Enviro EF2 keeps going out after cleaning

[Em98]

Hi all!

Every year I spend an entire day taking apart and cleaning every nook and cranny on the whole stove, usually before starting my burn season.

However this year I did it late with a month left of burning. The entire season, I’ve been able to run the stove with the heat zone knob at the line above the “blue zone” with 0 issues. After cleaning however, the stove continually goes out (no matter what the damper is set to) unless it’s almost at the midpoint (pictured below is the absolute lowest I can get and still requires some babysitting). This is especially frustrating at the end of the season when I’d like to run it lower and save some pellets.

This is the first time I’ve dealt with this after a complete tear down and cleaning and I’m at a loss for what to check or fiddle with to get it back to it’s usual abilities.

One major difference with my cleaning this year was that I applied wd 40 and got the damper to actually be able to pull in and out- in the 4 years I’ve lived here it’s always been absolutely stuck in one position (fully open). Now it moves freely but doesn’t seem to matter much when I set it to the lower heat zone.

It’s often going out with a basket full of unburned pellets, and it’s a little harder to light at the beginning than normal (the igniter has never worked on it, so I always light it manually).

Any advice or thoughts would be super appreciated!

 

[stovelark]

Before your issue, if I understand you right, you had the dial a fire near the top of the blue zone? Thats a low feed rate, did you have the convection blower set at minimum too? Ideally, for a low burning fire, I always was at about 10 oclock on the feed rate, and same for convection speed. At the setting you are at (8 oclock), does the unit drop pellets every 12-13 secs? Sounds like a couple of things could be happening. If the exh damper is open too much, then at that low feed rate, the fire may be not hot enough in the exhaust path and the proof of fire switch (the switch with brown wires above the exh blower housing) may be shutting it down. If the damper is open too much and convection fan speed is too high, same issue exhaust path cooling down and POF switch is shutting it down. In my experience, stove was not hard to make it happy, the damper is normally out about 1-1/4" for a medium feed rate and medium convection speed. But, if something changed after you did full cleaning, I'd verify exhaust path is clear again, cause lack of air flow through the stove could also be the issue. Good luck with her, that's a pretty bullet proof operating system.

 

[stovelark]

One thing i forgot- make sure burnpot is sitting in correctly, and the ash pan housing is closed properly, either can upset the air flow through that stove. Stay warm.

 

[johneh]

In 23 years, my ef 3 (same burning system, only more BTU)
I have never been able to stay light at less than 11 am on the dial
What does the flame look like? Very active, Blow torch of blacktips
and lazy? Do you use an OAK (Out Side Air Kit)? Also, burn the pot in
correctly, with the high lip towards the glass. Are all the holes in
the burn pot clear? Is the air intake clean and ash-free? Is the chimney clean?

 

[Em98]

Before your issue, if I understand you right, you had the dial a fire near the top of the blue zone? Thats a low feed rate, did you have the convection blower set at minimum too? Ideally, for a low burning fire, I always was at about 10 oclock on the feed rate, and same for convection speed. At the setting you are at (8 oclock), does the unit drop pellets every 12-13 secs? Sounds like a couple of things could be happening. If the exh damper is open too much, then at that low feed rate, the fire may be not hot enough in the exhaust path and the proof of fire switch (the switch with brown wires above the exh blower housing) may be shutting it down. If the damper is open too much and convection fan speed is too high, same issue exhaust path cooling down and POF switch is shutting it down. In my experience, stove was not hard to make it happy, the damper is normally out about 1-1/4" for a medium feed rate and medium convection speed. But, if something changed after you did full cleaning, I'd verify exhaust path is clear again, cause lack of air flow through the stove could also be the issue. Good luck with her, that's a pretty bullet proof operating system.

Oh interesting! I actually wasn’t aware that the blower speed impacted the burn, that’s great to know.

Yes I would sometimes have it set to the top of the blue zone, particularly in the fall when it wasn’t as cold.

I’ve turned that down and put the damper fully closed and that’s seemed to help quite a bit. Think it will take a little more finicking/experience on my end to get comfortable with controlling the burn now that the damper is fixed.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[stovelark]

Well, by affecting the burn, I meant if you run convection fan very high and burn rate low, you could strip away too much heat from exhaust path and that could in effect, make the Proof of fire switch cool down and have stove go into shutdown. I'm with John above, my dial a fire was a minimum of 10-11 oclock, I mostly ran about noon on both feed and convection blower. Remember too, if you want to run feed rate lower, then you probably will need to close damper, but if you close damper too much, you could cause the vac switch to drop out (open) and that would stop feeding, and fire would go out then... I always found 12 oclock on the dials, and damper open to make flame look vibrant, but not too much and enjoyed the heat...

 

[johneh]

As a long-time owner and retired Envrio Teck, I agree with stovelark
Around the 12 o'clock position works best nice heat 24 to 30 hours on one bag of pellets
Nice bright active flame .