Help with my Avalon Astoria

[Alex234]

I purchased an Avalon Astoria in december 2005 and i burned about 50 bags of pellets. It had a nice
active flame, burned clean with minimum soot and left a fine tan ash. In mid january 2007 something happened; the flame became lazy, soot began to build up more frequently and i began to
sense a more smoky aroma in my house. then it started to become harder to light. Excessive chunky ash in the firecup and extremely sooty glass. Continuous cleaning checked the flue, ti was clear. When I Pull the air adjustment out and push in it doesn't seem to affect the combustion of the flame like it did when the stove was new. Service came and said pellet grade no good. Easy cop out
Bought a bag of their "PREMIUM" pellets, same exact thing. Changed the door gasket, problem not solved. Could someone help me.

 

[GVA]

Find out how the air gets into your stove

 

[bacsales]

You need to clean it. I don't sell avalon but similar brands. Your symptoms are pointing to plugged ash traps. Behind the burnpot and in front of your hopper are traps meant to collect ash. These are what need to be cleaned. Not the ashpan or burnpot. Check the owners manual for the exact location.

 

[GVA]

You need to clean it. I don't sell avalon but similar brands. Your symptoms are pointing to plugged ash traps. Behind the burnpot and in front of your hopper are traps meant to collect ash. These are what need to be cleaned. Not the ashpan or burnpot. Check the owners manual for the exact location.

I assume that the service guy would have noticed that the stove was dirty, and not blame it on the pellets right away.

Lex pellet stoves need air to run..
You need air to be drawn in and air to be expelled.... In between these two points there could be a dozen areas to look at...
So you said that you checked the exhaust pipe, I hope the service guy checked the interior flow.....
So have you checked how the air gets into the stove, Mine for example has a flapper that can collect pet hair and affect the airflow(draft) Thus resulting in a lazy flame.
But yes .........like Jack said Make sure it is clean........90% of problems with pellet stoves is the fact they are dirty..... The service guy SHOULD have caught this.. But it could happen

 

[Alex234]

Ok. There is a Fresh air intake in the back of the unit and there is a slot above the ashpan and directly below the firepot that also draws in fresh air. by the way the dealer gave me a brand new door from a functional floor model because i brought my door to to the showroom and they suspected leaky glass gaskets. Still didn't remedy the problem.I ran long wire brushes all the way from the air intake in back to underneath the firepot. I also removed the exhaust blower motor and checked the restrictor door function it was moving back and forth fine. i also ran the wire brush
from the hole where the exhaust blower motor mounts until it was visible in the air passages in the front of th unit.

 

[GVA]

Well since the stove sounds clean I'll leave it up to the Avalon dealers to pick this one apart, but lazy flame, hard smokey startups is usualy lack of airflow or draft and if the stove is not dirty and restricting flow then I would say combustion blower starting to get weak or control board problem.....
I would still recheck the entire exhaust pipe as the smell of smoke inside is not normal unless the discharge is partially blocked, creating back pressure..
Describe your venting setup how far up do you run, # of elbows 3 or 4 inch pipe etc.?

 

[restorer]

Check my topic, Epiphany.... My stove ran great and slowly declined. I clean more frequently than necessary, but I realized I was not getting all the air passages. Somewhere beyond the barriers and hatches are necessary passages. Read that necessary. I used a 150psi compressor, but you could do the reverse and use a super sucker. Next time I need a deep clean I will build a jig to fit the opening of the stove and connect the shop dust collector and vacuum the whole thing out.

Right now the stove is on high pellet feed and the air is at about the 40 out of 100 level. Nice short spikey flames and a yellow, yellow/white with blue color.

Holy heck don't ya' love technology.

 

[Alex234]

Yeah, I wire brushed and super shop vac d the heck out of that puppy. I think it's actually cleaner than when it was burning great in december. I was wondering if anyone knows what the rpm spec would be on the exhaust blower when the knob is set to high. I see on the side of the motor that it is rated for 3000 rpm, but i think that would be it's max. I have a rubber tipped rpm gauge that i could touch to the shaft to see if it's proforming up to spec.

 

[Alex234]

Also in reply to the venting i have one straight 4 inch pipe 3 feet long and a termination cap. When i first got my stove i could see embers coming out of the termination cap; now i just see a slow plume of smoke coming out.

 

[bacsales]

Did the service tec pull your brick backing off? This is recommended in the yearly cleaning section of the owners manual for your stove. If he did not i think you should have a look back there. Usually the circuit boards send either the correct power to the blower motors or nothing. I am still thinking ash plugged somewhere.

 

[Alex234]

Today I removed the fire brick again and the cover plates to clean the exhaust duct behind the fire pot. all double checked with my vaccum tube. all clear. I also removed the exhaust blower from the housing, grounded the green wire and checked the rpm. At the highest setting the motor is turning 2100 rpm. In the absoulute middle its turning 1950 rpm at the lowest setting its turning 1000 rpm. The ac voltage supplied to the motor at highest setting is 115.3 volts. Closed it all back up and the same lazy flame, smoky smell. Blackening Glass.Crap. Starting to get frustrated.

 

[restorer]

Today I removed the fire brick again and the cover plates to clean the exhaust duct behind the fire pot. all double checked with my vaccum tube. all clear. I also removed the exhaust blower from the housing, grounded the green wire and checked the rpm. At the highest setting the motor is turning 2100 rpm. In the absoulute middle its turning 1950 rpm at the lowest setting its turning 1000 rpm. The ac voltage supplied to the motor at highest setting is 115.3 volts. Closed it all back up and the same lazy flame, smoky smell. Blackening Glass.Crap. Starting to get frustrated.

What about the intake air? Have you checked to insure there is nothing obstructing the fresh air supply. Does your stove have a damper or control valve? If the inlet air is manually adjustable, is the adjuster properly set and working?

Just for fun, when you crack the door during a burn, what happens to the flames in the burn pot?

The condition you describe indicates an air starved fire. Even with the weak or lowered blower rpm, it should be drawing enough air to operate at the mid-range.

 

[dubbz]

I has the same symptoms with my Breckwell. Use gloves and push on the door, see if the flames get more lively. I had to use a smaller diameter gasket behind the original one to make the door airtight. There really aren't a lot of places for leakage and it sounds like you've checked the others. Hope this helps you get a better fire.

 

[Shane]

Open you hopper lid and look down on the door. Make sure the corners of the bay window are aligned with the corners on the body of the stove and that there are no gaps between the gasket material and the stove. Give me your serial # you may need an airwash upgrade kit. A quick easy way to tell is to check your hopper lid. If it has an orange silicone gasket you already have the upgrade. I would venture to say you have to have an air leak somewhere.

 

[bacsales]

Combustion fan voltage on a st croix varies between 90 and 120 depending on the feed setting. Your voltage sounds correct but you should try to get the voltage readings for the avalon on each setting and check them. I am now leaning to air leak problems also. It seems like you have covered all the bases for ash blockage. Try getting in touch with avalon tech direct.