How to Clean Wood Stove Glass
Most quality wood stoves, like our Dwarf Stove, use an air wash to keep the stove glass clean. But even with an air wash, some soot and creosote is bound accumulate on your stove glass. To keep your glass clean and prevent difficult to remove deposits, we recommend cleaning your glass before each fire, when your stove is cold.
Best Stove Glass Cleaning Products
There are lots of products on the market to clean stove glass. We don't recommend any of them. The best method is the simplest: damp newspaper and wood ash.
To clean your stove glass, simply wet a handful of crumpled newspaper or a paper towel, and dip it in wood ash from the previous fire. Scrub the inside of your stove glass, using the wood ash as an abrasive to polish away soot and creosote. When you're done, just toss the newspaper into your firebox along with the tinder for your next fire.
For especially dirty stove glass, it may take some time to get the glass completely clean. Just keep at it, periodically wetting a different part of the paper and dipping in fresh ash. Let the ash do the work and you'll have crystal clear stove glass before you know it.
Keeping Your Stove Glass Clean
Once your stove glass is clean, you'll want to keep it that way. In addition to cleaning your glass before each fire to keep any deposits thin and easy to remove:
- Keep your stove's air wash at least 50% open to keep smoke off your glass during operation of your wood stove
- Keep logs at least 1" away from the inside of your stove glass
- Avoid pointing the cut end of a log directly at the stove glass
- Burn only properly cured hardwood fuel. Wet wood and pitchy wood like pine can cause your glass to get dirty faster, as well as cause creosote buildup in your chimney.
Keep reading to learn more about small wood stove operation and maintenance.