Fine tuning.. problems finding the right mix of damper/combustion etc..

[checkthisout]

You found the problem. Fix your door then play around with air control.

The air adjustment isn't that sensitive. I bias towards a shorter flame because the amount of pellets burning at any given time fluctuates and you will have a flame licking up and touching the top of your stove which wastes heat IMO.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

...
The idea is enough air to keep the pellets burning and kit the ash out. A little hotter burn and the ash will be "lighter" too much junk in the pellets and not enough air will teach you the meaning of Clinker, the misfit of the pellet world. Make peace with your fox trot and carry on.
...

Trust littlesmokey, you don't want clinkers??! They indicate excellent quality pellets and the best burn evah (not) ;-).

 

[Smitty090]

Thanks guys. Good notes Littlesmokey!
I installed my new gasket this afternoon. The other one was white gasket that I could stretch to twice the lenght so was tough to work with. I found this one yesterday which is the black one which is still 1/2 thick but only about 1/4" width which makes it fit perfectly into the groove and it was very dense and not stretchable. I think this is what was supposed to be used and I feel much much more comfortable with this one.

I also used the high heat silicone that came with it instead of the liquid cement that just hardened up solid from the last kit. Cant wait to start it up.
I read a few places that said wait anywhere from an hour to 24hrs before lighting the stove after installing the new gasket using silicone so not sure.. until I read a more convincing one I think I'll just leave it until tomorrow before lighting to let it set. I left it about an hour and a half and then closed the door. It was very hard to close ha ha, but until it works in I am sure it will be. I inspected all around with a bright flashlight inside and saw zero light through so looks good so far.

I had a good setting today as it ran all night last night on 2/5, ran it on 3/5 for a few hours today and even 4/5 and it burned really well on all those settings BUT did still ash up enough that I had to at least move it away as it was starting to overflow into the pellet grate so only about 6-8 hours of use and ash was built up.. could still be the holes in the gasket though.. time will tell.

 

[checkthisout]

Thanks guys. Good notes Littlesmokey!
I installed my new gasket this afternoon. The other one was white gasket that I could stretch to twice the lenght so was tough to work with. I found this one yesterday which is the black one which is still 1/2 thick but only about 1/4" width which makes it fit perfectly into the groove and it was very dense and not stretchable. I think this is what was supposed to be used and I feel much much more comfortable with this one.

I also used the high heat silicone that came with it instead of the liquid cement that just hardened up solid from the last kit. Cant wait to start it up.
I read a few places that said wait anywhere from an hour to 24hrs before lighting the stove after installing the new gasket using silicone so not sure.. until I read a more convincing one I think I'll just leave it until tomorrow before lighting to let it set. I left it about an hour and a half and then closed the door. It was very hard to close ha ha, but until it works in I am sure it will be. I inspected all around with a bright flashlight inside and saw zero light through so looks good so far.

I had a good setting today as it ran all night last night on 2/5, ran it on 3/5 for a few hours today and even 4/5 and it burned really well on all those settings BUT did still ash up enough that I had to at least move it away as it was starting to overflow into the pellet grate so only about 6-8 hours of use and ash was built up.. could still be the holes in the gasket though.. time will tell.

The door probably also needs some adjusting. On that stove it should require a good amount of force to latch. You should be able to tell if it's sealing by simply looking at the gasket and making sure it's getting crushed by the stove all the way around.

 

[Smitty090]

Well here is a shot of the stove after 8 hours of use. The door is completely sealed (very happy with the new one!) but unfortunately no change. Still enough ash that I need to clean out already as it starts falling into the pellet grate and affecting the burn quality.
The very small flame to me says too much air but the soot on the window and ash inside tells me not enough.

Has anyone been to this point where the ash build up is so much and discovered what worked? I notice most of the ash comes when the new pellets drop in. It tosses sometimes as much as 20-30 tiny pieces of buring ash into the air which approx 1/3 of it falls down to the sides.

The picture shows the ash build up after 8 hours as well as the fly ash from a pellet drop.. low light cause flash made the burning ash hard to see..
Thoughts?
Smitty

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

You haven't seen real ash build up in a pellet stove.

What color is the deposit on the window and more importantly the color of the deposit on the firebox in back of the burn pot?

The ejecting embers look like you have some decent action taking place, it just needs to deposit the ash further from the burn pot.

 

[Smitty090]

The window has a brownish film with some black spots of ash stuck to it. Comes off quite easily mostly with vacuum and cloth or paper towel.
At current setting, the ash is actually quite a bit like salt & pepper. Some larger pepper corn size pieces, black and sprinkled through is a trace amount of white ash sparkled throughout.
On some lower air settings I had before, the ash was a very fine light powder and all black with maybe some trace of brown. Also, there is not much ash build up in the ash tray below the burn grate so it seems to be mostly flying out and not falling down..

I am thinking of closing the damper about a mm or two and reducing the feed rate by just a hair. I seem to get MUCH less fly ash with just a mm less damper but I think the pellets will take slightly longer to burn...

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

You are looking for light gray almost white ash, trim your feed just a tad using the feed trim control.

You are likely going to have to make several stabs at this and there is still the possibility that you will have problems due to the back pressure from the high EVL venting.

 

[Smitty090]

Flame seems to carry higher now as a whole and I have found in all this testing that the higher the flame (to an extent there), the less ash inside as it mostly all seems to carry up but there visually seems to be far less popping out now even when pellets drop. Heat output is higher too with a couple extra inches of flame.

Will run for a few hours while keeping an eye on how the pellets build up in the grate.

Thanks for all the attention to this Smokey, it is much appreciated. Glad to see more helpful people!!

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

I'll stick with you Smitty. We try to help as much as possible, but there are limits and it is possible that even your tank of a stove will limp along.

My EVL limit for 4" pipe is around 26 based strictly on the cross sectional area, some stoves have fairly weak combustion blowers and will act like they have hit a brick wall rather fast.

There is a valid reason why imacman put up the red flag.

Trust me, like littlesmokey warning about clinkers the problems caused by exceeding the capability of the combustion blower is also not something you want to deal with.

 

[Smitty090]

I hear you and know it is a possible factor. 2 Hearth stores where I was shopping for the venting and liners as well as the manufacturer and on top of that a friend of mine who had this exact model with the same setup says it will have no issues with exhaust. I know every set up is unique no matter how similar just with climate, winds etc but I want to try my best to get it running well as is before giving up and blaming it on the venting.

Just an update, I left for a couple hours and came back to the picture below ha ha.. when I looked inside the pellet grate was 3/4 full of pellets and restricting the air so the flame became lazier and of course more soot. I just adjusted down the feed rate a bit more and added just a VERY slight amount of air with the combustion air trim. I think I am getting closer...

 

[Smitty090]

Well yesterday was good. Last night, not so much.
Ran the stove yesterday on setting 3/5 almost all day and was very happy. Heat output was good, glass had barely a tint to it, pellets didnt build up. Had it dialed into where I thought was running 90% of where I want it.

Woke up this morning after setting it down to setting 2/5 overnight and wake up to this 8 hours later... ton of ash, larger sized pieces instead of fine dust..
Since I am doing some renovating in this room.. I'll try to get it dialed in on the lower 2/5 setting and then see if it works better moving up from there instead of tuning it in higher and then moving down.