Jay Gaulard

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How To Clean Out A St. Croix Prescott EXL Pellet Stove

I hope you forgive me for typing this post with dirty hands. I just got finished cleaning out the St. Croix Prescott EXL pellet stove.

Actually, I gave it more than a regular cleaning, I gave it more like one of those seasonal cleanings that everyone says you should do, but no one does. I even took some pictures.

The reason for this post is really to follow up from a comment left by “Linda” over at my original pellet stove post.

Apparently, many fine pellet stove owners out there are having issues with their #2 light blinking. I received tons of great comments on my other post regarding this. We have all been looking for the answer. Linda offered a lot of insight, so I decided to give her ideas a try. I think the main point of her comment was to say that cleaning out behind the “ash clean out covers” is very important. I thought I had been doing that, but she mentioned that what I was doing, wasn’t enough.

Okay, so let’s get going. I am going to show you some pretty interesting photos in this post…photos that are hard to find. Sure, there are tons of good pellet stove shots out there, but usually when people start cleaning out their stoves, they forget all about the camera. Not me, my friends. Not me.

I first went downstairs and shut the stove down. When it cooled itself and shut all the way down, I unplugged it. That’s very important, so make sure you do it. After that, I gave it a quick once over to make sure there were no large piles of ash anywhere. I didn’t give it a good cleaning, because I just did that yesterday. It didn’t need to be done again. I did push some ash into the ash pan and empty it though.

What I want to show you here are those ash clean outs that the owner’s manual talks about so much. I just realized this morning that there are about 4 warnings to keep these things clean. I guess it’s pretty critical. I have been doing this every time I clean the stove, so I really didn’t think I needed to do it again. Linda mentioned that we should be cleaning these out with a bottle brush or something like that to really clean them well. Good thing I had bought one of the bottle brushes from Lowe’s a while back. It’s really made for a fireplace or stove, but I was using it to clean bottles for my home brew.

Right pellet stove clean out with ash showing

St. Croix Prescott pellet stove exhaust vent

Fan blades of a pellet stove exhaust fan

St. Croix Prescott EXL exhaust fan

Pushing bottle brush into pellet stove clean out – towards center

Cleaning the pellet stove clean out with a bottle brush – straight up

Left pellet stove clean out – open

Left pellet stove clean out cover – closed

Notice how there really isn’t too much ash in there? I’m talking about inside the hole. I just vacuumed this out yesterday, but I can imagine what it would look like if someone never cleaned these out. Probably like a packed wall of ash.

I didn’t take pictures of the right side, because it is identical to the left side.

By pushing the brush straight up, I didn’t get all that much ash to come out. There really wasn’t all that much up there. By pushing it sideways, I got a little bit more. I’ll show you in the next photo.

To get the pile of ash in the photo above, I basically pushed the bottle brush straight through, from the left side to the right side. I actually saw the brush coming through the right side.

I figured that was done, since I saw all that ash coming out. I decided to move on to clean out the exhaust fan. This is one of those things the book tells you to call the dealer for. It took me about 15 minutes to do the whole job, so it’s up to you.

To remove the fan, I took off the 6 nuts that surround the motor. I believe I used a 9mm 6-point tall socket. I also removed the vacuum hose and took off the vacuum switch wires as well as the fan wires. After everything was removed, the motor and fan popped right out.

With the fan in hand, it was easy to clean the blades (if you call them that). You can use an old paint brush or a rag or something like that. Just get the ash off the blades. The owner’s manual says this fan does not require oiling.

I also decided to take a photo of the rear part of the exhaust vent. This is one of those things we always wonder about, but unless you have taken a pellet stove apart, you will most likely will never see.

As you can see, there wasn’t really too much ash buildup on either the fan or the exhaust vent. I brushed them off and put everything back together. I lit the stove up and watched it burn for a while. I haven’t yet put the wires back on the vacuum switch. I still have them jumped. I’m not sure I have the heart to go through that again, since the stove has been running so wonderfully the way I have it now.

Questions, comments, concerns?


Honeywell HWM-450 4 Gallon Humidifier For Dry Winter Air

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to purchase a humidifier? Well, it’s not hard to purchase one, the difficulty lies in going over all the different selections online. Oh, and the reviews…THE REVIEWS. If there were no online reviews, things would be a heck of a lot easier. Trying to decifer between the real ones, the fake ones, the ones placed by the company itself and the ones placed by its competitors…it’s simply exhausting.

Okay, here is what has been happening: Lately, I have been finding it more challenging to feel the heat the pellet stove has been producing. It’s like I have to keep cranking it up more and more, just to get what we used to get out of it. The unit is running fine and is blowing out hot air, but I am finding myself getting cold easier and faster.

I know it’s colder outside than it has been, but that isn’t causing my little, “can’t get warm inside” dilemma. The temperature indoors has been remaining virtually the same as it has been over the past few weeks. I had a feeling I knew what the problem was, so I acted.

I did a little reading online and found that dryer air is more difficult to heat (or to feel the heat in). If moisture is added, the air feels warmer. If you know anything about this and I am sound strange, please correct me. I am merely a novice consumer and am always looking for more information on this type of stuff.

As a matter of fact, dry winter air does more than make you feel cold, it causes chapped lips, itchy skin and frequent nose bleeds. I also read somewhere that it dries out the wood in your house. That’s good enough reason for me to get going with the moisture. Oh yeah, one more thing…that good ol’ static. Can’t forget about that.

After getting all sorts of discouraged from looking at humidifiers online, I decided to go to Home Depot, close my eyes and grab one off the shelf. Good thing I grabbed the best one there.

For the uninitiated, there are all sorts of humidifiers; warm mist, cool mist and everything in between. Some cool mist humidifiers have spinners on the inside and shoot water in the air, otherwise known as vaporizing the water (vaporizers). Other cool mist humidifiers use “wicks” or filters to absorb the water in the holding tank. The fan in the unit basically evaporates the water from the wick. I really don’t like either of these types of humidifiers because I have had them both. The vaporizers leave “white dust” from the minerals in the water all over the place and the wick humidifiers have to have their filters changed relatively frequently. They get cruddy quite fast. The last type of cool mist humidifier I know of is the ionic mist humidifier. I have no idea how these work, but I do know many people are happy with this type and they cost more. That’s about it.

I favor the warm mist humidifiers. Simply put, these humidifiers boil the water and steam it out of the top of the unit. Some people don’t like these types of units because they cost more to run by using more electricity and leave the mineral trace in the unit, which requires cleaning every so often. Personally, I think that these types of humidifiers are the less of four evils, so I got one. If someone has other suggestions for me, I welcome them, because we will most likely need another unit.

I picked up the Honeywell HWM-450 4 Gallon Humidifier. The box says it can put four gallons of moisture in the air per day, which I found satisfactory. I was tempted to get the 14 gallon per day humidifier, but then again, my bubble was burst by looking at the $20 box of filters (or wicks) I would have to buy every few weeks. Here are some photos and a video of the unit I purchased today:

Honeywell HWM-450 4 Gallon Humidifier

Honeywell HWM-450 4 Gallon Humidifier

Honeywell HWM-450 4 Gallon Humidifier

After I brought this unit back to the house and ran it for a while, I decided to search for what people were saying about it online. I found one website where they had five reviews. Some people loved it, some people hated it. So far, I really like it, but then I have only had it for about three hours.

It does push a lot of moisture out into the air. The only way I figured I could show you, is to take a video of it in action. I know that I would have watched this video before I made the purchase, so maybe there are a few folks out there who would appreciate this like I would have.


That’s One Icy Driveway

When we moved here, I asked a few people who have been here for a while, what type of winters we were in store for. I wasn’t expecting huge changes from what we were used to, since we are only about two hours away from where we used to live. The responses I got ranged from, “same thing as your hometown,” “about 6-8 good snows per year,” and “a lot of ice.”

We have already experienced the snow storms. They feel about the same as where we just came from. Now, we are experiencing the ice.

See, describing winter in New York to someone is a tricky endeavor. There are many micro-climates. I think the temperatures vary to some degree, but what varies even more is the snowfall amounts. Rochester is a far cry from Long Island. Even the Catskills are much different from Westchester.

When Laura and I were out walking one day back at the old house, we stopped to chat with one of the neighbors. We started talking about snow, when she laughed and said, “Oh, you have never experienced a winter around here?” I was like, “C’mon lady, gimme a break. We are an hour away from where we used to live.” She was sort of right, there was a little more snow than we were used to.

Way, way, way back in the day, like 12 years ago, when I was attending Westchester Community College, we had an ice storm. This storm left the roads completely covered for an entire week. It didn’t help that it was about 12 degrees outside for all that time, keeping the roads frozen. I remember that I couldn’t get to the first week’s worth of classes because of all the ice. I would drive about 3 miles in the car down through town and turn around. It was maddening.

When I finally made it to class, I expected everyone else to talk about all their terrifying experiences trying to get to school. The funny thing is that no one even knew what I was talking about. They all lived in Westchester and got no ice. Either that, or it just melted faster.

Pieces of ice on driveway

Connecticut is a bit different from New York. The way it was explained to me from the sales guy at the John Deere dealership was like this: There are basically three zones in Connecticut. The first one is from Interstate 84 and north. They get snow. From Interstate 84 down to Interstate 95, we get icy, slushy mix. From 95 south, they get rain. Of course, that’s not always true, but most likely would occur in the early season and the late season. That’s fine with me.

We got some freezing rain a few days ago. It coated the ground and pavement and has been hanging around ever since. Yesterday, the sun melted most of the driveway, but not all of it. I was walking around on it today and nearly killed myself. For some reason, it’s like a magnet to me. It calls out my name…”Jay, come over and do the moonwalk on me. Act like you are walking on a treadmill. Do the robot and the running man, like Rob.” It just happens, I can’t help it.

Icy sidewalk

Icy driveway

Today, while we were at Home Depot getting some paint for the next bedroom, I went over and grabbed some calcium chloride snow melt stuff. It’s like little white beads. I think it was calcium chloride or the other stuff. The one I got said it wasn’t as bad for the environment than the calcium chloride. It could have been magnesium chloride or potassium chloride. It probably would have been a good idea to read the bag before I started writing. Either way, I got the snow melt stuff.

As you could have guessed, I was excited to throw some of it around on the ice to see how it worked.

When we got back to the house, I unloaded the bag, dropped it on the floor, raced over to get a small bucket and went to work. When I got everything situated, I started tossing the little white pellets all over the place. It was pretty fun. After I unloaded my first batch, I stood back and listened. I always like to hear the soft, “crack, crack, crack” of the ice being melted by the whatever chloride.

I did this a few times and some of the ice was melted. I think I need to add more because I now have a sheet of ice with about a million little holes in it. I always try to be conservative with this type of material, so I don’t think I get the best results. Plus, I don’t want to throw the whole ten bucks away at one sitting.

I’ll let you know how it looks in the morning.


Winter Photos

On my way back to the crib this morning, I couldn’t help but to stop the car in the middle of the road to take a few photos. You should have seen me…I kept reaching my hand over to my bag to grab the camera. Then, I would lose motivation and pull my hand back, then I would do it all over again. I did this about three times before I just grabbed the camera and started shooting away.

There really is something to be said about clear weather during winter. It just seems more…clear. I like it.

Looking down the road during winter

Looking at the winter sun

Seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised if National Geographic called me to get permission to use these shots on their next magazine cover. I wouldn’t be surprised one bit.


Snow Removal With Backpack Leaf Blower

It’s snowing again.

I woke up this morning with a great idea. Since this snow is cold and fluffy, what’s stopping me from using my handy dandy backpack leaf blower to clear off the front walk and steps? Absolutely nothing, that’s what.

