Anyone with a Piazzetta Sabrina ?

[NorthoftheQuabbin]

3" or 4" and have fun if you are using an ash generator for pellets.

What's an ash generator ?

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

What's an ash generator ?

Pellets of the premium variety run from 4 pounds of ash (high end Douglas fir) .2% to 20 pounds at the 1% limit then we have standard grade and then utility. That ash has to go somewhere, the ash pan and inside the fire box get a good deal of it the rest gets stuck in the rest of the stoves internal exhaust path and finally in the exhaust venting.

So where is it going in your greater than 26' of venting?


ETA: Poundage is per ton and says nothing about the volume which is an entirely different critter.

A link to look at that should give you an idea. https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/2010-pellet-review-its-that-time-again.54880/

 

[Pascal_Maertens]

I dialed back the pellet feed on the stove this morning. Let's see how that does.

BTW, my Monia is by no means vented according to text book.

From the back of the stove, it vents vertically for about 6 feet or so, before making a sharp right angle and venting horizontally through the ceiling for about 20 feet - before emptying into the chimney.

Initially we thought, if either stove was going to have venting problems, it was going to be the Monia.

Look at this pdf file if you are talking about the installation of your chimney this is a chart that you should consider (the LEE chart) there is a maximum of pipe you can put and also a maximum of horizontal length vs vertical length

 

[NorthoftheQuabbin]

What you want to do is actually starve the stove of fuel to find the "point of no return".
Once you have that you just keep creeping flow up. If the fire runs well then nearly/or goes out during the clean cycle you are nearly there.
I have no doubt that the exhaust voltage will be too high. If you find the stove is blowing out the pot you should reduce the exhaust voltage to close to minimum. Generally these stoves will overdraft if running well so manometer settings are irrelevant. You need to understand how the fire works and following factory settings will not do that for you.

I dialed down the stove's pellet feed rate to the minimum this morning, and so far it's performed about the best I've seen it.

Fixed ? Coincidence ? Hand of God ? Who knows ?

 

[chken]

I dialed down the stove's pellet feed rate to the minimum this morning, and so far it's performed about the best I've seen it.

Fixed ? Coincidence ? Hand of God ? Who knows ?

Do the pellets look smaller? Smaller/shorter pellets will give you more fuel for the same feed rate, so when switching pellet brands just look at them to see if they appear different. You'll need to adjust the air or feed rate if they're much different.

 

[NorthoftheQuabbin]

Do the pellets look smaller? Smaller/shorter pellets will give you more fuel for the same feed rate, so when switching pellet brands just look at them to see if they appear different. You'll need to adjust the air or feed rate if they're much different.

I've been using the same brand of pellets for the last month = Okanagan Premium (red) softwood.

 

[NorthoftheQuabbin]

Fixed ? Bit early to say.
Coincidence ? Of course not.
Make sure you note the changes you have make, for what reason, and when. For future reference.
I mentioned a little while ago that our stove (which is similar to yours in a lot of ways) is now the most efficient and cleanest independently test unit in the world. Did we fine tune it with a manometer or fancy therm-cameras?
No everything by eye. Learn how your stove works and you will be amazed what it can do.
If the pot doesnt fill up with the lower feed rate I still think I would try dropping back the exhaust voltage, I am sure you are wasting heat up the flue.

At the risk of summoning ill-fate, the stove has performed the best I've ever seen it - over the last 24 hours.

Not sure how to account for it ? It's been extremely cold over the last 24 hours (-20 this morning). Maybe the low temperate has kept the stove in high mode ? But, then again it was very cold last friday, when it had a relapse.

Maybe is was reducing the pellet feed after all ?

 

[chken]

At the risk of summoning ill-fate, the stove has performed the best I've ever seen it - over the last 24 hours.

Not sure how to account for it ? It's been extremely cold over the last 24 hours (-20 this morning). Maybe the low temperate has kept the stove in high mode ? But, then again it was very cold last friday, when it had a relapse.

Maybe is was reducing the pellet feed after all ?

There are too many variables to ever put your finger on one. First, you were maxed on air, meaning you had no more adjustment that way. The alternative is to adjust feed rates, which is what you did. I adjust my feed rate down when I switch to FSUs, since they are a short pellet. You could have had a bag with short pellets, you could have had a bag that had excess moisture. The location of your vent termination is in a tricky spot, subject to wind. Was it a windy night? Did the wind come from a specific direction? When you have a stove for a while, you learn that sometimes you get a fluke occurrence and not to stress out about it. Given that you were maxed on air already, shortening the pellet feed rate can't hurt, in fact it should help give you some headroom to make air adjustments going forward as air adjustments are far easier to assess than feed adjustments.

