How to burn wood pellets in 2006 Auburn corn burner

[SidecarFlip]

Rather than muscle it out, get a furniture dolly (harbor freight has them for cheap) and roll it out. Females aren't supposed to strong arm anything except the partner's wallets.....

Do have one question and that is, is the vent pipe you are using pellet vent (IOW Selkirk or Simpson Duravent?) reason I ask is, the pipe in your one picture, the vertical pipe sure don't look like pellet venting at all. Needs to be Approved pellet venting to work properly.

 

[Ssyko]

Well i was rereading this entire thread for the 3rd or 4th time, and it dawned on me that the passages were cleaned from the inside with a brush. And no access to the area behind the ash pan. The only place we never really tried cleaning is the area under the combustion blower! I think we need to revisit this area with that long brush and a shop vac.

 

[rickwai]

Well i was rereading this entire thread for the 3rd or 4th time, and it dawned on me that the passages were cleaned from the inside with a brush. And no access to the area behind the ash pan. The only place we never really tried cleaning is the area under the combustion blower! I think we need to revisit this area with that long brush and a shop vac.

That area is not where they plug. It is where you cant see or get to. I have looked at cutaway diagrams ect and still cant figure out the exhaust path. It had fly ash in the areas and instead of sucking it out they burnt it rich and turned the creosote fly ash mixture into cement. She had the fan and the whole housing out when cleaning the blade. there is nothing coming out until it is burnt out possibly. Remember she hooked the leaf blower up and NOTHING came out.At that point I got worried. A leaf blower will take a St Croix that is barely moving the needle on a mag and 30 seconds later you are back to a .3 which is perfect at startup for St Croix. I get the calls that it just wont burn. I brush the ash traps, check pot floor holes and shake ash out of it, make sure the intake holes that pot floor mates to are clear, with door open suck out with leaf blower and recheck vac . I set it to .3 if they have messed with damper and never hear back from the customer until next service. I try to teach them how to keep the stove running good by cleaning and the leafblower trick.

 

[Lordtimothy200]

What if the air blockage is in the chimney and not in the stove?

 

[Ssyko]

That area is not where they plug. It is where you cant see or get to. I have looked at cutaway diagrams ect and still cant figure out the exhaust path. It had fly ash in the areas and instead of sucking it out they burnt it rich and turned the creosote fly ash mixture into cement. She had the fan and the whole housing out when cleaning the blade. there is nothing coming out until it is burnt out possibly. Remember she hooked the leaf blower up and NOTHING came out.At that point I got worried. A leaf blower will take a St Croix that is barely moving the needle on a mag and 30 seconds later you are back to a .3 which is perfect at startup for St Croix. I get the calls that it just wont burn. I brush the ash traps, check pot floor holes and shake ash out of it, make sure the intake holes that pot floor mates to are clear, with door open suck out with leaf blower and recheck vac . I set it to .3 if they have messed with damper and never hear back from the customer until next service. I try to teach them how to keep the stove running good by cleaning and the leafblower trick.
[/QUOTES]


Yeah I forgot about the leaf blower

 

[SidecarFlip]

It's obviously 'constipated' somewhere. Question is where. I'm thinking a nice 'porch roast' will cook it out. Can see why the original owner sold it. It quit working.

Every owners manual that comes with any corn capable unit expressly states that 'Burning high moisture corn will void the warranty and damage the stove'., but then who reads an owners manual anyway. Like my signature line says... Owners manuals are for lighting that first fire.....

Kind of surprised it's not corroded inside too. High moisture corn will cause internal corrosion as well because the nitric acid vapor condenses on the cooler metal inside and corrodes it. After 15+ years, even my stove has pitting inside from it even though end of season I'll switch to straight pellets and a hot burn for a week or so to drive off the accumulated nitric from it.

Consequently, I believe the best avenue is a 'porch roast'.. That will 'cook' out the constipation. Kind of obvious it's there considering what the combustion blower housing looked like.

 

[rickwai]

What if the air blockage is in the chimney and not in the stove?

We had her unhook the stove from the chimney first and the vac switch still would not close

 

[rickwai]

It's obviously 'constipated' somewhere. Question is where. I'm thinking a nice 'porch roast' will cook it out. Can see why the original owner sold it. It quit working.

Every owners manual that comes with any corn capable unit expressly states that 'Burning high moisture corn will void the warranty and damage the stove'., but then who reads an owners manual anyway. Like my signature line says... Owners manuals are for lighting that first fire.....

Kind of surprised it's not corroded inside too. High moisture corn will cause internal corrosion as well because the nitric acid vapor condenses on the cooler metal inside and corrodes it. After 15+ years, even my stove has pitting inside from it even though end of season I'll switch to straight pellets and a hot burn for a week or so to drive off the accumulated nitric from it.

