We've been trouble shooting our brand new stove ever since it was installed. It was installed with the Selkirk Direct vent for pellet stove system. First problem, we were told the 70KBTU output stove we purchased for our large home, can't constantly run on high, if it is the stove automatically shuts down and there's a high heat trip switch we need to reset to get stove running again. We have a temperature selection of 1-5. So found we can run on 4 with certain pellets, which is our second problem. We purchased 5 ton of Big Heat Premium Wood pellets. From the beginning we've had build up problems in our burn pot (brick hard) with these pellets causing the stove to go out. To avoid this we have to clean out the burn pot 2 times a day... no ash is dropping through the wholes of our burn pot. We got 4 bags of green supreme premium pellets in an effort to figure out if our performance issues were pellet related or stove related. The green supremes do not build up in our burn pot brick hard as the others did, but they do build up in our burn pot, causing the burn pot to overload with pellets and still go out. At this point we don't know what to do, our stove doesn't have an airflow adjustment we can control. My husband did decrease the pellet feed to the factory setting. Anyone else experiencing similar problems with the WestPoint?
Help with Hudson River WestPoint New Stove
- Thread starter ahearnc
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Can you describe your venting? Is is straight out or up and out? Have you checked to make sure that your door and ashpan are sealing tightly? What about the restrictor setting? If the venting is correct and not plugged with a correct restrictor setting then it'd almost have to be an air leak somewhere.
Our venting is up and out. The installation we have is an all in one, air intake and exhaust, I believe Selkirk direct-temp system, does that make sense to you? We don't have a separate whole in the wall for our air intake, it's integrated with the piping of our exhaust. Yes our door and ashpan door are sealing tightly (I know this because I made the mistake of not sealing the door properly one time). I'm not sure what a restrictor setting would be, or if the venting is correct and not plugged. Sounds like my best course of action would be to get the installer back here to look at the problems we're having before I contact the manufacturer. Do you agree or would you recommend contacting both in unison?
The person who did your install should have run the stove after finishing the install, and also should have shown and explained to you all the controls on the stove and what they do and how to adjust.....that is all supposed to be part of the install process.
I would contact them first. There may be nothing wrong with the stove if it's running correctly and you make the right adjustments.
BTW, just from what you said about the ash sitting in the burn pot sounds like you don't have enough air flowing through it. The air should blow up from underneath the burn pot, and blow most of the ash out and settle around the outside of the burnpot.
On my stove, there is an adjustable damper to fine tune the flame by increasing or decreasing the airflow....not sure yours has that, but double check the owners manual for some sort of reference to air adjustment.
Otherwise, call the installer.
I would contact them first. There may be nothing wrong with the stove if it's running correctly and you make the right adjustments.
BTW, just from what you said about the ash sitting in the burn pot sounds like you don't have enough air flowing through it. The air should blow up from underneath the burn pot, and blow most of the ash out and settle around the outside of the burnpot.
On my stove, there is an adjustable damper to fine tune the flame by increasing or decreasing the airflow....not sure yours has that, but double check the owners manual for some sort of reference to air adjustment.
Otherwise, call the installer.
Thank you, I will. He came back once and simply blamed the performance of our stove on the quality of our pellets... that's why we've been trying to trouble shoot on our own and tried different pellets. Same problem with the exception of the other pellets not producing a "brick", they do however build up and put the stove out due to smoothering the ignitor and overfilling the pot.
I'd start with the outside air damper... find the damper and close it on a pencil...that's it! That should get you in the ballpark for combustion air.
Start your stove on a medium heat setting... I use #3 (out of six settings) on my St Croix. Get the stove good and hot before you adjust the heat. Your stove operates best when hot so get 'er hot...
When was your stove installed? How many bags of pellets have you run thru the stove. Have you been running it on 1 or 2 most of the time? Honestly it sound as if you have a dirty stove. There are places that are difficult to clean out and, if ash builds up there, you will have a lazy flame and poor performance.
See my post about cleaning you stove with a leaf blower.
