My 250 started acting up about a day and a half ago. Symptoms: eating up wood like crazy, smoking heavily nonstop, having a hard time keeping up with heating demand, not gasifying. This is my 3rd year with this unit and have been very happy with how it's performed. I just gave it the normal cleaning - heat exchange tubes, ashes from the burn box and ashes from the lower secondary burn. I believe its not getting enough air. This morning I turned the knobs all the way out today just to try to get it some more air but it hasn't made a difference.
I have read about some of you taking apart the air box in the back of the unit from time to time to clean it out. I haven't done anything to this unit besides the general cleaning simply because it has performed like a charm up to this point. I am also not the most mechanical guy in the world and am really unsure what I will find and what to look for. Any info or tips you could pass on would be helpful and remember, even though I'm on my 3rd year, taking anything apart on this or tinkering with it is all brand new to me.