Consequently, I believe the best avenue is a 'porch roast'.. That will 'cook' out the constipation. Kind of obvious it's there considering what the combustion blower housing looked like.

I dont think they were burning corn. The interior of the stove and fan blade look to good. Plus if it was corn she definitely would not have been able to loosen the set screw on the fan blade and slide it off the shaft with minimal effort. Like I said earlier, She got the stove and the vac switch was already jumped. The previous owner ran it until it would not run no more due to being clogged up. At this point he decided to jump the switch and keep it burning extremely rich (which promotes creosote formation) until he clogged it so bad that it physically would not breath. When he hit that fork in the road he should have maybe cleaned the stove? Instead he jumped the switch and pushed on. Then unloaded it on to a unsuspecting person.
I have seen this done on a Harman once (jump the switch and keep going) Same mess, but with the harman you can get to all passages by removing simple covers. We cleaned it up and got it breathing on its own and refired . the exhaust had a bad smell for awhile but it cleaned itself up.

 

[Rxwoman1961]

We had her unhook the stove from the chimney first and the vac switch still would not close

Yup. It still wouldnt.

 

[Rxwoman1961]

Happy New Year. Here's to 2021 being the opposite of 2020.
Reading everyone's suggestions and concerns made me worry..but it was freaking cold last night and I had that creosote buster stick I was dying to try.
I had the stove going pretty hot and then put that stick in..and it went out. Once it stopped smoking and cooled enough to relight I started it again, picked the chunks of creosote buster stuff out of the ashes and used a bunch of lighter gel and relit it.
Using the blow dryer and auger button (it sometimes gets hot and locks me out, I have to off/on to make buttons work) and had it burning good.
I went upstairs to feel the stove pipe (I can hear air blowing through it). Ice cold.
So back down to feel stove pipe on first floor. Room temperature. It's just barely warm right behind the stove. No chance of tepid stove pipe starting a creosote fire. I would think if anything caught fire it would be the stove itself. Must be why high fire thingy keeps locking me out?

 

[Rxwoman1961]

It's obviously 'constipated' somewhere. Question is where. I'm thinking a nice 'porch roast' will cook it out. Can see why the original owner sold it. It quit working.

Every owners manual that comes with any corn capable unit expressly states that 'Burning high moisture corn will void the warranty and damage the stove'., but then who reads an owners manual anyway. Like my signature line says... Owners manuals are for lighting that first fire.....

Kind of surprised it's not corroded inside too. High moisture corn will cause internal corrosion as well because the nitric acid vapor condenses on the cooler metal inside and corrodes it. After 15+ years, even my stove has pitting inside from it even though end of season I'll switch to straight pellets and a hot burn for a week or so to drive off the accumulated nitric from it.

Consequently, I believe the best avenue is a 'porch roast'.. That will 'cook' out the constipation. Kind of obvious it's there considering what the combustion blower housing looked like.

Sidecar, is there literally NO WAY to get something, anything to those hidden areas?

 

[Rxwoman1961]

I dont think they were burning corn. The interior of the stove and fan blade look to good. Plus if it was corn she definitely would not have been able to loosen the set screw on the fan blade and slide it off the shaft with minimal effort. Like I said earlier, She got the stove and the vac switch was already jumped. The previous owner ran it until it would not run no more due to being clogged up. At this point he decided to jump the switch and keep it burning extremely rich (which promotes creosote formation) until he clogged it so bad that it physically would not breath. When he hit that fork in the road he should have maybe cleaned the stove? Instead he jumped the switch and pushed on. Then unloaded it on to a unsuspecting person.
I have seen this done on a Harman once (jump the switch and keep going) Same mess, but with the harman you can get to all passages by removing simple covers. We cleaned it up and got it breathing on its own and refired . the exhaust had a bad smell for awhile but it cleaned itself up.

No, the guy told me his mom used corn and there was still some unburnt and burned corn in the ashpan. He said his mom bought corn from a farmer, but he retired and she didnt want to lug buckets of corn anymore anyway.
Now that I think back, his story as to why they stopped using it changed a little every time.

 

[Washed-Up]

I don’t think I’ve seen anyone post a video, hopefully this is your stove and not the updated one

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[Rxwoman1961]

That area is not where they plug. It is where you cant see or get to. I have looked at cutaway diagrams ect and still cant figure out the exhaust path. It had fly ash in the areas and instead of sucking it out they burnt it rich and turned the creosote fly ash mixture into cement. She had the fan and the whole housing out when cleaning the blade. there is nothing coming out until it is burnt out possibly. Remember she hooked the leaf blower up and NOTHING came out.At that point I got worried. A leaf blower will take a St Croix that is barely moving the needle on a mag and 30 seconds later you are back to a .3 which is perfect at startup for St Croix. I get the calls that it just wont burn. I brush the ash traps, check pot floor holes and shake ash out of it, make sure the intake holes that pot floor mates to are clear, with door open suck out with leaf blower and recheck vac . I set it to .3 if they have messed with damper and never hear back from the customer until next service. I try to teach them how to keep the stove running good by cleaning and the leafblower trick.

