Pellet Stove Repair in Sherman Oaks After Smoke or a Shutdown

A pellet stove pushes its exhaust out with a fan through a narrow vent pipe, so it depends on that pipe staying clear. Fine ash builds up in it over a season, and when it clogs, the stove starts to puff smoke at the door, smell inside the room, or shut itself down on a vacuum or temperature sensor. A vent clogged with ash and unburned pellet dust can also catch fire, which looks like smoke or sparks from the outside cap. If that happens, turn the stove off, keep the door shut, and call the fire department if the fire does not die out on its own. Once it is out, do not restart the stove until the vent is cleaned and checked, since the heat can loosen joints in the pipe.

Power cuts cause a second kind of trouble. When the power drops mid-burn, the exhaust fan stops, and smoke from the fire pot can drift into the room. Some stoves have battery backup; many do not. If yours smoked during an outage, the stove may be fine, but the vent and door gasket are worth a check. Tell us what happened when you call.

We start with the vent, because it causes most complaints. The pipe is brushed and vacuumed from the stove to the cap, joints are checked for gaps and sealed, and the cap is cleared. Then the stove itself: fire pot, heat exchanger tubes and ash traps cleaned, door and hopper gaskets checked, auger and motor run, igniter tested, exhaust and room blowers tested, and the vacuum and temperature switches checked. Any error code on the control board is read and matched to the maker's chart. The part at fault is replaced with one made for that model.

Most pellet stove repairs in Sherman Oaks are done in a visit when the part is on hand; brand-specific boards and motors may need ordering. You get a note listing what we cleaned, what failed and how often the vent should be cleaned for the way you burn, which is often more than once a winter for a stove that runs every day.