I decided to go outside and give it a try. I pulled the backpack blower off the wall and rested it on the ground. Then, I went outside and took some “before” pictures.

Snow covered front walkway

Snow covered front steps

At the time of these photos, I would estimate there being about 3 inches of snow on the ground.

I started up the backpack blower and put it on my back. I only hung it on one shoulder because I really didn’t want to commit to the entire project. I had no idea how it was going to turn out.

I started blowing off the sidewalk and the bushes. About halfway down the walkway, I was totally snow covered. I plowed on and finished up what I was going. Here, take a look at these “after” shots.

Cleared walkway

Cleared front steps

I guess the reason I am writing this is to warn you not to use your backpack leaf blower to clear off your walkway. You will get snow covered and cold. I will say that it does a tremendous job at cleaning the snow off the bushes, which would otherwise suffer damage without being cleaned. Also, I may give the blower a shot at the back deck and stairs. Those are always a real pain in the butt to do with a shovel.


Tennis Balls In Dryer For Static Control

Many of you may have noticed that it’s winter. Yes, the good ‘ol freezing cold air is back. If you aren’t enjoying the air, maybe you’ll get a kick out of clothes that almost electrify you. I’m talking about static, folks. Yes, static.

I have these long Nike warm-up pants that I sometimes wear when I am playing tennis. They are pretty cool and crazy comfortable. I used to wear them in the summer sometimes until I realized that while they were cool looking, they weren’t all too cool on my legs. My legs are at the pinnacle of muscular perfection and insist on being able to breathe.

Since it started getting colder outside, I have been wearing my warm-up pants more often. I would wear them every time I play tennis, but I am being inhibited by one issue – static electricity.

I am not kidding when I tell you that I have shown up to the tennis club with these stupid pants completely stuck to my legs. I stand there laughing while I try to pull them away from me like that lady on the static commercial on TV. You know the one…she is grabbing at her skirt, trying to get it straight. Yeah, right. Good luck with that.

It gets even worse when I actually start playing tennis. For those of you who haven’t been to an indoor tennis facility, I’ll tell you that there is a very fine layer of “tennis ball dust” covering almost the entire floor. This dust is really the neon yellow fibers that come off the tennis ball when it is hit by a racquet. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that all that tennis ball dust is eventually going to find its way onto my magnetic pants. It’s a wonder I still wear them at all. By the time I am finished playing, my pants are covered with yellow from my knees down.

Needless to say, I hate static.

I’ll tell you one more story before I get to the point.

I have this nice black zipper up fleece that I bought from L.L. Bean a few weeks ago. It’s a very handsome fleece and I really like it. Actually, I did like it until I washed it. You should have seen my eyes when I pulled this thing out of the dryer. Forget about the lint catcher, my fleece caught all the lint. The fleece is pretty much unwearable now. I don’t know what I am going to do about it.

To deal with this problem, I started looking at anti-static remedies online. I went through the traditional fabric softener and dryer sheet thing, but I didn’t think that would really work. There were a bunch of people out there that said they had no luck with dryer sheets on fleece. They said that nothing works. Not cool when you have three cats adding to the problem.

I also came across those reusable dryer balls. I think they are made of rubber or something. People said they had mixed emotions about them, but there was a consensus about putting tennis balls in the dryer with your clothes to reduce wrinkles and static. Since I have an ample supply of tennis balls, I decided to give it a shot.

Tennis balls in dryer

I did a few washes and dried the clothes with the tennis balls. Of course, Laura didn’t try this home remedy with her clothes. She lost faith in my laundry capabilities (and tips) long, long ago. Let’s just say there have been some issues. I believe I don’t need to explain any further, because anyone out there who lives with someone, surely knows of the damage one can cause in the laundry room. Especially, when that someone has an imagination like mine. Just look at me trying to blow snow with a backpack blower in the next post.

