There are two gaskets on the door of a pellet stove; there is the glass gasket and the door gasket. You may be wondering if this is something you should plan on replacing and how often should it be replaced?
The reality is this is not a gasket that needs to be replaced regularly. The glass gasket doesn’t have moving parts to rub against it so it could last a very long time. I have seen glass gasket start to push it’s way out from where it’s suppose to be. If you see this then maybe it’s time to replace the glass gasket. Beware, some stoves to not use gasket on all sides of the glass. DO NOT add gasket to an area if there wasn’t any there before; it was meant to be that way.
The door gasket on a pellet stove gets a little more abuse than the glass gasket so it seems logical to replace it. This is usually the first conclusion people come to if they smell or see smoke in the house. Seeing or smelling smoke is usually NOT caused by a bad door gasket. The exhaust fan on a pellet stove is actually sucking air through the stove and spitting it out the chimney therefore the door is working under negative pressure. Any gap in the door gasket or glass will create a vacuum where air is sucked into, not blown out.
If the gap in the gasket became too great the fire would not burn properly and you could see the glass getting black within an hour or two, but this would be a major gap. Most stoves allow some air to get pulled in around the door area and some of these gaps are big enough to look through and see the fire.
If your gasket looks totally tattered and falling out then sure, yes, by all means grab a new one and install it. But usually the problem people are looking to solve by replacing the pellet stove door gasket really has to do with either the pellet stove not being cleaned properly or the exhaust fan failing. Those subjects are covered in some of my other blog post.