Enviro Mini problems

[Jeremy Hillary Boob PhD]

I turned the auger feed rate down to its lowest setting and it seems to be behaving much better, at least in manual mode---I haven't tried the thermostat yet. I'll let you know how the thermostat works. Also, I can't seem to reproduce the banging noise. I took off the side panel, but I don't feel like I changed anything in that process. Curiouser and curiouser...

I'm wondering what auger setting other Mini users use. I'm burning "Golden Fire" pellets, which, as I recall, are 100% douglas fir. For these pellets, the lowest auger trim setting (i.e., 2 seconds "on" per cycle) seems to work best for me.

Mark Stamp

 

[kast]

I have burned two different hard woods and a soft and all like the low trim settings for #1. Received my thermostat today, will see if I have time to install tonight, still not sure, if I am going the HIGH/LOW or ON/OFF route

 

[kast]

Ok I installed my Skytech 3301P tstat last night with out any problems. I went the ON/OFF route, setting the stove at a temperature (50 degrees) that will shut it off at 10:00PM, come back on at 5:30AM (75 degrees), and remain at a temperature during the day that will keep it going until we feel like shutting it down manually. I place the tstat in THERMO (not the PROGRAM) mode before I go to work so my wife can just turn the temperature down or up to shutdown and turn on the stove when I’m not home.

I also reprogrammed my Zone 1 digital tstat in the dinning room to come on from 4:30 – 5:30am at 68 degrees before the stove comes on at 5:30 to even out the heat. This morning it worked flawlessly and I woke up to an even-tempered house.

The temperature was on the mild side though so I will have to wait for a bigger test in the coming days. The worst case I see is I have to place the digital tstat in the dinning room to come on at 4:00AM instead of 4:30AM then play with it from there until it feels comfortable in the morning.

 

[enviromini]

Hi, I just bought an Enviro Mini and the auger seems to drop pellets faster then they can burn in the pot. I think the draft is set ok, but it seems to overflow on each heat setting after 30 min of operation. How do I adjust the auger trim? Is there a button combo on the operation panel to push, or is it an internal knob?
Thanks.

 

[kast]

Well my MINI is a 2005 so the control board might be a little different, with that said I know with my model the auger trim only works with the lowest setting, so there might be a different issue here.

Tell us about your setup, piping config, how old of a house, what type of pellets are you burning; does it have an outside air kit? Etc…

If you run it on high and it overflows sounds like it might be an airflow issue. The only time I see the overflow is if I do not set the auger to low when burning on the 1st setting.

 

[Jeremy Hillary Boob PhD]

Hi, I just bought an Enviro Mini and the auger seems to drop pellets faster then they can burn in the pot. I think the draft is set ok, but it seems to overflow on each heat setting after 30 min of operation. How do I adjust the auger trim? Is there a button combo on the operation panel to push, or is it an internal knob?
Thanks.

For my version of the mini (dated August 2008), this is explained (albeit, not too clearly) in the Owner's Manual on the top of p. 7. Said manual can be found here:
http://www.enviro.com/help/manuals.html
However, I see there is also a "Mini A", and that manual shows a different control board, which does not have an "auger trim" light. Instead, there is a "feed rate trim". The "A" manual also explains the trim function on p. 7, and it looks to be much better than the trim function on mine---the Mini A is adjustable in 1/4 second increments, while my Mini only has 3 different setting (essentially, normal, fast, and slow).

 

[gw2kpro]

Check your ash pan seal / placement.

The same thing has happened to me twice, the burn pot overfilling when running. Both times it was right after I had cleaned the stove. Both times it was related to the ashpan. Once I had missed catching one of the bottom latches when replacing the ash pan. The other time I had some ashes fall in behind the pan, then when I put the pan back, it sat on top of the ashes on one end.

What this causes is a break in the ash pan seal (the rope gasket). The combustion blower will pull air through this seal instead of through the burn pot. Your fire doesn't get the air is't supposed to get, so it doesn't burn well / completely and consume the pellets it's supposed to.

 

[kast]

Could you tell us all of the common mistakes with the Mini?

