Cleaning the Oil Stove

Maggie Wells — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:00:11 +0000

Ever have one of those months where you swear your house had a meeting while you were away and each part of it decided to break at once? That's how my husband and I have been feeling lately. So overwhelmed were we on Friday that we just stood there in the middle of the kitchen. Do we fix the plumbing? Replace the front door? Deal with whatever wildlife made a home underneath the house? Or do we fix the oil stove?

It's April. We were hoping we could wait on the last one. I'd had the stove cleaned last summer but since winter seemed to have started in early September and spring has yet to arrive, the stove was looking pretty bad. And of course the weather report for this weekend was forecasting snow. Darn! Better do that one first.

Hiring a professional to clean an oil stove where we live starts at $90 but can go upwards depending on the extent of the job. We thought well, we'll eat this one and called our guy. He of course was too busy with other clients and said he thought our lack of heat meant that even though it may or may not need cleaning, what it really needed was repair (and then cleaning). But you know how hard it is to get someone to come out on a weekend in a rural area? Sheesh. We called the repair guy. To come out would start at $145 but could quickly become more depending on the problem.

My husband described the problem to the guy. We have tanks full of kerosene but can't get any to come into the stove. Sounded like a valve issue to the repair guy but of course could be worse. And again, thankfully, small town guys don't want to work on the weekend. After talking to the repair guy and doing some research in those old fashioned things called books, we decided my husband would give it a go.

And pretty much we needed only three things: a vacuum cleaner with an attachment to reach into tiny places, an old butter knife (though why is it husbands always reach for the good flatware?) and a flashlight. We also needed to open it up and turn the valve on the bottom right hand side clockwise and then counter clockwise to loosen it up.

To Clean the Stove

First, of course, make sure you've turned off the stove.

Second open the stove wide open so you can see all the parts involved. There is probably a cylindrical metal piece in the center. Lift it out and with whatever you've chosen to be the scraper, push in and see how thick the muck is. You'll be scraping off lots of black residue. Scrape the sides and reach down to get the corners way underneath. My husband tried to push all debris to the center of the stove.

Third, clean off the glass plate in the front. We use a non-toxic glass cleaner. First we wipe off whatever we can with a paper towel and then clean the residue with a glass cleaner. We use the Trader Joe's brand in our house.

Fourth, vacuum with a long attachment hose and get out all the flakes of debris in the stove. Then replace the cylindrical metal piece.

The bottom of the stove should have a second door or some sort of second panel underneath the main door. Open it. Here you'll find a valve that should be turned clockwise then counter clockwise. If it hasn't been turned in awhile it will really stick. It's important to get that unstuck!

Once you try out the stove, make sure you are getting a blue flame. A blue flame means a healthy stove. The lower the setting you can put your stove to the more likely you have a clean, well working stove. After two weeks of it having to be set at 4 , it was back down to 1 with the same amount of heat.

Ideally you should have or should clean your own stove once a year. We are so grateful for the advise the repairman and the cleaner gave us!

In less than an hour he scraped off the muck, vacuumed it up and voila — stove worked again and on the lowest setting too. Yay! We're still more than likely going to have the professionals look at this summer but at least it will be on our time table and better planned for than this weekend whoops!

This article is from Maggie Wells of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Ode to the Ecofan

Maggie Wells — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 14:00:02 +0000

Judging by the the thermostat this morning, I’d say it’s time to turn on the heat (37 degrees this morning). As we settle in for another fall/winter season that’s sure to see high prices in oil to heat our houses, or take time most of us don’t have to stack firewood and build fires, I present to you my favorite cost cutting item that I was initially super skeptical about: the eco fan. I usually have an issue with buying anything if it’s $100.

The ecofans run about $79-$159 depending on size. Ours was $100 from Gaiam. That model is now $109. But there are a ton of places online you can get one these days. You can use them on either oil burning or wood burning stoves. They work best in houses that are ‘cabin-style,’ split levels — anything that’s really open. Our bottom floorplan is really one giant room of the kitchen, dining and living room with no doors that would block air flow. With an ecofan on the top of our stove we can keep our oil stove turned to 1/2 — not even one — on its dial. Without the ecofan to get the same amount of heat from where the stove is in the kitchen to the living room, I’d have to turn it to 4-6 (floorplan is 1000 sq. ft.). The guy who comes and fills the kerosene tank often has commented that we go through less than most of his customers in our area. We also have dual paned windows which helps keep all that heat inside.

The ecofan works by you placing it on top of the stove while the stove is on. The heat turns the fan. There’s nothing to plug in and no hassle. I dust it a couple of times a year. That’s it. What seemed like an extra added expense a few years ago, now feels like a godsend as we’ve been able to last through our tank of kerosene for a full month longer than we did before. If you tend to like a really hot house, be careful. If you have a bigger space than what I listed below, you’ll probably want one of the bigger sized fans. Either way, you’ll save money on oil and labor on wood.

Oh Ecofan, I love you!

Disclosure: I was not given anything for this review.

This article is from Maggie Wells of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: