If the pellet stove I have is full of heat-retaining bricks, then why isn't it retaining heat?

[tufty]

Hello all,
I looking for an answer to the above question. When we bought our pellet-burning stove we were told that the reason it weighed so much and couldn't be tipped over was due to the fact that this might dislodge the heat-retaining bricks inside (I'm sure they have a more technical name, although for the life of me, I have no clue as to what that name might be). Now that it's up and running, it's munching through 15 kg a day which is making it less than the economic marvel we expected it to prove itself. When it's going, it's pretty much cool to the touch everywhere, and when we turn it off, it's pretty much cool to the touch everywhere. Is something not therefore wrong?...Why put in loads of heat-retaining bricks, increase the weight of the thing if it still doesn't retain heat? Thanks, in advance, for all help offered...in the potentially likely situation evolving where this is the daftest question ever asked, apologies...the is a first for us and we're left looking blankly at each other!
Cheers again.

 

[imacman]

It would help if you included info on the brand and model of stove....otherwise, we have no way to comment or help. Pellet stoves are not wood stoves....most of the stove is supposed to stay cool to the touch.

 

[tufty]

Apologies...it's an edil makin 'Mariu'. Further...if it's designed to stay cool to the touch, then why did the (Italian!) instructions state that you shouldn't put anything with 40cm of it...at the moment I could douse it in petrol and there'd be little chance of fire!

 

[Delta-T]

most of the "brick" that I have seen for wood and pellet stoves is "refractory brick", which resists heat transfer, opposite of retaining heat. In the pellet stoves I'm familiar with the bricks are against the back walls to prevent heat from tranfering to the pellet hopper. Most pellet stoves are not designed as radiant heaters so they usually do stay cooler than wood stoves. I am not familiar with your model so it may be different.

 

[tufty]

Apologies again...I mis-spelled the name! It's Edil Kamin (Italian). Thanks for your reply. The main reason I was asking was that the manufacturers only provided instructions in English, and the guys who fitted it are Hungarian...I will ask them what they reckon next week, but my written Hungarian is almost indecipherable, so...until then, I thought I cast the net out a bit further and see what others knew. Incidentally, I saw somewhere that someone posted a message along the lines of; "...if you haven't got it set up correctly, you'll end up with very little heat whilst eating pellets"...this also sounds possible! Any ideas? Not that I'm about to take a screwdriver to the back of the thing or anything dramatic like that!
Cheers again.