Btw, I cleaned out the ash pan today (for the first time), and there was some ash underneath the pan, so I figured it might not have been sealed properly and maybe that was the source of the problem. However, I just had it running on low for a couple hours and, apparently, the fire got smothered---no fire and pellets overflowing the burn pot. It looks to me like this thing is extremely temperamental. If I wanted to spend all of my time tending to the fire, I would have gotten a plain old wood burning stove.

* Improper ash pan and or door placement
(Make sure both hooks are in there place before placing the pan backing)

* Ash build-up under ash pan (causing pan to lift and the seal to break)
(I always vacuum under the pan when I do the cleaning)

* Improper placement of burn pot and liner (causing igniter issue/no flame on start-up)
(If the burn pot and liner are not seated correctly then the igniter will not line up and you will not get a flame)

* Damper settings, too much/too little air.
(The service tech that came by said about two finger widths wide (about and inch and half or two inches) for the damper will get the stove started 99% of the time, from there you can adjust the damper for best flame depending on if you have an outside air kit, horizontal or vertical piping)

* Burn pot clean-out lever
(Make sure you push that back in after cleaning. I left mine open a little, and while it didn’t cause the stove to fail it did effect the flame and was a source of aggravation just when I thought I got the damper settings right!)

Just a few please feel free to add/ change if needed.

Check out everything listed above.

 

[bjhjjh]

Hi I have been reading your posts especially regarding the overflowing burn pot and the banging noise. I might have an answer to the noise issue. On our stove I found out that the hearth pad that you attach to the stove will rattle or bang sometimes when the auger comes on. We have our stove on a hard surface and it can vibrate and make a horrible racket. Also I am experiencing the same overflow problems that have been mentioned here and I did just clean my stove. I had to remove the side panel because my damper would not push in to the proper setting and I found quite a bit pellet dust back there so I vacuumed it out and now the damper slides freely again. I am wondering if when I cleaned it something got in the way of the ash pot so it is not sealing right.

BJ

 

[kast]

BJ,

Confused on your issue, you start by making some comments then end with an ash pan not closing right. Please feel free to elaborate for me. thanks!

 

[bjhjjh]

Sorry I was on my lunch hour when I was reading the forum so I was writing the post in a hurry. I was having problems with my burn pot overflowing which was my original reason for reading. I read the post regarding the possibility of the ash pan not seated right. When I got home tonight I checked and sure enough the pan was not set on the bottom hinge so the gasket was not sealed right. I cleaned out the burn pot again and the ash pan re-started the stove and so far it seems to be working much better.

I also read about the banging noise that some of the other posts mentioned. I have experienced the same type of noise and I finally figured out that because our stove sits on a hard surface the attached hearth pad on the stove vibrates sometimes. I made sure the leveling feet were set and the banging seems to have stopped.

I do have another question though. My co-worker was told that she should run her pellet stove on high for at least 1 hour every day I have never run ours on that setting should I?

BJ

 

[Jeremy Hillary Boob PhD]

Sorry I was on my lunch hour when I was reading the forum so I was writing the post in a hurry. I was having problems with my burn pot overflowing which was my original reason for reading. I read the post regarding the possibility of the ash pan not seated right. When I got home tonight I checked and sure enough the pan was not set on the bottom hinge so the gasket was not sealed right. I cleaned out the burn pot again and the ash pan re-started the stove and so far it seems to be working much better.

I also read about the banging noise that some of the other posts mentioned. I have experienced the same type of noise and I finally figured out that because our stove sits on a hard surface the attached hearth pad on the stove vibrates sometimes. I made sure the leveling feet were set and the banging seems to have stopped.

I do have another question though. My co-worker was told that she should run her pellet stove on high for at least 1 hour every day I have never run ours on that setting should I?

BJ

I finally got somebody out to look at my Enviro Mini. I'd had problems with a loud banging noise (only on the highest setting) and the burn pot overflowing when using the thermostat. As for the banging noise, they removed the back and decided that the noise was coming from the convection fan. The beat on the fan a little bit and the noise mysteriously disappeared. Of course, 10 minutes after they left, the noise was back, as loud as ever. They said that if the noise came back, they'd probably have to replace the fan, so it looks like that might be the next step. I'm not really convinced that will solve the problem, so I'm hesitant to go that route, but unless I can come up with a better idea, I suppose we'll have to try it.