I have some good news and some bad news, and I’ll give you the bad news first. My fleece still has visable lint all over it, even when I washed it with only dark stuff. The good news is, the rest of the laundry is almost static free and virtually has no wrinkles. I used to have a wrinkle problem, but since I started using the tennis balls, no more wrinkles. I think that’s fabulous. Also, the rest of the clothes seem to be really lint free.

So, my conclusion is that tennis balls work in the dryer to help out with static reduction, wrinkle reduction and lint reduction. What works on a handsome black fleece? Who knows. If you know, trust me, my ears are open.


The Morning After The Snow

I guess it really isn’t the morning after the snow, because it’s still snowing. I think it’s supposed to stop today, but I heard last night that we can expect 4-6 more inches tomorrow. Holly, the Norwegian Elkhound (snow dog), just loves it.

Norwegian Elkhound

The minute she feels snow under the pads of her feet, she rolls around like crazy, giving those weird snorts that dogs give.

Typically, I would be a little upset at the whole situation. I was hoping to avoid any snow at all this year. But truthfully, I am having a blast. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because I don’t have to scrape anything off the cars and try to shovel around them. That was always a miserable task. Also, I don’t have to shovel the end of the driveway. I used to really hate that part of the ordeal.

Remember when I was telling you about how I thought we could shovel the entire driveway instead of buying a snowblower? Yeah, I must have been on crack. There is no way in the world I would have been physically able to shovel this driveway. No way at all. Even if I had a team of my best friends on the job, half of them would have quit.

By this point, I don’t have to tell you that the snowblower is da bomb. I was so proud of it this morning, I asked Laura to come outside and take some action shots of me. She took a whole bunch, but these are my more fashionable.

Clearing the first area of snow with the snowblower.

Sure beats a shovel.

Snowblower eating the snow for breakfast.

I did learn a few things while clearing the driveway this morning. First, blow the snow in the same direction as the wind. I nearly froze half my face by going against the wind once. Second, self propelled snowblowers are awesome. I loved watching those snow tires grab that pavement. No slip, no slide, no nothing.

That’s all I learned.

Go enjoy the snow. I’m outty.


Ariens Two-Stage 24 Inch Electric Start Snow Thrower

I really didn’t want to make the call this morning, but the predicted snow for tomorrow is steadily creeping up on me.

If you remember back a few months, I told you that I had only one more thing to buy…a snowblower. I planned for it and expected to get it in October. Then, I started thinking about how I might be able to get away with using a shovel on the very long driveway. Laura and I even talked about it; she would use one shovel and I would use the other. This, of course, was a conversation that was had when it was 60 degrees outside.

The day before the snow storm (today), the conversation changed. It went something like this:

ME: I bought a snowblower.

HER: Oh really?

That was about it.

Why did I get it? I’ll tell you why. It’s because of that dreaded end of the driveway snow. Last night while lying in bed, I had terrible flashbacks of that deep pile of snow the road plows leave at the end of the driveway. That snow is the absolute worst to shovel. There is no way I want to go through that again. I did it all last year and it really stunk.

One time, at the old house, my neighbor graciously came over and used his snowblower on the end part of our driveway. Man, that thing kicked some serious a$$. I stood there like a fool watching him. That proved there was a better way to get rid of the snow than using that green plastic shovel I was clutching in my hand.

So what did I do? This morning, I got on the horn and called my good friend Matt down at D.H. Marvin & Son, Inc. in Colchester. This is the equipment dealer I bought the John Deere tractor from. I told him that I wasn’t pleased to be speaking to him, because I was about to give him my debit card numbers again. He gave me a chuckle.

About 2 hours later, Matt showed up in the driveway with this…

Ariens 24 Inch Snow Thrower

Ariens 2 Stage Snowblower

Ariens Snow Thrower

Home Depot sells the same model, for the same price. I don’t know why I would buy it from Home Depot if I could get the additional support from a local dealer at no extra cost.

This is a nice snowblower. It is 24 inches wide and even has electric start. I am going to use the pull start, but if I needed the electric, it’s there.

