Englander 25-PDVC Shutting Off

[mayhem]

ARC: Thanks, will investigate the settings. I have disconnected power at every service I've done so far, so its possible its some sort of self-reset. My pellets have been maybe a bit dusty, but I have yet to see a single pellet thats even close to the lengths you're describing. 1.5-2" seems crazy long for a pellet. I don't think I've seen anything approaching an inch in length...that size pellet would strike me as large. I'd say my pellet lengths average .25 - .75".

Eric: I did clean the room air blower (I called it the convection blower). Unbolted it, took it outside and used a can of compressed air to clean it off (no compressor available at the time, I have one now). Got a bunch of dust out of it and a bit of pet hair, but it wasn't what I would call excessively dirty.

I don't have any good way to clean out those internal passages so I might end up with the leaf blower this weekend and maybe it will solve my problems. Both vacuum lines disconnected, probably vacuum out the ashes first, front door ajar (or wide open?) and I guess disconnect the outside chimney at the T so I just am pulling straight out of the combustion fan outlet? Run the leaf blower on high until it stops blowing stuff? Obviously stove off and cool.

I am not using a thermostat on my stove, its a stand alone device in the house. I don't know for a fact if the prior owner ran it with a thermostat or not, where would I find the jumper wire in question? The room air settings definitely work and the air volume as well as the noise from the fan change at each 1-9 setting of the control panel...can't say for certain that the heat control settings are doing much of anything, thought I think they are, but I don't see a dramatic difference in the flame between 1 and 9, so maybe not.

Should the stove be hot to the touch on the top cover? Like too hot to hold your hand on it? Or should it be cooler than that?

 

[mayhem]

I'll try the dollar bill test on the door gasket tonight too. Certainly possible that's leaking.

 

[ericofmaine]

The thermostat jumper is on the bottom of the control board. Look for a small, two terminal screw block. If there isn't one there, a small wire jumping the two together will solve the issue.
When I do the leaf blower, I leave the door slightly ajar and hook onto the end of my exhaust pipe. I needed an adapter to go from my leaf blower to the exhaust pipe. I'm not home right now so I can't comment on what size. Should also note, in case it hasn't been obvious, the leaf blower is on vacuum mode.

Eric

 

[mayhem]

I don't have a vacuum mode on my leaf blower, its just a regular gas powered handheld leaf blower. It doesn't have a leaf pickup. It obviously has to have an air intake, otherwise it wouldn't have any air to blow, but I'm not sure what shape that intake is or if it can be sealed easily to the exhaust.

What about a shopvac on the exhaust instead? Probably not enough air volume I guess.

Edit, I see I can pick up a cheap electric blower with a vacuum tube for like $45, so that might be on my list this weekend.

 

[ARC]

where would I find the jumper wire in question?

Board might not look like yours depending on witch control board you have but thermostat terminal is in the same place. Circled in red.

 

[mayhem]

Gotcha. Yeah. mine is an older stove I think, no hopper switch and my control board has about 30 or so wires coming off it. I should be able to see that spot though.

Photo was taken before I cleaned it with spray electrical cleaner.

 

[ericofmaine]

That's what I have, a cheapy Black and Decker but it gets the job done. Never tried a shop vac to be honest, I just went with the leaf blower based on what I read here and saw in videos.
The thermostat wires, as ARC showed, are below what look like blue wires in your photo.

Eric

 

[ARC]

When I left for work this morning I turned it up to 9 5

I don't know about your stove but my stove on heat setting 9 will drive you out of the room. If I did not have thermostat on it, it would shut down with overheat error after around 20 minutes. Not many stoves are set up for highest heat range and long burn times.

 

[mayhem]

Ok, so bit of research done.

Old upper auger motor still seems to work and it actually runs at 1.5rpm, timed with a timer and a hash on the output shaft.

Controller did not have a thermostat wire. I installed a small jumper in there.

Cleared out the hopper and emptied the upper auger fully, then ran with the old motor empty and observed it turning consistently in steps of about an eighth of a turn-ish. Slowly added pellets and made sure they feed properly, then loaded in a few inches of pellets. Stove is currently running on 5 5 and it's getting hot...I'd say hotter than thos morning running at 9 5, but not too hot to touch yet.

Unable to access the mode menu. Tried holding down both pairs of up down immediately after plugging it in, nothing displays except 5 5 at plugin. No motors run at plugin so I don't think its reverting to last running condition.

Found an open box leaf blower at harbor freight, $33 with all the attachments including a vacuum tube. Will try to mate it to some vent pipe tomorrow and give it a good purge.

I fully expect this thing to shut down at some point, still no real idea why it happens except the upper auger seems to stop feeding. Maybe the burn chamber vacuum switch is bad?

Thanks for bearing with me through all this.

 

[mayhem]

Here we are at Tuesday and the stove has been running for as long as I keep feeding pellets into it. Shut it down Sunday night for a quick cleaning before the cold snap.

Haven't done the leaf blower cleaning yet as I have to rig up something to seal the vac tube to the chimney.

Going to order a new lower auger motor as the one that's in there now seems to be squeaking sometimes. I'm away for work all next week and don't want my wife to have to deal with a finicky stove. I might fit the spare that I have but its quite noisy, despite being brand new.

 

[mayhem]

We're past the cold snap for the most part and the stove was struggling to keep the living room in the low 60's. Let it run itself out and shut down, scooped a ton of ash out of the burn pot and vacuumed it thoroughly. Decided the give the leafblower a quick shot while it was off. Haven't had the time to sort out the fitment of the leaf blower to the chimney pipe just yet, so I pulled off the cleanout cap on the bottom of the T outside, put the vacuum tube over it and just hit the button...dang if a ton of black soot didn't come out of there...ran it till it was no longer shooting visible particles, then put the blower up there and tapped the throttle on low for a sec and blew a bunch more out the top of the chimney. Thats when I realized I had left the front of the stove open so as to not worry about the vacuum switches...went back inside and there was no ash all over the living room so I got lucky there.

Fired it up and now its running hotter than it has in the last month. So this is a VERY effective cleanout method, even just doing it half-assed like I did.

 

[Ssyko]

common leaf blowers are a 4 inch. Most stove pipe is almost 4 inch OD. I have a 3-4 rubber pipe adaptor and a 4-6. Lucky man!! The warden got me 10-12 yrs ago i got ash on her hardwood floors. Now i keep a couple stoves in the shop 😎