Build up in burner pot

You may want to consider adding an "inside" OAK, 5+ feet long and route away from the stove - when we first started burning, same issue: the room air (convection) blower was 'robbing' air away from the combustion air intake port, causing cleaning every 10-12 hours.

We currently burn with "low" combustion air (to keep as much heat in the Heat Exchange assembly as possible, by choice), and clean the burn pot / stove daily now. Again, by choice: not any issue of the inside OAK setup here.

Our inside OAK is 12 feet long, 3 inch aluminum flex pipe, and is routed to a far corner in the living room, and has the outside screen cap in place.. Catches dust / fir (cat), is checked & cleaned weekly.

Just a thought.

 

Should I put an oak to the outside?

 

Yes, if possible - it will prevent pulling in cold air from outside the living space. Our hearth setup uses the existing fireplace for venting: tried running an outside OAK here under the house -> outside, was routed through an existing hole in the block foundation, a bad location, kept clogging up, and the run was longer than 15 feet.. So for those reasons specific to our setup here, we run the inside OAK.

But we do get cold air pulled into the living space because of it, there's no question of that.

You should do whatever makes the install adhere to code (all metal / no plastic), and the most financial sense to you.

 

IMO.....yes, always OAK it when possible.

 

Fully agree.

 

You could always pickup a short piece of "test" pipe, local ACE Hardware store here carries 3" aluminum flex pipe by the foot (or carried, it's been awhile), someone posted Lowes also carries it, and run a test, to see -if- the issue I posted here applies to your setup, and plan accordingly.:

Edit: however tempting, please don't use any type of plastic pipe in the OAK setup, everything from the outside run -> to the back of the stove -has to be metal-.

For example, in our setup, I used an aluminum container, one end cut off, with a hole sized to the inlet pipe on the back of the stove on the other, w/aluminum tape to snug fit, as a removable 'collar' so I can quickly disengage the inside OAK for deep cleaning.

High temp. aluminum tape (or Silicone tape) is also a good purchase to have on-hand when doing the OAK.

 

Look for the manufacturer plate that has the model, serial, etc. Might be marked there.

 

I'll stay out of this discussion everyone knows my feelings on OAKs and burn pot build up. You have to tune your combustion air to match your pellets. The tuning is done with a completely clean stove at its' maximum burn rate and to what is in your manual.

 

This would be considered "pellet pig clean" which would be unlike the "general" pellet burning population

 

joshmain - listen to these folks, they're the same folks that helped us out on our install here back in '15.

Still always much appreciated.

 

You folks go for it I'm here just to read the mail.

 

Yup, same folks that helped me through the pellet pile ups of 2011. My cause was a burnpot with a significant (any gap is significant) gap between my pot and cradle.

 

Trying to run full out is not going to work most of the time.

 

Don't know if you have the original owners manual, but this is direct from a Breckwell owners manual:

 

To help with the clean most of us use an electric leaf blower on suck.


We love to make the white snow go black, then again we are weird.

 

Time for my geezer nap.

 

That's just wrong Steve, on so many levels..

 

IMHO,clinkers are mostly from minerals in the wood,and,any top fed stove,that does not have a pot agitator,needs it scraped/broken up at least once a day,Softwoods seem to be worse for this.Low burns seem to make it worse.My old integra,I would have to break up or lift out the buildup,from the bottom of the pot,once a day,and only burn very high quality pellets.Some years back,I bought the latest/last programming for the stove,so,once an hour,exhaust blower goes to high,pellet drop is slowed down(hence,a self cleaning cycle)and I can burn crappier stuff in it,and,have went 2 to 21/2 days before attending the buildup.In your stove,I think what you see is normal.