The area under the exhaust fan I scraped as well, as far as I could reach at least. Used a brush (useless) a wire grill brush, a couple different screw drivers (better) and a clothes steamer (got it soft enough to really scrape off) and a wire clothes hanger to try to get back to where the screw drivers couldnt reach.

 

[Rxwoman1961]

I don’t think I’ve seen anyone post a video, hopefully this is your stove and not the updated one

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Why?? What's the updated one look like?
Mine was purchased new from a dealer in Eastern Iowa (Colony heating and air) in 2006.

 

[Rxwoman1961]

Rather than muscle it out, get a furniture dolly (harbor freight has them for cheap) and roll it out. Females aren't supposed to strong arm anything except the partner's wallets.....

Do have one question and that is, is the vent pipe you are using pellet vent (IOW Selkirk or Simpson Duravent?) reason I ask is, the pipe in your one picture, the vertical pipe sure don't look like pellet venting at all. Needs to be Approved pellet venting to work properly.

I have a dolly. But it was such a pain getting off the dolly by myself that I hesitated to put it on there again.
My stove pipe is that 6" that you see. It was already there as it was hooked to the old oil stove. I didnt want to cut a 3 inch hole somewhere else in the house when I already had a stove pipe going up through the roof. But getting pipe to go from 3 inch to 6 inch proved tricky. So I had to improvise.

 

[gfreek]

If you have a 2 wheel hand cart/dolly and help you may be able to put the cart platform under one end of the stove and have a friend push other end..but then you'd have to protect the floor somehow

 

[Washed-Up]

Why?? What's the updated one look like?
Mine was purchased new from a dealer in Eastern Iowa (Colony heating and air) in 2006.

I believe the updated stove has removable plates so you can clean the multiple passages?

 

[SidecarFlip]

No 6" vent pipe is biomass stove recommended or an approved method of venting it and I'm curious as to how you went from 3" venting to 6" venting, you said you 'improvised'. Improvised how? I have to assume there was a chunk wood stove there prior to the biomass stove, correct and if so, why was it removed?

My venting rarely gets hot except right at the stove connection and even then, not overly hot, just warm. That is by design as the inner stainless liner gets hot, but the air gap (and insulation) between the inner pipe and the outer pipe keeps the heat from radiating off the inner pipe and heating the outer pipe, how it's designed. Pellet-biomass stoves by design don't require a hot flue pipe to work correctly, why your stove produces draft via the combustion air blower.

Like I said, I'm curious as to how you got from 3" tp 6" venting. Also, what does the termination cap look like on the roof? If there was a chunk wood stove there previously, the termination cap on the roof could very well be plugged with soot or creosote and not allowing the combustion fan to push the exhaust out. Sucking the vent with a leaf blower/vacuum, wont unclog a clogged with soot-creosote termination cap. It need to be physically cleaned of deposits.

Something going on here that is abnormal. I'm thinking it's the venting itself and maybe not entirely the stove. It seems to me like the exhaust is being choked off and maybe it's at the termination cap on the roof. I know I have to clean mine every year, it gets loaded up with crud.

Guess you could use the leaf blower as the blower part up the vent pipe and blow the termination cap but that could be a messy deal, especially if it's clogged up seeing as your venting is inside the house (and probably the Cleanout Tee (if you have one installed (hope you do) on the exhaust vent of the stove. Why I don't like inside venting, cleaning it (which is a necessary periodic maintenance thing is always a messy chore.

 

[rickwai]

No 6" vent pipe is biomass stove recommended or an approved method of venting it and I'm curious as to how you went from 3" venting to 6" venting, you said you 'improvised'. Improvised how? I have to assume there was a chunk wood stove there prior to the biomass stove, correct and if so, why was it removed?

My venting rarely gets hot except right at the stove connection and even then, not overly hot, just warm. That is by design as the inner stainless liner gets hot, but the air gap (and insulation) between the inner pipe and the outer pipe keeps the heat from radiating off the inner pipe and heating the outer pipe, how it's designed. Pellet-biomass stoves by design don't require a hot flue pipe to work correctly, why your stove produces draft via the combustion air blower.

