Higher/more flame than usual.

[Ctwoodtick]

Second year with burning pellets. Just noticed that my pellet stove (castle serenity) is creating more flame and more heat than I’m used to. I had on moderate setting and then turned to 2 ( out of 5). I recently switched to different pellet ( from the cheap Lowe’s to another brand at Lowe’s (Greene supreme). Could this be causing this?

 

[Overfireinthehole]

Could be. Could also need a good cleaning from the front door to the exterior, exhaust termination.

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Could be. Could also need a good cleaning from the front door to the exterior, exhaust termination.

Bingo! More soot built up in the clean out of outside length of pipe than I expected. It was built up to the point of partially blocking the exhaust flow. I cleaned that and all other area of pipe as well as inside of stove ( from door to the chimney termination). I’ll have to determine why I’m getting more soot than expected. Until then I’ll be sweeping monthly or so. Thanks for the help.

 

[tlc1976]

Glad you got it cleaned and it worked out. Good to keep it clean. But my experience is that a partially plugged stove will make less heat, lower flame, as it will be starving for air. Also different pellets can certainly burn hotter.

 

[Overfireinthehole]

Glad you got it cleaned and it worked out. Good to keep it clean. But my experience is that a partially plugged stove will make less heat, lower flame, as it will be starving for air. Also different pellets can certainly burn hotter.

Less air makes a taller flame and traps some of the heat that needs to escape through the exhaust. That’s when you get cracked baffles and heat exchangers.

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Less air makes a taller flame and traps some of the heat that needs to escape through the exhaust. That’s when you get cracked baffles and heat exchangers.

Looks like I spoke too soon. Stove started making the high flames again really cranking out heat. I could see the the burnpot was glowing as well. I have turned stove off until I can get this finally sorted out. I’ve noticed in last couple days that stove is a darker color when I clean in the morning. The ash that I see being created is brown to black as opposed to lighter like I’m used to. In the mornings I also have been seeing some unburnt pellets (like they were still coming out of hopper after stove had started shutting down) and generally more buildup on bottom of burnpot. I will call pro tomorrow to take a look. Any thoughts?

 

[Overfireinthehole]

Black definitely sounds like airflow. Just more ash could be crap pellets, but they’d have to be pretty horrendous to be burning black. How’d you clean your exhaust blower and did you replace the gasket? Is your door gasket good? Did your air damper get bumped? Did you brush between firebox and blower? Is it on an outside air kit and if so have you checked that?

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Black definitely sounds like airflow. Just more ash could be crap pellets, but they’d have to be pretty horrendous to be burning black. How’d you clean your exhaust blower and did you replace the gasket? Is your door gasket good? Did your air damper get bumped? Did you brush between firebox and blower? Is it on an outside air kit and if so have you checked that?

With the exhaust blower, I vacuumed the surface of blower of soot as well as the housing of the blower . I vacuumed between the firebox and blower. The “gasket” appeared to only be a felt like material. The blower is held in place by wingnuts. The one area I couldn’t get to with brush or vacuum was between the blower and black double wall pipe. Basically the several inches of steel pipe that is part of stove. I put my finger in there and it felt like a narrow opening from the blower to that pipe by design. It didn’t feel like there was much buildup in there, but I couldn’t see it all. I should run a pipe cleaner or other small brush through there.
I checked door gasket with dollar bill test and it is good.
How would I check to see if air damper was bumped?
I have an OAK and it appears to look the same as it always has.
One thing I find interesting is that the stove was working perfectly fine for first hour or so of turning on after I cleaned. It seemed to be only after a while that the high flame started.
Stove is a little more than a year old. I emailed my chimney guy to set up appt. I figure with the time of year it will be a while till they’re out. Maybe I can figure it out before they are able to come out.
Thanks

 

[johneh]

Try the leaf blower trick
To clean the pipes

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Try the leaf blower trick
To clean the pipes

How do you control the dust indoors?

 

[johneh]

There are many posts on this site
Go to the search function top right of the page and search
"leaf Blower " will show you how to hook up
and clean the stove and pipes

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Just to check- the burnpot glowing a cherry red is abnormal, correct?

 

[Overfireinthehole]

Maybe a little. I’d have to seeit

 

[Ctwoodtick]

I just learned where air damper lever is. I open all the way for a test run. Will report back.
Also, I take a IR temp of the sides of my serenity stove. What do you all see for readings on this stove sides?

 

[Overfireinthehole]

Hot enough to take skin off. I’ve never checked it with a TIC.

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Ok, so just ran stove for a couple hours with incoming air full open. I’ve always had it half openThis seems to have worked, as flame height was in control and appeared stove appeared normal overall.

 

[Ctwoodtick]

So as time went on the stove produced higher flame more consistently on 2 setting ( out of 5). Using Greene team pellets from Lowe’s a 40 pound bag lasted about 13 or 14 hours. This seems short to me, am I correct?

 

[Overfireinthehole]

That doesn’t sound too far off but I don’t burn a castle every day, I just see them when I work on them. I’ll have them run our demo at the store on Monday and keep track of what they go through per hour

 

[Ctwoodtick]

That doesn’t sound too far off but I don’t burn a castle every day, I just see them when I work on them. I’ll have them run our demo at the store on Monday and keep track of what they go through per hour

Thanks very much!

 

[Ctwoodtick]

So after getting some increased flame again, I adjusted the exhaust blower voltage up a couple notches and that seemed to get stove functioning like it was last year (well).
In summary, switched pellets and noticed much higher flame than usual. Swept stove/pipes. No change. Adjusted air intake damper- minimal change. Then adjusted exhaust blower voltage and this seemed to help the most (even though stove manual said to try adjust air intake first). Hope this helps someone else with same issue.

 

[Overfireinthehole]

Ive had to increase blower voltage before but usually on initial install. I guess your pellets last year may have been longer which would have made them feed more slowly.