25-PAH Premature Burn Pot Failure - My fault or the burn pots? (2 burn pots in 4 months)

[acammer]

Here is another update in the ongoing burn-pot saga. First, an update on the 2nd replacement pot. I've burn a little more in it since I last posted in this thread, but not a lot as I've run out my supply of pellets. It has continued to erode much the same as all the others. I have no doubt that I'll have a similar failure with that one before too long. Also, the performance of that third pot is very poor compared to the first two burn pots I used. I believe it is leaking around the flange, it runs significantly richer than the other two pots.

Two days ago I was able to get 16 bags of an alternate fuel and install my 3rd replacement burn pot, the 4th new burn pot I've burned in this stove this year. I picked up 16 bags of Cheat River pellets from Lowes. I cleaned the hopper out, purged all the old Heatr's pellets, and fired up with the new stuff. The test here was to attempt to prove/disprove if the fuel was causing some sort of chemical reaction that was accelerating the erosion of the burn pot. Well, after only about 24hrs of running this burn pot is proving to come apart just like the others, with thin flakes of metal falling off, primarily on the front bottom in exactly the same place all of the other pots failed. I'm not sure what else to do with this problem, other than have a higher quality pot made. I'm going to reach out to Englander and see what they have to say, but my expectations arn't high - I think it's really as simple as just a cheap pot. I'll let you guys know if anything further develops.

 

[OhioBurner©]

Mine is continuing to flake as well. Also I put a ton of cheat river through the PAH earlier in the season. That happens to be when I was having all my problems though, so I can't really judge the pellets. It could be they were contributing, but more than likely they were fine and the problems was my gaskets and venting. Lowes never had them again after the ton I bought last fall.

 

[mrmojo182]

So was there any resolution on this burnpot issue? I'll search for another thread, but from the posts it looks like heating season might have ended with no real resolution. Sorry to rehash an old discussion, but I'm considering an englander.

 

[acammer]

So was there any resolution on this burnpot issue? I'll search for another thread, but from the posts it looks like heating season might have ended with no real resolution. Sorry to rehash an old discussion, but I'm considering an englander.

I unfortunately did not have an resolution to this issue. I burned through the remainder of the Cheat River pellets as an alternate fuel test but it had no effect on the issue - ever single burnpot I have from Englander has began eroding shortly after beginning to run it. I was very cautious not to overheat and/or push the most recent burnpots too hard, but that seems to have not had an effect on this condition. I intend to pursue a stainless steel burnpot in the future, but I have not this season as I am only burning pellets on a very limited basis - propane is just as cost effective and zero work, so until the pellet prices come back down, or gas goes back up, I'll just be running occasionally when I need focused heat in that section of my home.

It's a shame, because other than that issue I'm fairly happy with my stove. If I had it to do over again, I'd have bought an IP-25 for the additional heat output capacity - but it's hard to beat the value of the 25-PAH. Englander has always been very stand up in their customer service - they replaced this burn pot three times! - but unfortunately they need to do better than replacing it, as the problem is with the pot itself.

 

[mrmojo182]

I unfortunately did not have an resolution to this issue. I burned through the remainder of the Cheat River pellets as an alternate fuel test but it had no effect on the issue - ever single burnpot I have from Englander has began eroding shortly after beginning to run it. I was very cautious not to overheat and/or push the most recent burnpots too hard, but that seems to have not had an effect on this condition. I intend to pursue a stainless steel burnpot in the future, but I have not this season as I am only burning pellets on a very limited basis - propane is just as cost effective and zero work, so until the pellet prices come back down, or gas goes back up, I'll just be running occasionally when I need focused heat in that section of my home.

It's a shame, because other than that issue I'm fairly happy with my stove. If I had it to do over again, I'd have bought an IP-25 for the additional heat output capacity - but it's hard to beat the value of the 25-PAH. Englander has always been very stand up in their customer service - they replaced this burn pot three times! - but unfortunately they need to do better than replacing it, as the problem is with the pot itself.

Thanks for getting back to me, I appreciate it immensely. Sucks there hasn't been a resolution on it. I'm strongly considering the cpm-10. It's got the stainless burnpot and agitator so it can burn anything.

 

[Screamin Rebel]

Any update on this? My PAH is less than year old and burn pot is fried. Poor steel quality is what I'm leaning to. Can't upload a pic, but its bad!

 

[OhioBurner©]

My second one is flaking pretty bad. I'd consider custom stainless one too but this stove inst really working out for me. Even after changing my venting I'm still getting pretty short cycles between the stove getting clogged up and a dirty burn, so not sure if I am going to keep it or not. I know pellets stoves still require some maintenance but having to get up on the roof every month and run brushes and pull out combustion blowers is WAY to much work for me and a big pain to be doing when its below zero out.