I started it up and drove it around a little bit. It’s fairly simple to use. I am now hoping that it snows tomorrow, because if it doesn’t, I am going to be kind of mad that I just spent all this money on another garage ornament.


The December Thaw

Hey, do you remember that time I told you that we had about a foot of snow? You should, it was just last week. Well guess what…it’s all gone.

Never in my life have I seen snow melt so fast. Let me correct that; I didn’t actually see the snow melting, it was just gone. I went to sleep a few nights ago and we had about 12 inches and when I woke up, we had about an inch. I am not sure what happened overnight. I was told that it was warm. Warm? What, like 80 degrees? Even if it was 40 outside, I would have trouble believing that all that snow could melt so fast. I think something else was at play. Something like magic.

Every so often, in between real blog posts, I like to write some random thoughts. Stuff like what I have been up to and what’s been on my mind. Let’s see how that works today.

Okay, so the end of the year is coming. I think that’s great. I am sick of 2008. I think a lot of great stuff happened, but personally, I don’t like endings, I like beginnings. I would like New Years to be over so people can get motivated and back to work. I always love talking to people at the beginning of each year because they have good ideas of what they want to see happen for the upcoming year. People start projects, start new companies…do all sorts of things. They make new investments, hit the gym, stop spending, start spending, oh the list goes on and on. I like hearing all about it. I like to see the hope in people’s eyes.

For my part, I am tightening up what I have. For the past month, I have been examining all areas of everything. Finances, business, organization, assets, friends…everything. Out with the old and in with the new. I’m like a reptile; I’m shedding off some dead weight. It stinks because I am so full of new ideas and start so many things, but I think being boring and simple for a while won’t hurt. It’ll give me time to get to know myself again.

We went for a walk today. It was about 60 degrees outside, so it felt like spring. All I wore was my salmon shirt and a fleece. Oh yeah, I had pants on too. We did our usual two miles, which takes what seems like 15 minutes now. At times, we don’t even talk, we just walk. We are getting faster and faster. It feels good. I always like to walk during the cooler months because my face feels so fresh and I don’t sweat.

Now that the snow is gone, I took a little “coffee walk” outside to check out the yard this morning. I have all sorts of plans for what I want to do, come spring. I am going to order about 100 more pines from ArborDay.org in a month or so. They will deliver the trees in March. 100 trees might seem like a lot, but really it isn’t, once I start planting. I run out fast. I am going to make pine tree areas out of Blue Spruce, Norway Spruce and White Pine. The mix should look good.

I am also going to have about 30 more yards of mulch delivered in April. I do love mulch and with property of this size, I am going to need every last drop. It’s going to make the pine trees grow so much faster and it’s going to work wonders for the gardens. Man, I can’t wait to get back to it.

There are times when I sit at the computer and want to check out what everyone is up to. I wish you all had blogs and told me about them. I would like to have a list of about 20, but right now, I only have 4. It gets lonely in the blogosphere without you. Hey, maybe you can put that on your list of things to do. I think that’s a great idea. C’mon, think about the benefits…you will know that I will be reading all about your excellent adventures. By the way, this isn’t to say that my list of 4 isn’t the most awesome list ever.

I’m not sure what else I have.

We put all house improvement projects on hold. Nothing is really in dire need of improvement, besides the living room carpet. That needs to be torn up and discarded. We got a price for hardwood, but that’s going to have to wait. I am not falling into the trap of sinking tons of money into a house the first year. Slow and steady wins the race. I wouldn’t mind a pool though…hmmm. It would have to be indoor, so I can swim all year round. Perhaps I could just get one of those little plastic ones and put it in a tent.

Okay, now I am officially out of stuff to say. All the juicy gossip is kept quiet because I have to keep some sort of privacy. I mean, one would have to wonder, if what I write is all the stuff I have going on in life, I would certainly be a little weird.

Over and out. Peace.


