Pellet Stove Ash

I am going to buy a small pellet stove to heat my living room.

How much ash do they produce? Where is most of it concentrated?

Is most of the ash contained in the firebox and how often per 40 pound bag does it need to be cleaned- obviously they all have different size fire boxes. Looking for an average.

The installation instructions recommend an exhaust cleanout tee. How often does that need cleaning?

The instructions say to clean the firepot "every 10 bags or every day, whichever is more frequent." Obvious nonsense since the max rate on the unit is 3.75 lbs/hr.

It says to inspect the tee annually with no mention of frequency of maintenance.

About pellets-

I have a pellet grill and have found different brands burn very differently. Is there a difference in stove fuel? If so, what are good brands and where to buy them?

I am sort of interested in this subject...mostly to see if trying to setup a smallish pellet stove in the unheated garage could work for me.

What stove are you looking at?

I did see a few at one of the farm stores that would more than bake me out of the garage given half the chance....

The one model I did look at had a insert that was a simple remove and dump out with little fuss and would just take a small amount of time to clean...however; it was the firebox - so it needed not to be running at the time.

Castle Serenity Wood Pellet Stove was the hardware I was looking at...if the heater is dead cold it would be a snap to use a wet/dry vac to suck out the ash.

The instructions sort of indicated clean out the fire box after every bag. And a full cleaning once a week. So my guess is there are two cleaning cycles for the hardware you are looking at. Both according to a video I watched is very fast to do....except the 2 hr cool down period to make sure the ash is cold.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Master-Forg...per/5013985823

Master Forge at Lowes. 24k btu on high. Small enough to fit in front of my existing fireplace, using the chimney to exhaust.

The heating area is 420 square feet with a a loft above and 15 foot ceilings. Impossible to keep warm with shitty baseboard heaters. The hot air races up the walls to the ceiling, giving up all the heat. By the time it hits the ceiling fan, it's blowing cold air back down.

I won't use it all the time, just in the morning and evenings to try to get it warmer than 64 in here while trying to avoid $300 a month electrical bills.

Xcel installed a smart meter and I am now on a tiered plan with the most expensive rates between 1pm and 7pm, just as the sun goes down.

I am trying to figure out how often I will need to clean out the tee on the exhaust. That will determine how I finish the fireplace opening.

If you are running 24x7 - there is a cleaning that is twice a day referenced in the text. The wording is odd; and some of it seems inconsistent. The first down side to the hardware is that it is only 30lb bag hopper and most bags are 40lbs. I would tweak the cleaning schedule based on the amount of ash that has been collected.

I would recommend that the the fire pot/fire pan be emptied before startup. This should be a keep it clean keep it running at it's best. The longest time I would hold off is 12 hrs of run time based on the oddly worded instructions. On a cold unit - this should be nothing more than I believe a cleaning with a metal shop vac when the ash is dead cold.


Short term operations - day to day based on the written instructions in the manual:

Clean the fire pot and fire pan every day, before using
the stove and while the stove is cooled down, the
stove is unplugged, and there are no embers. Use a
vacuum cleaner to remove ash and debris from the fire
pot, and then lift the fire pot to also clean the fire pan.
It is important that ash or debris does not block any air
openings.



cleaning schedule for different areas. - or maybe once a month for the first year just to get comfortable with the hardware.

Ash Drawer: After 50 bags of wood pellets
Passageways: After 100 bags of wood pellets
Blower: After 100 bags of wood pellets

I might consider getting a better unit that has a larger hopper. However, I did see that a common cleaning cycle is to perform the easy clean the fire pan / fire pot each day to keep the hardware running at it's best.