 

[Screamin Rebel]

My second one is flaking pretty bad. I'd consider custom stainless one too but this stove inst really working out for me. Even after changing my venting I'm still getting pretty short cycles between the stove getting clogged up and a dirty burn, so not sure if I am going to keep it or not. I know pellets stoves still require some maintenance but having to get up on the roof every month and run brushes and pull out combustion blowers is WAY to much work for me and a big pain to be doing when its below zero out.

Is your burn pot sitting level in the cradle? Mine had weld burrs on the corners and kept it from sitting correctly in the cradle. It burned really dirty until I filed the burrs off. As for the stove I probably will go back to a USSC stove. My first stove was a USSC and the burn pot in it is the original and still looks good 5 years later also I could fine tune the feed and air so it always was a clean burn.

 

[Screamin Rebel]

Is your burn pot sitting level in the cradle? Mine had weld burrs on the corners and kept it from sitting correctly in the cradle. It burned really dirty until I filed the burrs off. As for the stove I probably will go back to a USSC stove. My first stove was a USSC and the burn pot in it is the original and still looks good 5 years later also I could fine tune the feed and air so it always was a clean burn.

Now the ignitor went bad. Really don't care for this stove. Bought American made for quality and paid more for this stove then comparable others and this thing is poorly made with garbage parts

 

[Michael6268]

Yeah. Englander owners get mad at me for saying, but they are price beater stoves and the quality lacks big time. I owned a few.

 

[acammer]

So, no resolution on this for me - I've cooked several burn pots and Englander just keeps sending me replacements that fail. I'm out of warranty at this period, so I guess I'm on my own. I'm looking at having a stainless pot made in the future.

Something you guys with dirty burns might want to try - take your airwash bar (which doesn't seem to work very well anyways as far as keeping the glass clean) and flip it on it's back, covering the airwash holes. What you've done is just divert all that air through the burn pot. You'll dirty the glass even quicker - but you may find that you'll get the air/fuel ratio closer to where you need it, especially at higher fuel loads.

For my situation, I was always trying to get maximum heat out of the stove, so the more fuel I can cleanly burn, the better. Once I ran out of the warranty period I tired this setup and found I could burn almost all it would feed pretty cleanly. The limiting factor became the burn pot, which would get hot enough to begin to glow on the face. I never hit the high limit switch, but I was concerned about really shortening the life of the burn pot, so I backed down a bit to where I didn't get it glowing, and settled there. I'm hoping that if/when I get a better burn pot I'll be able to run this thing real hard and see what she'll really do. However, this year I'm all gas, didn't even buy pellets. The pellet stove was always about cheapest heat, and this year that's propane.

 

[Screamin Rebel]

Yeah they won't replace my burn pot either. Not happy about it as its only a month after warranty ran out. I'm going to fabricate my own out of stainless and then probably sell the stove. I had a ussc stove (gave it to my mother-in-law) it's now 5 years old and still runs geat, burn pot in it is still factory and looks great.

 

[acammer]

Yeah they won't replace my burn pot either. Not happy about it as its only a month after warranty ran out. I'm going to fabricate my own out of stainless and then probably sell the stove. I had a ussc stove (gave it to my mother-in-law) it's now 5 years old and still runs geat, burn pot in it is still factory and looks great.

Yea, I feel the pain. I've got 4 burn-pots, and they are all junk. I shouldn't have to be spending money to have parts fabricated because the OE part can't make it a month at rated capacity. I've reached out to Englander and provided extensive information, and never received any explanation or permanent fix. I've reached out directly to Mike at Englander on the forums, but never received any type of response at all. I really wanted to support and be an advocate for a local, east coast, American manufacturer, but they are making that very difficult to do. I realize that cutting costs is a crucial part of staying competitive in a market saturated with foreign competition with access to cheap labor and materials, but if your product doesn't hold up, you've got to find another way.

@stoveguy2esw - I'm tagging you in this because I'll hope you'll read this. If you've got a response or more information about these burn pot failures there are several of us here that would really like to hear something better than the "no explanation, here's another pot" line, or worse, "your out of warranty, sorry." Even if you don't reply, I hope this is valuable insight for your company, whom I really want to be successful.

 

[OhioBurner©]

Is your burn pot sitting level in the cradle?

At some point the edge of the pot warped enough that it wasn't sitting perfect, but a gasket between the burn pot and cradle fixed that though I can't tell if it helped my situation at all.

