Englander 25-PDV - Always clinker in burn pot

[geek]

I tried so many brands of pellets including NEWP and Warm Front (this last seems to be really bad...) and it looks like this stove will always have that clinker in the burn pot and pellets bunch up a lot in the front of the burn pot.

I contacted tech support at Englander and changed air/heat numbers around to no avail.

I even emailed Mike Holton over a week ago asking for help, but no feedback......:-(

What's your experience with this stove????

 

[geek]

see picts...

 

[geek]

part of my email to Mike on 3/3:
"I tried different brands of pellets on my 25-pdv and they all seem to bunch-up and create clincker, one worse than the other but when stove is running after many hours you can see the bunch-up almost clogging the pellets coming out from the bottom auger.

Is there anything or adjustment I can do on my englander to help with this, tech support told me to clean the hole in the back of the plate and I did it well using a vac. Tech support also asked me about the low air intake setting and it was correct according to the rep.

Could you call me to discuss please, I appreciate your help."

 

[geek]

this is another pic.......

 

[MCPO]

Are you scraping the burnpot daily? You might want to try turning up the air incrementally.
However even with my Harman that burns most pellets exceptionally well I scrape daily to prevent the formation of large clinkers that could hinder an ideal burn.

 

[geek]

oh yeah, I clean my stove daily and clean the burn pot very well, the holes in the bottom plate never clog....

 

[HD41]

part of my email to Mike on 3/3:
"I tried different brands of pellets on my 25-pdv and they all seem to bunch-up and create clincker, one worse than the other but when stove is running after many hours you can see the bunch-up almost clogging the pellets coming out from the bottom auger.

Is there anything or adjustment I can do on my englander to help with this, tech support told me to clean the hole in the back of the plate and I did it well using a vac. Tech support also asked me about the low air intake setting and it was correct according to the rep.

Could you call me to discuss please, I appreciate your help."

How long was the stove burning when you took the pictures?
Mine only looks this way at start-up using the 5-5 heat-blower setting. After 10-15 minutes all of the pellets are burning and ash accumulates at the outer edges. Having unburned pellets after 15-30 minutes would be a due to too much feed or too little air. Factory settings are a starting point, the three buttons on the bottom affect burn rates on #1 and #2 settings and may be adjusted to compensate, some pellets feed faster than others. There is a slide plate in the hopper that can be adjusted to limit feed on the higher settings. You don't indicate flue setup or if you have an OAK outside air kit, they can be a source of air restriction.

 

[geek]

took picture after many hours of operation, gets worse with time; at the begining it looks fine.

my stove was installed per manufacturer's specs and have an outside air intake for fresh air.......

 

[HD41]

I burn mostly on #1 or #2 settings low feed 4 and low air 6 currently with Lignetics. I do get a build up of light ash at the outer edge (see Photo). When I am home I open the door a couple times a day while burning and cast the ash off to the side. It looks better, however I'm not sure it is necessary. I did get clinkers with some other pellets overnight but it didn't seem to cause problem. Open the door, cast off to the side and good to go.

 

[HD41]

took picture after many hours of operation, gets worse with time; at the begining it looks fine.

my stove was installed per manufacturer's specs and have an outside air intake for fresh air.......

From your photo the pellets don't appear to be completely burned and need more air or less feed. The buttons can be used for 1-2 settings and the slide plate in the hopper will cut the feed for higher settings, assuming your flue and OAK are clear. Other than this, you need "Mike"

 

[geek]

that is what I was just going to say, the pellets don’t appear to be completely burned and seem to bunch up to the front and un-burned, seems to happen more with this %^&* warm pellets though; currently my settings are:

6-4-1

Stove is running in 2-4 right now and can see the bunch up happening and un-burned pellets, I usually run the stove in 3-5 or 2-4.

What's your setting?

 

[HD41]

that is what I was just going to say, the pellets don’t appear to be completely burned and seem to bunch up to the front and un-burned, seems to happen more with this %^&* warm pellets though; currently my settings are:

6-4-1

Stove is running in 2-4 right now and can see the bunch up happening and un-burned pellets, I usually run the stove in 3-5 or 2-4.