Pellet Stove Vacuum Switch Error – St. Croix Prescott EXL

As I mentioned earlier in the season, we had a St. Croix Prescott EXL pellet stove installed in the basement.

Before the Winter season really began, I had my doubts on whether or not the pellet stove would heat the entire house. I was worried that it’s location would hinder the airflow to all the rooms upstairs. Well, I am happy to inform you that the stove does heat the entire house. I mean, if we keep the master bedroom door shut, it does. The master bedroom is over the garage and the furthest room from the stove. It’s also the coldest room, which is why we keep the door shut. When the time hits 10:30PM, the new digital thermostat cranks the heat in that room up to 65 degrees. That’s good enough for me.

We have had some nights already where the temperature has been in the 20s. I think that’s Winter and enough to tell me that the heating situation is going to be okay. I did try burning a fire in the regular fireplace a few times while running the pellet stove. The fireplace actually made things worse. It sucked so much air out of the house, all the rooms dropped a few degrees. Fireplaces are remarkably inefficient and really shouldn’t be used, in my humble opinion. If you want to run something in your fireplace, run a free standing wood stove or a wood stove insert. Even burning a fireplace for aesthetics on a cold day will freeze out the rest of your house. Nuff said.

Okay, we are having a little issue with the pellet stove.

A few nights ago, I tried to start it up. The start up procedure really isn’t very difficult on the Prescott. It basically consists of pushing the “on” button. Once the “on” button is pushed, the room blower turns on for about 10 seconds and the auger turns until the burn pot is approximately half way full of pellets. As the auger is turning, the ignitor kicks on and the pellets light up. It’s fun to watch and I sit there almost every time I light the stove doing just that. I smile when I see that flame dancing around inside that pellet stove.

Back to a few nights ago…when I tried to light the stove this particular time, I pushed the button. The fan turned on for about 10 seconds and then the stove just shut off. I am not sure if the auger ever turned to drop pellets into the burn pot.

I tried to light the stove a few more times when I noticed the #2 light blinking on the control board. I thought this was a little strange, since I had never seen that light blink before. I pulled out the owner’s manual and looked up that error code. Apparently, a lack of negative pressure causes the stove not to light and the #2 light to blink.

What can cause a lack of negative pressure? Well, a really windy day can do it, an open pellet stove door, a fireplace burning upstairs perhaps, a clogged air feed pipe or a clogged exhaust vent pipe. I am sure there are others, but these are the ones I remember.

Since I had a fire already going upstairs in the fireplace, I chalked the whole thing up to that. I got the pellet stove going in this instance by pulling the rubber tube off the vacuum switch and lightly sucking on it. When I heard a little “click,” I pushed the on button again. From here, things were fine. I held the crimped hose for a few minutes and then I hooked it back up the proper way.

Well, I tried to light the stove again the next night. The same thing happened. Since we had no fire going in the fireplace, I thought perhaps there was a clogged area in the stove somewhere that is causing the lack of vacuum, or negative pressure.

Let’s make a really long and boring story a bit shorter and to the point.

I cleaned out the entire stove about 10 times and nothing has changed. Every night, I suck on that hose to get the stove up and running. I have been reading the owner’s manual as well as some websites that deal with this kind of situation, but nothing has helped. One website said that a clogged exhaust vent is the sure-fire problem. I got excited and took off the clean-out cap. A little pile of ashed dropped out, but nothing changed.

This afternoon, I called the pellet stove dealer. I told them that I had pretty much narrowed the problem down to a faulty pellet stove vacuum switch and that I would need the tech to come out and take a look. Before we swap out the switch, I want him to hook up a vacuum gauge to see if there is proper negative pressure. If there is, we can replace the switch…if not, we have to do a bit more digging.

I keep going downstairs to investigate this issue. It is in my blood that I try to diagnose this problem myself. The only things I don’t have are a vacuum gauge or a new vacuum switch. I guess I need those things to solve the problem.

If you have ever experienced something like this with your pellet stove, please let me know. I am racing against time here. I want to beat the repair guy and figure this out myself.