Now the igniter went bad. Really don't care for this stove. Bought American made for quality and paid more for this stove then comparable others and this thing is poorly made with garbage parts

Igniters go bad in stoves that cost thousands too. I wouldn't be to judgmental on the igniter. I've never heard anyone 'paying more for Englander quality' though, that's a good one! Only a few stoves out there are cheaper, and a lot of stoves out there are more expensive.

Yeah. Englander owners get mad at me for saying, but they are price beater stoves and the quality lacks big time. I owned a few.

When I bought mine, I was thinking these are good stoves that were cheaper because of lacking all the bling and advanced features. I was hoping the quality and performance of the basic stove would be good though. I just didn't need a fancy one with a cast iron jacket and pretty accents, or majolica porcelain finish, etc. I just wanted a good plain stove, but so far I'm not impressed.

I'm still waiting to hear back from Mike, or I may just call them here at some point for suggestions. I got to say though the stove did really save my ass mostly, last winter. That is while it was running good. It just takes way to much work to keep this thing running.

Something you guys with dirty burns might want to try

I might try that. I'm not entirely convinced though the stove burns 'dirty', since after a fresh cleaning it seems to burn nice and clean for several days, or a week or two. I might be giving the stove the benefit of a doubt still, but it could simply be that the 'normal' amount of ash in the exhaust is building up to the point where it forces the stove to not breath properly? It was suggested on another forum that I try to replace my elbow with a tee and elevate the stove so I can actually suck out the accumulated ash more easily/frequently in the first section of piping. I might try that but I'm reluctant at this point to put more money into the venting after I've already re done it once. And those tee's are pricey. But after I put 4" duravent up my leafblower doesn't fit the venting anymore so until I think of something it is going to be even harder to clean it out frequently.

 

[wazilian]

So nothing more from Englander about our burn pots eh? I think the past 2 or 3 seasons I've gone through about 4-5 pots and they are failing at the same places as what has been shown/described in this thread. I wish there was more that could be done. I guess its time a few of us buy a welder...

 

[slvrblkk]

Someone on the forum was going to make me a stainless steel pot. After sending an old but good burnpot I have not heard from them in 7 months. Might be worth taking to a fab shop and see what they can do with it?

 

[acammer]

So nothing more from Englander about our burn pots eh? I think the past 2 or 3 seasons I've gone through about 4-5 pots and they are failing at the same places as what has been shown/described in this thread. I wish there was more that could be done. I guess its time a few of us buy a welder...

Yea, I have never received resolution from Englander. I really want to like the stove and the company, but they've made it pretty tough with the obvious lack of quality. I should grab you guys some pictures of the rust inside my stove - it's just cheap steel everywhere. I honestly should have left the much older, much more manual, and much better built Winrich Dynasty in place - in a few more years I'll need to replace this rusting pile of junk, where as the 'ol Dynasty would probably still be going strong.

I am going to look into building my own pot out of some more robust steel if fuel prices go back up and I start running the stove more often. For this season, propane is just too cheap and easy to even think about running the stove more than once or twice a week when we've got people over in the basement recreation area where it resides.

 

[Michael6268]

Sorry to hear about your problems. Ive owned a few Englanders myself. I agree with you on all counts. I don't understand where Englander got this great reputation on this website. The fact is. They are low quality stoves that are cheaply made with very little quality control. If you browse through this website you will see post after post of people having to do repairs on new stoves, modify new stoves to make them work properly,etc. Even though they're inexpensive stoves compared to others, one shouldn't have to do that when shelling out $1,000 +.
Everyone raves about the customer service from Englander. If that were true, Mike H would be addressing this problem. And his service team would be addressing this issue also. Truth of the matter is, the fact that so many people talk about Englanders Customer Service, good or bad, says something about their quality. The best Customer Service and sign of a good quality product is the Customer Service you don't have to use.

I've read this post in the past and been keeping up with it somewhat. I think this has been addressed before, but the problems you are having might be due to too much air. Running a little richer might lessen the intense heat in the burn pot.

 

[OhioBurner©]

My replacement pot is beginning to fail. Different spot though, in the front wall instead of the bottom. Are they part of the 1 yr or 3 yr warranty?

I've tried to call their support line for a couple weeks, I've pretty much given up. Not burn pot but just about the poor burn of my stove. I've tried everything, taken a lot of advice here and on the other forum, but has made no difference. Their website also mentions email for warranty support so I've tried that, and then a week or more later sent another, and still nothing. Great customer service my butt.

At least on my own I have mostly figured out that the problem is buildup in the inaccessible (another great design feature) parts of the stove and whacking on the back and opening up the exhaust ports and vacuuming helps. I just have to tear it down in about every 2 weeks. Before I was pulling the pipe out and cleaning it, and getting the ladder out and on the roof and cleaning the pipe every couple weeks. That got old real fast! Still get a lot of buildup in the pipes, but leaving it be hasn't changed my cleaning cycle these last few weeks.