What's your setting?

mine are 4-6-1 now with lignetics. Posts on the buttons I have seen indicate this applies to #1 and # 2 settings, Don't know the technical aspect with room air above this, but I often run 2-3 setings with good results. Don't have much experience with sustained settings above this.
You may try bumping the air up 1 and the feed down 1, will need to watch the stove for a while, if you get too much air the fire may go out.

 

[geek]

called englander and now this other tech had me change the settings to:
4-9-1

 

[HD41]

[quote author="geek" date="1236889908"]called englander and now this other tech had me change the settings to:
4-9-1[/quote
Glad to hear they responded, good luck with getting your stove "dialed in". I usually have to make adjustments with different brands of pellets.

 

[KINGOFTHENORTH]

My englander started burning like that after about 2.5 tons had been burned through it.......was cleaning stove(burn pot area,area behind plate).....then i tried the leafblower cleaning and fixed the problem.....now i use the leafblower every 3 weeks during my normal cleaning.....you would not believe the amount of ash that came out the first time i used the leafblower.....also that first time i found that the screen that came with my venting(to keep birds and such out) was half plugged with black ash,so i left that out to avoid any problems the rest of the winter.......good luck!

 

[geek]

.....then i tried the leafblower cleaning and fixed the problem.....now i use the leafblower every 3 weeks during my normal cleaning.....you would not believe the amount of ash that came out the first time i used the leafblower.....also that first time i found that the screen that came with my venting(to keep birds and such out) was half plugged with black ash,so i left that out to avoid any problems the rest of the winter.......good luck!

where?, outside in the vent? how exactly?

Outside I removed the cap on the bottom of the pipe but it didn't have much black ash collected there.

..

 

[alwood0422]

As others have said these are pellets that are not fully burned to ash. I run mine at 4-6 also and don't get this. It is most likely due to lack of combustion air. It looks like a lazy flame in your pics. I know mine looks like a blast furnace with a bright flame. It may be that your pallet feed rate is too high, but I will bet your combustion air is to low. Confirm you do not have a restriction in your fresh air line. The leaf blower trick would solve that most likely, but It could create a heck of a mess in your house if you are not careful.

 

[geek]

let me clarify this, the flame is not lazy, actually it is a nice and strong flame at the beginning, very nice, but then when stove is running for many hours the pellets bunch up and don't burn all the way down, hence the flame is restricted due to the small room left in the back of the burning pot.

how is the leaf blower trick done just in case, from outside, from inside, how?

 

[KINGOFTHENORTH]

from outside the house, search LEAFBLOWER and youll find lots of threads on how to make your own tool.......works awesome

 

[JLF001]

Mine seems to do this a lot also. Much less with these pellets I am burning from Ashland.

With other brands I could clean the burn pot before I went to bed a night and when I got up in the morning the burn pot was full of coals/ash. The pellets coming from the auger gets pushed into the pile of ash, which keeps them from burning as fast.

I was running my stove on 2 2 and the bottom buttons on 5 9 1. Still did the same thing. The stove would not stay lit on 1 because the feed was not fast enough (The default is 6 4 1).

I clean the ashes out of the burn pot at least twice a day, and was shutting the stove down every day to clean it. Now I just let it go for a week as I figure this is just the way it is going to burn.

 

[geek]

for a week without cleaning?, wow.....!!

I just turned it off and cleaned burn pot, will try new settings now but don't have much hope..:-(

 

[JLF001]

for a week without cleaning?, wow.....!!(

I still take the ashes out of the burn pot once or twice a day, but only clean the ashes out and give everything a quick wipe with an old paint brush about once a week. It is actually only run about 5 days then shut down for 2. I then clean it before starting again.


The last few days I have had the stove plugged into a voltage stabilizer. Whenever the line voltage gets below about 112VAC, it boosts it back up to 120VAC. When it starts boosting the power the blowers get louder and the flame shoots up. I think this may be part of the reason why the stove has been a bit cleaner lately. It has been over 12 hours since I cleaned it (Power went off last night so stove was cold this morning) and the burn pot is only about 1/2 full of ashes.

The line voltage normally only drops in the evenings when everyone in the area is home running lights, watching tv, cooking etc.

 

[sydney1963]

I burned some damp pellets and it looked just like that. Are your pellets damp?

 

[geek]

no damp, stored in dry area in basement and garage, on pallets.

 

[sydney1963]

Do you clean under your burn pot well so air from outside can get in ok?