Heatilator PS35 flame

[Hdhogger]

"Well I empty the ash pan when it is full".

Eric

You might want to dust of the thermo couple and wax the pot pull rod too. Be all set for another 25 bags.

 

[Taurus71]

Funny stuff but zero help. thanks but no thanks!

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Well when you answer the question about how you deep clean the stove we might find out where to start looking.


More than 80 % of all pellet stove issues are caused by a dirty stove.

Usually it takes a bit of time for the stove to be exhibiting symptoms of a dirty stove and one of those symptoms is exactly what you have described.

If there is another problem, the dirty stove symptom will just lead us down the wrong path, so once again how did you do the deep clean.

Eric (you know the funny one) sells, services, and runs that particular brand in his stores.

Any item that interferes with air flow in the combustion side of a pellet stove is indistinguishable from a dirty stove.

So first we eliminate the highly probable cause of what you are seeing, that way we can determine what else if anything is wrong. The first thing a service person does is check for a dirty stove, if they deterimne yup this thing is dirty, they clean it and continue.

We can't do that remotely so we ask how you do the cleaning and when. You have to be our eyes, ears, and hands.

 

[Taurus71]

Everything is cleaned once a week right down to the pipes outside. I take it all apart. Fan motor, everything. The directions are followed to a T and then some. It's not a clean problem. The stove simply puts to many pellets down while the flame is perfect. There's not enough settings to control things. Too many pellets = big flame! You'll have a giant 12" flame and it'll be dumping pellets. How would cleaning help this. I dump the fire pot daily. Vac fire box twice a week and deep clean once a week. Top notch barefoot pellets. It just puts too many at the wrong times. It's a cheap stove so I guess I get what I paid for.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Everything is cleaned once a week right down to the pipes outside. I take it all apart. Fan motor, everything. The directions are followed to a T and then some. It's not a clean problem. The stove simply puts to many pellets down while the flame is perfect. There's not enough settings to control things. Too many pellets = big flame! You'll have a giant 12" flame and it'll be dumping pellets. How would cleaning help this. I dump the fire pot daily. Vac fire box twice a week and deep clean once a week. Top notch barefoot pellets. It just puts too many at the wrong times. It's a cheap stove so I guess I get what I paid for.

Did you get the area below the ash pan where the damper is (a piece of metal held on by a screw that can be opened and closed) which is frequently wide open or even unattached on your stove, it has been known for ash to get into that air intake path through that area of the stove. That is all the dirt it takes as the input air is blocked and that leads to loss of flame control. There are other things that can harbor ash in a stove the exhaust air passages from just above the burn pot to the combustion blower is another good place for ash to hide, this is an area that benefits from a high airflow device such as air compressor, very strong shop vacuum, or even the lowly $50 or less leaf blower in vacuum mode attached to the end of the venting outdoors.

I can't speak to the internal passage ways inside the stove on the way to the combustion blower other than to say a good brush job with a stiff brush followed by use of a high airflow helps tremendously in removing ash from that section of the stove.

If those passageways go behind a firebox wall made of steel (not cast materials) then a good thumping of the rear firebox wall will dislodge more than a little ash which can be removed by the high air flow device.

Then you might stand a chance of controlling the flame.which is set only on high fire IIRC for that stove.

 

[nikeseer]

My stove came with the damper full open and the manual says to leave it that way. Never had a flame problem. Why would you close your damper almost all the way? I would open all the way, fire it up and let it run on high for a while. My flame goes higher and lower than the 4 - 8 inches sometimes, it's not going to be perfect.

Hi Hdhogger,

I'm using Ambiance this year. First time using pure hardwood not a blend. I'm being stupid petty right now. I have my feed closed all the way and my damper wide open. Just basic. More air means faster burn or more efficient or both? I find my flame height is a little too high going by the specs set by our manufacturer. 4-8 in on high above the firepot. Mine is higher. Please let me know your thoughts. On the green supreme she burned well but dirty. Ambiance definately hotter than the green supreme.

 

[Hdhogger]

Never burned Ambiance so I can't compare to what I've burned. I have burned GS with no problems feed gate closed all the way. Have had some tons that burned really well and some that were so so. Burned Energex hardwood, they were high ash and dirty but hot. More air introduced to a flame intensifies it, similar to an acetylene torch. Once you light the gas it's a lazy flame, when you turn on the air feed it starts turning into a really intense burn. If you overfeed air, it will blow out the flame. My flame sometimes gets real high 10 - 12" but on average it doesn't do go there to often, stove is in the basement so I don't see it very often, once a day to clean the pot and load pellets. Like i said before, your stove has substantial safety features built into it. So let it burn and if your uncomfortable with the higher flame just keep an eye on it for a while, not saying to sit there all night, just check it now and then. I just let mine burn, been a great stove.

 

[nikeseer]

Never burned Ambiance so I can't compare to what I've burned. I have burned GS with no problems feed gate closed all the way. Have had some tons that burned really well and some that were so so. Burned Energex hardwood, they were high ash and dirty but hot. More air introduced to a flame intensifies it, similar to an acetylene torch. Once you light the gas it's a lazy flame, when you turn on the air feed it starts turning into a really intense burn. If you overfeed air, it will blow out the flame. My flame sometimes gets real high 10 - 12" but on average it doesn't do go there to often, stove is in the basement so I don't see it very often, once a day to clean the pot and load pellets. Like i said before, your stove has substantial safety features built into it. So let it burn and if your uncomfortable with the higher flame just keep an eye on it for a while, not saying to sit there all night, just check it now and then. I just let mine burn, been a great stove.

Mine too! I love it! Third Season! It's my thing. Not my husbands. I'm the one who takes her apart to clean thoroughly after the season is over. I know the reason for high for my house when it's in the teens, is that my house is drafty and its a cape. Doing more to the house to tighten her up but when it's super cold snaps high works and then she cycles. On medium when its in the teens she runs constantly and doesn't get up to temp to where our tstat is. But she still keeps us comfortable. Now Ambiance is a brand that our local pellet company sells. They've had good luck. Green Supreme dirty and lots of fines that choked up my auger. The Ambiance finer and screened twice. The GS I had to sift every bag. My batch last year was horrible. I paid extra for the Ambiance because I didn't want to sift and wanted a pure hardwood. So far so good. Even in the teens were using only about 1.25 a day at most. I like her wide open. Just always watching the flame. Our stove is in the living room. Thank you for the example. It totally clicked.