an hour (it's warm today) and use a putty knife and a small hammer (on the putty knife to dislodge the carbon, it will come right off. Don't beat on the pot itself, but you can drop it on the concrete face down, that helps too. Use some scotchbrite to finish the job and clean the stirrer fingers

You can enlarge to bottom row and the 2 adjacent rows to aboot 1/8" but no more and radius the stir fingers too. The sharp edges are an invitation to hang on carbon. Keep in mind when you enlarge the holes, your pellet bed will get more air so you might have to alter the a/f ratio to obtain a nice burn without the 'blowtorch' effect. You don't want a blowtorch. That is an oxygen rich flame and will erode the stainless stirrer, right now, plus it's hard on ash carryover into the venting and combustion blower. You want a sharp flame but no jet engine in the firebox.

See that is the challenge, there is no stirrer or agitator or bottom feed technology to assist, just a pot to catch pellets and burn them in these cheapest design price point stoves, just no motion to assist in ash falling through the holes in the bottom of the burn pot so they build up with time.
I stopped and got some round rod stock to make my manual agitator to whisk under the burning pellets daily but the couch is calling this afternoon so maybe later.

 

[moey]

Ive run mine for weeks without doing anything other then dumping pellets in the hopper. The short pole was me and looking at the glass which basically obscured 70% of the fire.

 

[Happy Hour]

Enviro M55, with the agitator rod you don't need to scrape the burn pot daily, running or not. I go two weeks without doing anything other than add pellets. The limiting factor is the shallow ash pan on the insert, could probably go longer with the free standing and the deeper ash pan

I have the M55's freestanding brother the Maxx-M (has pretty big ash pot) and I've gone 2 weeks between cleanings in the past but gonna try 3 weeks this season.

 

[Pascal_Maertens]

I never open the door to scrape the firepot in the Piazzetta while it's running. A shutdown and daily scrape is recommended. Having said that, my stove has been running extremely well, and I haven't done a thing since last Sunday other than load 8 bags. I'll shut it down tonite and give it a good scrape and vac.

At first I was cleaning every day like the manual says, but since I adjusted my stove I now clean it once a week as you can see on the pictures when I open the door the ash fell on the floor but there is still nothing in the grate that can cause the need to clean it, and you can also have a look at my glass witch have no black in it, and it’s so easy to clean just with water. I just love my Piazzetta stove.

 

[adam6979]

The Quad CB1200 I have goes about a week without a quick brush down and 2 weeks on a brush down and ash pan change. Scraping the pot is only about 3-4 weeks with good quality pellets. Since I switched to Crabbe Softwood I have had outstanding performance from both of my stoves. Nice and clean compared to any other pellet I have used.

 

[oliveone]

My Enviro Maxx can go over 2 weeks with out opening the door an cleaning. I also burn good pellets and have been burning pellets for some time. Every house and set up is different. What works for me may not for you. I can burn over a ton of pellets and never shut down stove for a cleaning if needed. Most of the time I shut down every 2-3 weeks give it a quick cleaning and relight stove. Down time for stove is less then 45 min. Turn stove off, let fire go out and stove to stop running, put of high temp gloves take out ashes an burn pot, empty them outside in metal bucket to cool off an not start fire, vacuum out stove, wipe glass with paper towel wet with just water, reinstall all remove parts add pellets and light stove with propane torch. Enviro stove is easy to work on and clean.

 

[chken]

At first I was cleaning every day like the manual says, but since I adjusted my stove I now clean it once a week as you can see on the pictures when I open the door the ash fell on the floor but there is still nothing in the grate that can cause the need to clean it, and you can also have a look at my glass witch have no black in it, and it’s so easy to clean just with water. I just love my Piazzetta stove.

Wow, Pascal, I've never had anywhere near that much ash in my Piazzetta before cleaning! I like how the air wash is bottom-up on the P962 vs top-down on my Sabrina!

 

[ScotL]

Kedel makes pellet boilers that are self cleaning and require very little maintenance. But I don't know if they're available in your area.
This is how my Kedel is running right now:
http://www.stokercloud.dk/dev/mwp.html

 

[ironpony]

Harman, clean every 2 -3 weeks. burn at least a bag a day.

 

[Pascal_Maertens]

Wow, Pascal, I've never had anywhere near that much ash in my Piazzetta before cleaning! I like how the air wash is bottom-up on the P962 vs top-down on my Sabrina!

well the ash tray is a little different from the Sabrina and it is vented too, but I dont understand why the ash built up on one side more than the orther, the air is comming in the center of the grate ? in my Sabrina it was making a kind of little volcano but very even on each side.

 

[Pascal_Maertens]

Wow, Pascal, I've never had anywhere near that much ash in my Piazzetta before cleaning! I like how the air wash is bottom-up on the P962 vs top-down on my Sabrina!

hey look what caugth my attention '' CyberPower 1000 UPS '' is this good to run your stove ? and how much Hr. and $$.

 

[Pascal_Maertens]

My Enviro Maxx can go over 2 weeks with out opening the door an cleaning. I also burn good pellets and have been burning pellets for some time. Every house and set up is different. What works for me may not for you. I can burn over a ton of pellets and never shut down stove for a cleaning if needed. Most of the time I shut down every 2-3 weeks give it a quick cleaning and relight stove. Down time for stove is less then 45 min. Turn stove off, let fire go out and stove to stop running, put of high temp gloves take out ashes an burn pot, empty them outside in metal bucket to cool off an not start fire, vacuum out stove, wipe glass with paper towel wet with just water, reinstall all remove parts add pellets and light stove with propane torch. Enviro stove is easy to work on and clean.

I am very empress to ear that you must have the perfect house for this stove, cause here in Mont-Laurier, Québec I had 3 customers ask me if I could go an check on their stove, none where very satisfied whit this Enviro Maxx, most of the time the glass would get all black and hard to clean out due to the lack of air adjustment, and also the consummation of pellet was terrible. Even worst there was a French lady; she said that her salesman told her there was nothing to do, that everything was automatic and the stove would set by its self, once she got installed she was dam mad. Hum… house venting and insulation can be very different from one to an others. Maybe an oak would have done the job that I suggest but I’m not too familiar to this cause with the Piazzetta I never used one in none of my configuration I just have to adjust the rpm of the exausth fan from 1000 to 3000 rpm to get to all the correct ''Pa or Wc'' targets. Here in Canada only mobile home need to have oak but for what I think, all north American stove need a oak unless your living in a old house poorly insulated.

 

[railfanron]

Mine's going on a week without opening the door. 30 bags one 10 minute cleaning all ash still in the ash bin.
Ron

 

[rickwai]

Harmans will run extended times w/ little attention. 2 weeks at a time or longer