Like I said, I'm curious as to how you got from 3" tp 6" venting. Also, what does the termination cap look like on the roof? If there was a chunk wood stove there previously, the termination cap on the roof could very well be plugged with soot or creosote and not allowing the combustion fan to push the exhaust out. Sucking the vent with a leaf blower/vacuum, wont unclog a clogged with soot-creosote termination cap. It need to be physically cleaned of deposits.

Something going on here that is abnormal. I'm thinking it's the venting itself and maybe not entirely the stove. It seems to me like the exhaust is being choked off and maybe it's at the termination cap on the roof. I know I have to clean mine every year, it gets loaded up with crud.

Guess you could use the leaf blower as the blower part up the vent pipe and blow the termination cap but that could be a messy deal, especially if it's clogged up seeing as your venting is inside the house (and probably the Cleanout Tee (if you have one installed (hope you do) on the exhaust vent of the stove. Why I don't like inside venting, cleaning it (which is a necessary periodic maintenance thing is always a messy chore.

It had a oil fired stove previously
She used Ductwork type material from Menards to adapt to the 6"
First thing we had her try is to try to start the stove without being hooked to the 6" vent and neither Vac switch still would not close

 

[Washed-Up]

No 6" vent pipe is biomass stove recommended or an approved method of venting it and I'm curious as to how you went from 3" venting to 6" venting, you said you 'improvised'. Improvised how? I have to assume there was a chunk wood stove there prior to the biomass stove, correct and if so, why was it removed?

My venting rarely gets hot except right at the stove connection and even then, not overly hot, just warm. That is by design as the inner stainless liner gets hot, but the air gap (and insulation) between the inner pipe and the outer pipe keeps the heat from radiating off the inner pipe and heating the outer pipe, how it's designed. Pellet-biomass stoves by design don't require a hot flue pipe to work correctly, why your stove produces draft via the combustion air blower.

Like I said, I'm curious as to how you got from 3" tp 6" venting. Also, what does the termination cap look like on the roof? If there was a chunk wood stove there previously, the termination cap on the roof could very well be plugged with soot or creosote and not allowing the combustion fan to push the exhaust out. Sucking the vent with a leaf blower/vacuum, wont unclog a clogged with soot-creosote termination cap. It need to be physically cleaned of deposits.

Something going on here that is abnormal. I'm thinking it's the venting itself and maybe not entirely the stove. It seems to me like the exhaust is being choked off and maybe it's at the termination cap on the roof. I know I have to clean mine every year, it gets loaded up with crud.

Guess you could use the leaf blower as the blower part up the vent pipe and blow the termination cap but that could be a messy deal, especially if it's clogged up seeing as your venting is inside the house (and probably the Cleanout Tee (if you have one installed (hope you do) on the exhaust vent of the stove. Why I don't like inside venting, cleaning it (which is a necessary periodic maintenance thing is always a messy chore.

Photos on post #16

 

[mikefromiowa]

Happy New Year! I've been following the thread about getting your Auburn running again and think you are close, am cheering for you!

I think the video that Washed-Up posted shows what you may need to do --- use a flexible cable (like a sewer snake) to go through the hidden exhaust channels from the ash cleanout covers in the front, and from under the exhaust fan mount in the back. Your idea of using a clothes steamer to soften the creosote is also a good one, maybe route the steam as far into the hidden channels as you can with a flexible hose while cleaning out the crude with the flexible cable?

 

[SidecarFlip]

Photos on post #16

That still don't address the termination cap on the roof and she did try it not hooked up, I'll agree but that was before she cleaned out the combustion blower housing and replaced the induction fan. If it was an oil stove, I bet the termination cap is loaded with soot, very typical with an oil stove, they make a ton of soot in the vent. I believe it's time for a roof trip and a cap inspection. Not a whole lot of avenues left.

I was kind of surprised myself that she got to setscrew on the induction fan to release as easily as it did. They usually heat lock tight and have to be cut off. Very unusual, corn or pellet burning, almost like the original owner was in there and was fiddling with it.

All stoves need 3 things to work, fresh air, fuel and exhaust. I'm still leaning towards a clogged exhaust and up top not in the house.

 

[Washed-Up]

Oh I realize that Sidecar, just didn’t know if you saw the photos of the adapter she had set up

 

[Ssyko]

Well looks like the previous owner changed the exhaust motor, it’s definitely not 10yrs old so that may explain how the fan came off so easy. From what i can see in the video. As you face the stove looking at the clean-out plates on either side of the pot. They are separated distance wise by the pot. Now that hidden opening into the combustion blower chamber is in the same area as the pot only begind one layer of wall. If the buildup on the blower blades (being suspended from the motor) Was so great. I’m wondering about the hidden opening!! Is it coated restricting flow? Is the floor opening built up restricting flow?