Start your stove on a medium heat setting... I use #3 (out of six settings) on my St Croix. Get the stove good and hot before you adjust the heat. Your stove operates best when hot so get 'er hot...
When was your stove installed? How many bags of pellets have you run thru the stove. Have you been running it on 1 or 2 most of the time? Honestly it sound as if you have a dirty stove. There are places that are difficult to clean out and, if ash builds up there, you will have a lazy flame and poor performance.
See my post about cleaning you stove with a leaf blower.
Nothing but problems with this stove. The sotve constantly overheats and shuts down. Auger failed, blower fan cycled on and off repeatedly. I couldn't find a damper on mine. Just burned erratically all the time. Returned to store - chose another brand.
Ahearn, is there any possible way you can post a picture or two of your burn pot? We have the Hudson River Saranac and our burn pot is not efficient at all. http://s422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/lass442/stove/ Take a look at what we have and compare the burn pot design. This could be part of the issue.
We have air control issues, but there are no adjustments for this on the Saranac.
The brick-hard build-up you're referring to is known as 'clinkers' and can be caused by inadequate air flow and / or pellets. I can't speak to pellet quality, it's too soon for us to know. We're burning New England Wood Pellets and have constant clinkers.
Some bags produce less than others. I cleaned the stove yesterday and I had to shut down for tonight to clean again tomorrow because of one bad bag that I burned today.
We don't have the overheating problem that you and bham describe. That sounds like a sensor issue to me. bham's problems seem like a bad control board; auger failure, erratic cycling. Our first stove's control board was shot, we had the stove replaced inside of a week (same make and model).
I think that Hudson River has some R&D;issues ( as in, they expect customers to eat their lack of development ), which this market will only tolerate so much of. There are other more established brands of stoves on the market that are having their fair share of issues, as well.
My email is [email protected] ,if you'd like to send pictures, or discuss this further.
We have air control issues, but there are no adjustments for this on the Saranac.
The brick-hard build-up you're referring to is known as 'clinkers' and can be caused by inadequate air flow and / or pellets. I can't speak to pellet quality, it's too soon for us to know. We're burning New England Wood Pellets and have constant clinkers.
Some bags produce less than others. I cleaned the stove yesterday and I had to shut down for tonight to clean again tomorrow because of one bad bag that I burned today.
We don't have the overheating problem that you and bham describe. That sounds like a sensor issue to me. bham's problems seem like a bad control board; auger failure, erratic cycling. Our first stove's control board was shot, we had the stove replaced inside of a week (same make and model).
I think that Hudson River has some R&D;issues ( as in, they expect customers to eat their lack of development ), which this market will only tolerate so much of. There are other more established brands of stoves on the market that are having their fair share of issues, as well.
My email is [email protected] ,if you'd like to send pictures, or discuss this further.
Thank you all for your suggestions. Evidently the issues we're experiencing with this stove are known issues by the manufacturer. The dealer has arranged for the manufacturer to take the stove back and we're switching to another brand stove.
had the westoint stove ran erracticly and kept shutting down dealer took back and getting me a different brand
There is an updated burn pot that does not have the criss cross pattern at the bottom, the new burn pot just has slats so the ashes will drop thru. The burn pot is also very close to the bottom of the ash pan. The new model HR Kinderhook has a higher burn pot and larger ash pan to fix this issue.
See pics of updated burn pot
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/hudson-river-westpoint-burn-pot-issues.87953/
Heat level 5 is 6.5 lbs per hour, the new Kinderhook has a lower rate of 5.0 lbs per hour on heat level 5 and scaled accordingly so all heat levels work better.
Since this stove puts out excellent heat, then 6.5 lbs per hour is a real waste of pellets!
You can upgrade to the newer control panel to cure this.
Can you take a photo of the outside air kit installed? Sounds like you may not have good air flow OR your damper in closed.
Hey MSmith66
Do you have one of these stoves?
If so can you please check out my threads below and add comments. thanks
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/hudson-river-westpoint-control-panel.87954/
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/hudson-river-westpoint-burn-pot-issues.87953/
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