As for the overflow problem I was having, one of the tech guys who came out to my house called Enviro, and after a long conversation, they convinced him that it was functioning properly. It seems that when the thermostat turns it "off", it actually goes into a low setting, regardless of which mode its set on. And on my current settings, my stove seems to always kill the fire on the low setting. I'm not sure what that happens, but, in any case, that explains why the thermostat gives us problems, but it still doesn't make the thermostat usable.

The bottom line is that this pellet stove is very finicky. Maybe one of these days I'll manage to get it dialed in just perfectly, but so far I don't feel like I've come close, and it's not for lack of trying. It certainly puts out the heat and so it works well in that sense, but a lot of the functions (highest setting, lowest setting, thermostat, ...) are currently useless.

 

[Pat Shuff]

* Improper ash pan and or door placement
(Make sure both hooks are in there place before placing the pan backing)

* Ash build-up under ash pan (causing pan to lift and the seal to break)
(I always vacuum under the pan when I do the cleaning)

* Improper placement of burn pot and liner (causing igniter issue/no flame on start-up)
(If the burn pot and liner are not seated correctly then the igniter will not line up and you will not get a flame)

* Damper settings, too much/too little air.
(The service tech that came by said about two finger widths wide (about and inch and half or two inches) for the damper will get the stove started 99% of the time, from there you can adjust the damper for best flame depending on if you have an outside air kit, horizontal or vertical piping)

* Burn pot clean-out lever
(Make sure you push that back in after cleaning. I left mine open a little, and while it didn’t cause the stove to fail it did effect the flame and was a source of aggravation just when I thought I got the damper settings right!)

Just a few please feel free to add/ change if needed

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've burned about 6 tons of pellets in an Enviro Mini since installing in summer '07. I encountered each of the above issues resulting in poor burning/airflow
before finding this forum. Also had the ignitor tube pushed back from the burn pot resulting in hit-or-miss ignition before discovering the problem on this
forum, thanks. If the ash pan is sealed and burn pot/clean out lever positioned correctly, and thoroughly cleaned after each ton or so, it burns excellently on
every heat setting. No overflow on the highest setting and stays lit on the lowest setting with good heat output (auger trim is at factory default midpoint 2sec,
two fingers of damper control.) The only noise rattle I've had is from the heat exchanger clean lever, a jiggle stops the noise.

The Mini provides 100% of our heating needs here on the moderate OR coast, compact 1 1/2 story, year round temp range 30-65 degrees, it rarely barely
freezes. Heating needs are mostly to take the chill off. The tiny burn pot and lowest setting heat output are perfect,
unlike a previous Whitfield pellet insert 20 yrs ago that required feed and combustion air turned up so high to keep it lit it drove us out of the house. No thermostat, we just use the manual control panel.

After reading about the leaf blower trick here, I attached a powerful ShopVac to the horizontal outside wall vent using a beer huggie cut out to fit the vac hose which fit and sealed the 3" pipe
with no duct tape. The billowing clouds of ash looked like a minor weather system. Seems to burn cleaner, using 100% doug fir pellets since new, either Golden Fire or America's Best, both made by Bear Mountain, $199/ton.

 

[kast]

I still get the random noises, but they are either lower in nature, or I am just getting used to them. As far as the lower burn setting goes I keep it on 3, if I put it on 1 (with the lower auger trim) it will just burn horrid, get a lot of black soot on my glass, 1 with the default auger trim will over flow, as well as the fast trim. I have messed with the air trim to I’m blue in the face and in the end I just leave it pushed all the way in and it burns like a champ as long is its not on 1 setting. If I pull it out a little, I can get 1 to burn better, but then I get over burn on setting 3 and black smoke out the pipe.

So in the end since I have it on 3-4 99% of the time I decided to tweak it to work better on those settings.

I also have a wireless thermostat but I have had no issue with it, I have my MINI set to ON/OFF mode and I have the tstat set to turn off at a certain time (night/days no one is home) and turn back on, with out issue.