# can a pellet stove over heat



## castaned (Jan 5, 2012)

I have an enviro windsor pellet stove. The other day I was adding more pellets and the stove was so hot it burned a big hole in the plastic bag holding the pellets. I always lean the bag on the top of the stove as I add more and this has never happened. I am a little worried about saftey. I am reluctant to leave the stove on when I am not home. Any thoughts?
S


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## whlago (Jan 5, 2012)

castaned said:
			
		

> I have an enviro windsor pellet stove. The other day I was adding more pellets and the stove was so hot it burned a big hole in the plastic bag holding the pellets. I always lean the bag on the top of the stove as I add more and this has never happened. I am a little worried about saftey. I am reluctant to leave the stove on when I am not home. Any thoughts?
> S



My thought is that if you are following the "clearance to combustibles" requirements you should not have any issues.  One suggestion is to pour your pellets into some sort of bucket for loading.  I simply use a 5 gallon bucket and pour into that from where my pellets are stored in the garage. Much easier IMHO.


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## SmokeyTheBear (Jan 5, 2012)

castaned said:
			
		

> I have an enviro windsor pellet stove. The other day I was adding more pellets and the stove was so hot it burned a big hole in the plastic bag holding the pellets. I always lean the bag on the top of the stove as I add more and this has never happened. I am a little worried about saftey. I am reluctant to leave the stove on when I am not home. Any thoughts?
> S



Yes they can overheat, but unless you have done the unthinkable and disabled the high temperature limit snap disc or whatever limit system your stove uses the stove will stop feeding pellets and shut down before it can become a problem.

I would seriously suggest you check the convection blower for crud in the works and clean it out.


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## CTguy9230 (Jan 5, 2012)

i,ve always heard that pellet stoves have sensors to avoid
over heating and that they'll shut themselves down

but like anything mechanical...i would suppose a failure could happen


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## jtakeman (Jan 5, 2012)

castaned said:
			
		

> I have an enviro windsor pellet stove. The other day I was adding more pellets and the stove was so hot it burned a big hole in the plastic bag holding the pellets. I always lean the bag on the top of the stove as I add more and this has never happened. I am a little worried about saftey. I am reluctant to leave the stove on when I am not home. Any thoughts?
> S



A quote from your manual.


> Unit hot while in operation. Keep children, clothing and furniture away. Contact may cause skin burns.



I've melted bags of fuel touching my old stove too, Wasn't even at full tilt either. The bags are thin and melt easy IMHO. Yes these stoves get hot and there is fire inside them. There is safeties that work very well at keeping them safe. The high limit switches are very very reliable. If they fail(again rare) they usually fail in the open position and that would leave the stove inoperable. Relaxe, They are safe or we wouldn't be allowed to use them. Just make sure you keep it clean, A dirty stove pipe is actually more dangerous than the stove itself!

Carry on!


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## PA_Clinker (Jan 6, 2012)

One night last December my old Earth Stove TP40 got so hot that I noticed the heat exchanger tubes glowing red! I never bypassed or disabled any limit switches, so I don't understand what happened. Long story short, it must have been doing it (overfiring) for some time because soon after, fly ash started coming out of two of the heat exchanger tubes. 'Twas a cold winter last year...


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## CygnusX1 (Jan 6, 2012)

j-takeman said:
			
		

> castaned said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Better for it to be the bag and not your knee. It's what cattle feel like when they get branded.


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## VTrider (Jan 6, 2012)

castaned said:
			
		

> I have an enviro windsor pellet stove. The other day I was adding more pellets and the stove was so hot it burned a big hole in the plastic bag holding the pellets. I always lean the bag on the top of the stove as I add more and this has never happened. I am a little worried about saftey. I am reluctant to leave the stove on when I am not home. Any thoughts?
> S



I've been burning with an Enviro Windsor for about 7 or 8 seasons now, as with most pellet stoves the sides can get pretty hot.  As stated earlier, pellet stoves have numerous safety checks and as long as you keep it clean and pay attention to clearances for combustibles you will be fine.  I just replaced my control board to fix a faulty convection fan controller - I can tell you from experience that if you keep the stove on low (with a 4-second on auger setting) and turn off the convection blower - once the stove temp reaches 160F (about 10 minutes in my case) it will bypass everything and automatically fire up the room blower to the highest setting in order to cool it down - I would imagine this could be a good test to make sure that particular sensor is working fine.  The stove also has a 200F high limit sensor as well which i'm not sure, but imagine if activated probably would stop the auger from feeding the burnpot more pellets.


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## Hitch (Jan 6, 2012)

We have left the house with our pellet stove running (knowingly).  We haven't let it run over night.  I almost didn't turn it off last night........but I chickened out.  One of these nights.


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## Don2222 (Jan 6, 2012)

castaned said:
			
		

> I have an enviro windsor pellet stove. The other day I was adding more pellets and the stove was so hot it burned a big hole in the plastic bag holding the pellets. I always lean the bag on the top of the stove as I add more and this has never happened. I am a little worried about saftey. I am reluctant to leave the stove on when I am not home. Any thoughts?
> S



Hello
  A few moths ago I purchased an Enviro EF-2i that was dead as a doornail! The Auger was not turning and feeding pellets. There is a high limit snap switch usually mounted to the hopper on the inside set to blow at around 200 - 250 Degrees F. It is normally closed so when I read no resistance with the ohm meter, thet means it was blown! After replacing this switch the stove ran fine.
  Now one thing to keep in mind is that many stoves still have the knobs on potentiometers that can be set manually. This enviro had this and it was called "Dial-A-Fire" for manually setting the feed rate (Auger Frequency for feeding pellets) and the knob for adjusting the convection fan (Room Blower). So in this case if the room blower is set really low and the feed rate set really high you can "OverFire" the stove. This can cause the safety high limit switch to blow.
  Newer digital control panels take away any wrong adjustments that could be made so they usually do not overfire. However it is possible like in a burn back situation if the hopper catches fire. That is more likely with a bottom feed unit.
Below is a pic of the 200 degree F hi limit switch in the Enviro EF-2i from the EF-2 Service manual
 Use a female-female connector to by-pass
 the 200Â°F manual reset as shown in Figure
  If the auger turns and the stove works then the Hi Limit switch should be replaced.


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## Frogwood (Jan 6, 2012)

Agree with VTrider.  My 2003 Windsor reacts the same way. We always run the blower, as is recommended. The stove top will get very hot on settings 4 & 5. (For you non-Windsor folks the stove has heat settings from 1 - 5). I can certainly imagine the pellet bag would get pretty heated if laid out over the top while pouring pellets. I always pour from the side since I have plenty of clearance to do so. If you don't then certainly use the scooper method as described by another member here. 

With our current weather we run our stove 24/7 on lower heat settings (1 - 3) depending on need. Temps have been high 30's to low 40's overnight. Usually on 2 overnight and then turn up if needed in the morning till the house gets warmer. House is about 1800sf and a bit drafty. Comfortable daytime temps for my family is 65 - 67deg.


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## St_Earl (Jan 6, 2012)

CygnusX1 said:
			
		

> Better for it to be the bag and not your knee. It's what cattle feel like when they get branded.



there are worse things you can burn than your knee.

right through my sweats.
*never again*


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