 

[CleanFire]

Given that you were maxed on air already, shortening the pellet feed rate can't hurt, in fact it should help give you some headroom to make air adjustments going forward as air adjustments are far easier to assess than feed adjustments.

On the Francesca here, which has the same feed / air adjustments, I found that reducing each power level feed rate by .1 to an (odd) number helped - auger feed became more consistent, it allowed for better fine-tuning of flame when burning softwood pellets. (Hope the tip helps.)

 

[NorthoftheQuabbin]

There are too many variables to ever put your finger on one. First, you were maxed on air, meaning you had no more adjustment that way. The alternative is to adjust feed rates, which is what you did. I adjust my feed rate down when I switch to FSUs, since they are a short pellet. You could have had a bag with short pellets, you could have had a bag that had excess moisture. The location of your vent termination is in a tricky spot, subject to wind. Was it a windy night? Did the wind come from a specific direction? When you have a stove for a while, you learn that sometimes you get a fluke occurrence and not to stress out about it. Given that you were maxed on air already, shortening the pellet feed rate can't hurt, in fact it should help give you some headroom to make air adjustments going forward as air adjustments are far easier to assess than feed adjustments.

Point well taken.

 

[NorthoftheQuabbin]

Now that is just silly.
You sir are over thinking this issue to the max.
THe base issue is too much fuel, once that is sorted you balance the air for maximum heat extraction before the stove stalls. The flue is unlikely to have much bearing on the operation and can be easily compensated.
It is not rocket science, it is rocket stove science; much easier.


Dont understand this either, maybe these stoves have a less user friendly feed control than ours but adjusting fuel supply in these Euro style stoves is the core control.

So far, it seems that my stove likes to run on maximum combustion speed, at a reduced pellet feed rate.

While it may not prove to be the most efficient in terms of burn to heat ratio, it's appears to be running at its best right now.

But, who knows ? Tomorrow Linda Blair may suddenly jump out of the hopper spewing pea soup.

 

[chken]

So far, it seems that my stove likes to run on maximum combustion speed, at a reduced pellet feed rate.

While it may not prove to be the most efficient in terms of burn to heat ratio, it's appears to be running at its best right now.

But, who knows ? Tomorrow Linda Blair may suddenly jump out of the hopper spewing pea soup.

Check your exhaust temps. That will give you an indication of whether you are burning too hot and throwing heat out the exhaust. In general, on Power 1, my exhaust temp is about 200F, while on Power 5, my exhaust temp can get up to 265F, but is usually lower. If the temps are high, you can raise the room blower fan to draw more heat out of the convection fins, thus lowering the exhaust temps.

Also, if the exhaust temps are too low, under 200F, then you'll get a dirtier burn.

 

[NorthoftheQuabbin]

Check your exhaust temps. That will give you an indication of whether you are burning too hot and throwing heat out the exhaust. In general, on Power 1, my exhaust temp is about 200F, while on Power 5, my exhaust temp can get up to 265F, but is usually lower. If the temps are high, you can raise the room blower fan to draw more heat out of the convection fins, thus lowering the exhaust temps.

Also, if the exhaust temps are too low, under 200F, then you'll get a dirtier burn.

My exhaust temps typically stay between the upper 190's and lower 200's. And, I mostly run the room blower on the highest setting of 38.

Also, I always run my stove on P5 and regulate it by temperature setting.

Good news too. My stove has been running for two plus days straight with no build up so fat.

Ah, now I just jinxed myself !

 

[NorthoftheQuabbin]

Check your exhaust temps. That will give you an indication of whether you are burning too hot and throwing heat out the exhaust. In general, on Power 1, my exhaust temp is about 200F, while on Power 5, my exhaust temp can get up to 265F, but is usually lower. If the temps are high, you can raise the room blower fan to draw more heat out of the convection fins, thus lowering the exhaust temps.

Also, if the exhaust temps are too low, under 200F, then you'll get a dirtier burn.

I assume that exhaust temperature is based on combustion rate, and cannot be adjusted in any way ?