 

[OhioBurner©]

Just checking to see if anyone looked more into getting a custom SS pot fabricated? I wonder if the cost of a custom pot might go down if we had a few of us in on the order and making an order of several pots. Mine just opened up a hole bridging maybe 3 holes together, so it's on its last leg and I guess the pot was only part of the 1-yr warranty so $64 for a new one this time. Going through a couple burn pots a season significantly adds to the expense of burning pellets.

 

[acammer]

Just checking to see if anyone looked more into getting a custom SS pot fabricated? I wonder if the cost of a custom pot might go down if we had a few of us in on the order and making an order of several pots. Mine just opened up a hole bridging maybe 3 holes together, so it's on its last leg and I guess the pot was only part of the 1-yr warranty so $64 for a new one this time. Going through a couple burn pots a season significantly adds to the expense of burning pellets.

I have not pursued this yet - but if I return to using pellet fuel as my primary heat source in a future season I will be looking into some sort of permanent fix for this. I am tempted to just toss the stove on craigslist and start over with something better built, but I will probably see what mileage I can get out of this before I give up completely. This season the stove is only being run occasionally, maybe 2-3x weekly for a total of 12-24hrs/wk, and it's typically running on a much lower heat setting, so my pot wear has slowed. Once I go back to heating the whole house it'll be wide open 20hrs/day every day and I'm sure I'll need something more robust.

@OhioBurner© - did you try the airwash bar blocking off the airwash holes? See posted #86 above. That really upped the airflow through my burn pot, and might help you with your dirty burn issue.

 

[OhioBurner©]

Yeah I did, I used some excess flat gasket I laid across the holes then set the airwash bar ontop of the gasket to weigh it down in place. Didn't make any difference.

I can't remember what all I have said, but I have come to some realizations. I don't think my burn is dirty, at least at the lower settings when its clean. Best I can tell it burns very well (but this is my first pellet stove so hard to say for sure). The problem is the short intervals between cleaning and after all the fixes I have done (gaskets, changing venting, oak, etc) I think it is burning clean now just gets gummed up fairly quick (~2 weeks). Part of the issue I think is the lack of understanding the labyrinth behind the firebox and how the ash was getting trapped in there. I stuck my finger in there and also probed around with a small screwdriver trying to figure out what all was back there, and came across a huge pile of ash. Yeah I bang the back of the firebox and vacuum out the exhaust ports but I just came to realize that my ash vac was not getting the ash just beside the exhaust ports. I stuck a small putty knife into the port (just barely fits) and use it like a hoe to rake the ash over to the port opening. There was a lot of ash there. I had no idea that stuff was behind there and my ash vac wasn't getting it. To reach most of it I had to hold the putty knife by my finger tips as far as I could reach through the port. I filled the port up to spilling over like 4 times at least. I'm wondering now how long my next cleaning interval is... maybe that was the key. I will have to try to make some kind of hose attachment so I can get my ash vac in there better. I hate how all this ash gets trapped in inaccessible parts of the stove.

I've done some basic fabrication in the past, but all I have is a harbor freight abrasive cut off saw and their portable 100A arc welder. Built a whole trailer with that though! I'm not sure if just any cheap stainless will work or what the grades are. If I get my hands on some bar stock, would a regular ol arc welder rod stick stainless together good enough to hold for a burn pot? I think I have some 7018 rods in a couple sizes in the garage.

 

[OhioBurner©]

Ok so I have just about everything I need, going to make my own stainless steel burn pot.

Could someone verify the size of the holes? I am ready to drill maybe today or tomorrow just wanted to double check since my holes are heavily scaled/corroded/rusted. The small holes a 5/32 fits in well, some a little loose some I couldn't quite get the bit in. The larger holes a 13/64 bit is just a tad loose, I'm guessing its 7/32 but I can't seem to find a bit that size at the moment. Just wanted to double check. I'm rigging up a bottle of antifreeze with a small tube to hopefully lube and cool the bit while drilling so I don't overheat it (lots of drilling!) I read that somewhere hope it works out as I don't have a bit sharpener and hope I don't go through multiple drillbits.

 

[Shane1]

Not sure of the sizes but just remember when drilling metal go nice and slow. Let the drill bit do the work.

 

[OhioBurner©]

Done with the drilling, my rigged up dispenser with some rv antifreeze I have laying around worked really well to keep things cool cutting all those holes. Now just to keep the fingers crossed my crappy mini stick welder and these 312-16 rods will work good enough to stick this thing together. Wish I'd have had this done just a couple days sooner - got really cold last night!