we burn our stove almost non stop from late October to early April. I'm cleaning the stove pipe today to get ready for fall. This is all I got out. Volume wise about equal to A half coffee can. I left the sweeper in the pic for reference. That's what's left in the pipe after 2.5 to 3 cords of non stop burning for 5 months. This is the only stove I've ever run myself but I grew up on a pre epa smoke dragon. Back then we were cleaning twice that much at least once a month. Amazing. At least to me
Hey, I got that sweeper too... I love it. Makes cleaning the pipes painless, as long as I get my bag all sealed up and dont snag it on a joint...
I've always found that life is smoother in general if you keep your bag all sealed up and keep from snagging it on anything!
I've heard smooth bags are all the rage nowadays. Not much stuff there, but it's a wee bit on the crunchy side. I still get that sort of stuff from the top of the pipe sometimes.
thats what I was thinking as well, I only get the real fine powdery ash type stuff, but I also get quite a bit more than that. I contribute it to all the cold starts I do through out the season
Hey Dave. Long time no see. Yeah it's crunchy. It's from up by the cap. I'm not versed enough in reading the "tea leaves" (ashes) to know what it means. That's all I get no fine powder at all. Half a coffee can of crunch n munch
Sometimes even burning hotter won't stop that. The little bit you got is nothing. Just noticed you've got a Princess......nice.
Can't feel too bad about that little bit. We'll clean the chimney before fall (I hope). We have found that since we added 4' to the height of the chimney we get more up at the very top so we may go back to cleaning once per year rather than every 3 or 4 years.
3 or 4 years? I know I'm a pup at this wood heat thing,but even as clean as my stove burns I'd be chicken to let it go that long
Yes, a good hot fire once a day or every other. Yeah, I knew what you meant.....and no I haven't ever.
I used to use the manganese based Anti-Creosoot spray pruduct back in the day with a smoke dragon (pre EPA stove). Had to use ALOT of it (4 - 6 quarts per season) and though it didn't reduce the creo buildup, it made the creo fluffy and easily removable. Otherwise, the creo was glazed and near impossible to remove. Now with a clean burnin' EPA hybrid stove and DRY wood, there is no need for the stuff and I would worry if the chemicals could harm the catalytic combuster.
My stove has the tubes instead of cat. Cleaned my clean out in chimney got couple handfuls of ash. Amazing how efficient stoves have become.
You are obviously not burning at low firing rates. Any pre-EPA stove will burn clean at high firing rates. Thermal efficiency is another matter. The higher the firing rate, the more heat is lost up the chimney. That is why I developed the "Heat-Booster". Some dry, fluffy ash, is all I find after many years of burning all kind of wood. Also, if you see smoke (other than steam in winter) you are doing something wrong.
Other than the original "burn in" after each new load up, I burn at 1 to 1.5 on the thermostat. I consider that pretty low. I get 24 to 36 hour burn times regularly. Cool web site by the way
