I have had my Leisure Line AK-110 forced air furnace for 4 years now. I can positively tell you that cleaning your 6" exhaust pipe once a season is not going to cut it. If the fly ash accumulates in the pipe just 1/3rd the height of the 6" pipe, you will probably get condensation forming inside the hopper cover. When you see condensation, even a small amount, shut down the furnace, disassemble the pipes from the thimble of the chimney to the stove and clean them thoroughly the full length of the pipes. Reassemble the pipes, fire up the furnace, and your condensation problem should vanish like magic. You should consider the condensation as a warning that CO problem will occur soon after that and we would hate to see you turned blue and stiff during the night. If your CO Detector's go off, immediatley shut down the furnace and open the doors and some windows to vent the house, and fix the problem before you fire up the furnace again. You do have CO Detectors don't you?av8r wrote: ↑Wed. Dec. 26, 2007 9:11 amI have a question as a newbie. Would it be possible for someone to burn enough anthracite coal in one season in a stoker to create enough flyash in the pipes to reduce the draft even a little? I would think you'd need a pretty significant accumulation of ash in a 6" pipe to reduce the small amount of draft required to run one of these stoves. Maybe I'm wrong.
The more coal you burn, the more often you will have to clean your exhaust pipes out. Burning 8 tons of coal a year result in cleaning the pipes 2 additional times during the heating season for me.
Do not make the mistake of cleaning out the pipes with a wire brush. A wire brush is destructive, scratches the inside of the pipe, leading to fast track corrosion. They make a fibered bristled brush specifically to do this with. You can attach the length of shaft to the brush you need and put the other end into a battery operated variable speed drill, which works fine. Once you run the brush through, have a piece of board or plywood handy, place it on the floor and lightly tap the pipe on it to knock off any residual loose flyash, or use a plastic 5 gallon bucket for less mess.
Make sure you have a Chimney Cap on the top of your chimney. Reasons are: This will increase your draft, reduce the chance of backdrafts, keep birds and other animals out of the chimney which can plug the chimney partially or almost entirely which will reduce your draft, and it will keep the rain and snow out of the chimney, which will turn the flyash into mud, which is not desirable. Should this happen, you can get a partially plugged chimney where the thimble goes into the chimney and above where the thimble goes into the chimney, not to mention it can plug completely the cleanout from the top of it to the thimble. If water gets down into your exhaust pipe, it will corrode your pipes very quickly even if your using thick walled stainless welded pipe. Wet flyash is very very corrosive.
In my case, the chimney is larger than most and larger than needed for my furnace. To make matters worse, the chimney liner has been broken off a couple of inches or so below the top cement block so the mounts can not attach with the thumb screws to the liner. Solution was to fabricate up a mount from Angle Iron that will slip down over the cement block. Weld a nut to all 4 sides after drilling a hole in the angle iron bigger than the Thumb Screw and presto, I was able to tighten the thumb screw to the outer cement block on the top of the chimney. I fastened the Chimney Cap to the Angle Iron after I climbed up the ladder to make sure the angle iron assembly would fit down over the top cement block on the chimney. Hint: Do Not place the ladder against the chimney or you could possibly knock the chimney down and get severely hurt. Place the ladder beside the Chimney against the house. A good mason told me that a long time ago, and I always remembered that tip.
I have found a way to minimize the mess when cleaning out the pipe. I bought one of those ash vac canaster's that look like a wet vac, but it does have a special insert that seals against the cover and acts a reusable filter in it in case you suck up a little hot embers. Just a light tapping and shaking outdoors clean it. Plus the canister is made of metal, greatly enhancing safety. I have found that the hose you can buy cheap to replace the sump pump hose, will fit nicely and snugly over the metal end on this vac hose. I tap my short vertical pipe that connects to an elbow to the furnace outlet and I suck out the ash that falls from inside down into the furnace outlet. Then I pull off the barometric damper off after I mark it with a Sharpie, of both the pipe and the barometric damper for quick reallignment. Then I recheck with a level when I am done reassembling the pipe to make sure it is level. I use this opportunity after I pull off the barometric damper to insert the flexible hose attachment and vacuum out what I can downstream toward the furnace, and then upstream to the chimney before I pull the pipe apart. This results in a far less mess. Just my method and found it to work great.
You said you were a newbie, so I took the time to detail a few things you should consider and I hope this helps you as well as others.
