Got home and pulled the leaf blower out of the shed (along with the snow blower). Went inside the house and put the stove into shutdown. At the same time I went back outside and pulled the clean-out cap off and brushed all of the vent. Went back in the house and quickly vacuumed it out. Went back out and hooked up the leaf blower and went to town (stove still in shutdown). Disconnected it and put the cap on. I think I was done in less than 15 with the stove fired back up. Done.
I had a similar experience yesterday. I was probably 20 minutes from start to finish. I had a LOT of ash removed by the blower....more than usual
Too cold to shut down right now so no cleaning. Last cleaning was 10 days ago...no vent cleaning yet. Checked the heat exchanger last night and it had almost no buildup on it and good flame so I am letting it burn away. These North Country are burning very clean, although they need to work out some kinks in their process...alot of fines and small broken pieces
I did a quick cleaning on mine, just the upper half of the stove and emptied the ash pan. I wanted to hit the heat exchanger with these cold temps. Supposed to get worse Mon nite-Tues AM. Then close to 40 by Friday.