In my 14 years as a pellet stove repair technician I have cleaned enough stoves to keep me up at night dreaming about them. I have seen all varieties of pellet stove glass cleaner and dirty class and some work better than others. There have been one or two that I’ve really like that worked fantastically well and when I went to buy them again they were no longer available.
What prompted me to share my secret glass cleaner was what I experienced this morning. I woke up to find my wife scrubbing furiously at our pellet stove glass with a red towel and a scotch bright pad along with some Pellet Stove Glass Cleaner. She was visibly frustrated and gave me the look of “please finish this for me!”
The first tip for cleaning the glass on your pellet stove is to do it often. And by often I mean every two or three days at the longest. This may seem like a simple solution but you long time pellet stove users know that this makes a huge difference.
The second tip is to make sure your stove has a full cleaning every year. This involves removing the firebrick and baffles in the firebox and vacuuming out the excess ash build up. You would also remove the combustion fan and clean its blades and the fan housing. Finally you would have the chimney cleaned with a brush of all excess ash. This keeps the airflow running smoothly in the stove which creates a cleaner burn that keeps the pellet stove glass cleaner.
After trying out many different ways of cleaning glass here is my magic formula for pellet stove glass cleaner that works every time and even makes it easier to clean your glass in the future. To do this all you will need are two or three paper towels and some generic Pellet Stove Glass Cleaner. This can even be Windex. If this is sounding overly simple already just wait.
Step 1. Open pellet stove after it has cooled down but do not vacuum.
Step 2. Spray Windex on the glass
Step 3. Fold the paper towel in to quarters and spray three squirts of your Pellet Stove Glass Cleaner on it and give your glass an initial wipe down with the paper towel.
Step 4. Spray the glass again with Pellet Stove Glass Cleaner and spray your paper towel again.
Step 5. Dip the wet part of the paper towel into the fly ash around the burn pot so that a bit of the ash sticks to the paper towel where the Pellet Stove Glass Cleaner is.
Step 6. Apply the damp paper towel with the ash to the glass and start scrubbing.
This may sound a little baffling but let me tell you what you are doing. The first thing is that the fly ash is an abrasive because it has small hard pieces of coal in it. The build up on the glass is made of the same stuff in the ash so they work together very well. The glass cleaner provides the medium for them to interact together and loosen the hard stuff from the glass.
The second thing that is going on here is that you are conditioning the glass. When you finish cleaning the glass there will be a thin residue of Pellet Stove Glass Cleaner and ash left on the glass. This creates a barrier between the glass and the new batch of ash that will be forming on the glass. The next time you clean your glass you will notice that it is much easier to clean. If you dip your paper towel in the ash a little each time you clean your glass you will continue to notice how easy it is to clean your glass every time.
This works very well on my pellet stove at home and I know it will work well for you too.
If you are looking for parts for your pellet stove or technical assistance visit my store by clicking this link.