 

[NorthoftheQuabbin]

All adjustments will affect flue temp.
Highest efficiency is obtained with the room air fan at it's max speed. I don't do that because I find the noise annoying.
Once you have the fuel feed right (which it sound you are getting close), the room fan as high as you can stand (which you have) then you just keep lowering the exhaust fan until the fire will not function correctly.
Flue temp readings are irrelevant. As alway tune by eye. You want that exhaust fan at the lowest possible setting that maintains the fire. That way you are slowing the heat transfer out the flue and giving the heat exchanger more time to extract the heat into the house where you want it.
You have a programmable clean routine I assume. You need to lower your combustion air flow to the point that you need the purge to clear waste from the pot, then you have your stove running at it's best. Most stoves run at around 75% on factory settings. Our stove runs up to 97%. Yours is similar to ours so there is no reason why it cannot do the same.

I generally run air fan at it's highest mainly because I have a very large, open structure home. Also, I will give the Piazzetta stoves credit, in that they're are very quiet.

I'll try your technique of lowering the air fan, and see what happens.

 

[CleanFire]

If you use an IR Thermometer aimed at a fixed point inside the stove, you can determine the best fire temp while adjusting air - you are looking for the hottest temp, and good flame.. If the flame becomes lazy, bump up the exhaust air.

Best to do this after the stove has reached operating temp. / been running for awhile.. Give the stove a chance to burn on each adjusted setting, at least 10-15 minutes (or longer) to observe and verify.

 

[CleanFire]

Then you would have been absolutely astounded to see the camera tripod set up 24" in front of the room blower outlet, with a external temperature probe affixed, verifying exit temp. of air from the heat exchanger, while I was using the IR Thermometer.

I understand what you are saying, and agree that visual observation is best - I used these measuring tools to verify that the maximum amount of BTU's were being extracted at a given feed rate, and to allow for finer adjustment using the User Draft and Pellet Feed control settings.

Dialing in the stove this way saved me, a new pellet stove owner, a lot of time in setup, and having empirical data verifying visual observation meant I could 'dial-in' each power level much quicker.

 

[CleanFire]

The flaw here is the number of variables that can change over time and relying on something you did last year is pointless.

A valid point - if we needed to change from softwood to hardwood pellets, or different brands, I would have to repeat this process over.

What it did help with was determining the 'sweet spot' of the exhaust blower RPM for the stove w/ the vent used here, there is a fixed range exhaust blower values from P2 - P5, that increment consistently.

Now that we've been burning a few months, I know how to 'tweak' a setting visually, but as a new owner (of a used CL stove, that needed repair) setting up for the first time, the 'tech' did help.

 

[NorthoftheQuabbin]

The exhaust fan, not the room air fan.

Gotcha

 

[NorthoftheQuabbin]

A valid point - if we needed to change from softwood to hardwood pellets, or different brands, I would have to repeat this process over.

What it did help with was determining the 'sweet spot' of the exhaust blower RPM for the stove w/ the vent used here, there is a fixed range exhaust blower values from P2 - P5, that increment consistently.

Now that we've been burning a few months, I know how to 'tweak' a setting visually, but as a new owner (of a used CL stove, that needed repair) setting up for the first time, the 'tech' did help.

There is simply no way that my stove can run on any other exhaust fan speed than maximum. In fact, if there was a way to raise it even higher I would.
So far, running my stove at maximum fan speed, with a reduction in pellet feed, has been its only savior.

 

[johninwi]

I'm going to guess chickenman is going to tell you to reduce your pellet feed further, keep reducing till you need to reduce the exhaust speed.
Keep reducing the feed to a point where you need to reduce the air, then you'll be able to make finer adjustments with the exhaust air speed.

 

[NorthoftheQuabbin]

I'm going to guess chickenman is going to tell you to reduce your pellet feed further, keep reducing till you need to reduce the exhaust speed.
Keep reducing the feed to a point where you need to reduce the air, then you'll be able to make finer adjustments with the exhaust air speed.

My stove is already on its lowest feed setting.

 

[NorthoftheQuabbin]

This is how the stove is running today. Kind of a lazy orange flame again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=sukAfbIDDuM

 

[NorthoftheQuabbin]

Flame is fine but there is still way too much fuel. What is the pellet consumption?

I'm not sure what the actual feed rate is ? All I can say is that I have it set at the lowest the stove will allow me too. Something like 6 ? And I believe it was initially set at 8.2 ?

 

[NorthoftheQuabbin]

I probably burn through a bag during an 8 to 10 hour period.