Anyone have "Summer Choke Down" - ash plugged venting or exhaust blower?

Hello

Here is a good case where the ash precipitates out of the venting side walls during the summer and stops the exhaust blower from turning and the stove from running!
New term - Summer Choke Down" ! ! !

See Pic Below. Impellers would not turn!

Click to Enlarge.

 

pretty common here Don.......see a lot of that with liners that don't get cleaned.....tho we call it an avalanche

 

Thanks LW for your input. It is very common on Inserts with liners here too.

Also I found some FS stoves where the venting goes straight out, then up the side of the house get clogged real bad if not cleaned in the spring.

 

ya gotsta clean that?!

 

I'm shocked!!! My dealer NEVER told me you had to clean that, or any other part of the stove!.......

 

NO way! the salesman told me it was self-cleaning! I don't have to do a thing!

 

yikes That's alot of ash

 

good you think that, but its not really an aberration, fairly common, as Don can probably attest

 

Clean the stuff at the end of the heating season that don't happen. Nothing there to come tumbling down.

 

Amen, Smokes. Preaching to the choir. Rarely happens tho.......most units are cleaned...oh, about now.........

 

More Summer Choke Down venting!

Pipe is totally blocked! This is straight out then up 3 feet.

I have not seen this so much with inside up & out runs.

 

We didn't do a great cleanup on our stove last spring - we were a bit clueless about what to do at the end of the season and just did a general one on the inside. Didn't go deep. We are tackling the deep clean this weekend. This post makes me scared of what we will find

Lesson learned. We will be deep cleaning next spring after we turn it off for the season...

 

If the stove was running fairly well at the end of the burning season, I don't think you'll find anything close to those pics above......I can't imagine that stove ran at all.

 

Please Let's us know what you find. It is a good learning experience for all of us.

 

The air feed tube to the igniter was totally blocked with a hard pellet and ash so the igniter died a slow death and was stone cold! That seems to indicate something!

 

Almost looks like some rain got down into the venting and tried to turn the ash into rock.

I wrap the end of my vent and OAK with plastic wrap in the spring. Partly to keep moisture out, mostly to keep wasps from setting up their home somewhere in the venting.

 

It looks like we were pretty lucky. I dont' know too many details since my husband did the cleaning - normally, I am right there with him doing it but he wanted to surprise me. That, of course, was really nice of him...but it limits my ability to report out to you guys. I know he did a deep clean - took side panels off, vaccumed out vents and fans. He was really excited about this thing he bought....called a "soot eater"? I think that is what it is called...anyway, he loves it. It attaches to your drill and cleans out the pipe. Overall, no chunks of soot or anything crazy, like I was worried about. He said a lot came out the T-pipe at the bottom of the stove (sorry, i don't know the official name).

We started it up to test it out a few days ago - just before it lit, we noticed a bit of smoke leaked into the room. He remembers this happened once last year (I don't). We let it start up and all went well for half a bag of pelelts. Then we shut it down and he investigated the smoke issue - he opened and closed, revaccumed, checked to make sure everything was closed up correctly. We started it up again after that and it started fine. The only issue is that it kept shutting off after about 15 minutes - we thought something was broken. Until, he let me get near the control panel...he was so excited to start up he kept turning it to "room temp" so the stove kept shutting off when it hit 70

We assumed something was broken and completely freaked out...we know for next time, check the simple stuff first

 

"its running like it should.......that'll be $189 please...."

good on you for problem-solving yourself!

 

That was our first thought! "Oh, crap! We messed up and have to call the stove guy"....then I went back to basics. Room Temp/Stove temp...so simple but could you imagine if I called someone about it? That's like calling the computer guy about your broken computer only to find out its not plugged in!

 

or calling the stove guy when your stove wont work only to find out you plugged the thing into a switched outlet and have it switched "off"........*flik*....that'll be $189 please......