Stage 3 creosote and soapstone stove
A bit of background, feel free to skip ahead to the question: We are going into our fourth year with an Ambiance Hipster 14. We like the stove, but it's also given us its share of issues. For those unfamiliar it's a small soapstone-lined stove with a catalytic combustor.
When we got our chimney swept the first year they told us there was a lot of creosote build-up and that we should be mindful of the moisture content of the wood we burned. We knew what we had purchased that previous year as pretty green.
We sprung for kiln-dried the next year, and while it was drier we had issues with the stove not pulling very efficiently. It seems to be a known problem with these stoves, so we had the installer add a fresh air intake and it certainly burned much cleaner. Last year's chimney cleaning reported that it looked better than it had previously.
This year I decided I should go ahead and try to clean things myself. I just finished cleaning the stove and the stove pipe when I discovered the chimney has a bunch of shiny solid creosote. Since I'd need to order a brush to sweep our rectangular clay liner we decided to just schedule another sweeping.
THE QUESTION:
Common wisdom is to have hotter fires to help keep everything clean. The soapstone makes that a little more difficult especially considering we cracked one of the stones our first burning season. The stove also sort of blasts us out of the living room/kitchen when we run it hot, so I'm thinking we need to add some fans to get the heat to the other rooms of the house. Is there anything else we should be thinking about other than adding some Super Quiet doorway fans, running the stove towards the upper acceptable range, and burning well-seasoned dry wood? Midseason sweeping? Would it be wise to use some of the abandoned floor registers to pull up some cold air from the basement/send down hot air? Before we purchased the stove there was a wood burning furnace in the basement. The installer told us putting the wood stove down there would potentially be the most efficient, but ultimately not that convenient or (importantly) cozy. Open to suggestions. We certainly don't want a chimney fire and we also don't want to damage the stove.