King 5510 Review

[ke5hde]

newf27

Try adjusting the pellet feed rate. They don't say anything in the manual about it.
To do this you need to
PRESS THE HEAT RANGE AND AUX DOWN BUTTONS AT THE SAME TIME.
FACTORY DEFAULT IS 1.75
YOU CAN VARY THIS RATE BY USING THE AUX UP/DOWN BUTTONS.
TRY GOING DOWN TO 1.40 AND SEE IF THAT HELPS.
TO SAVE THE SETTING JUST PRESS THE ON BUTTON.
Depending on the pellets we use we can go anywhere from 1.40 up as far as 2.00

You may also want to set the draft fan manually.
When we have the stove on 2 I have my draft set @ 4
On the higher heat settings I can run the draft on AUTO
See if this helps.

Chris

 

[Bobby]

Like firestarter say's try running your draft 2 numbers higher then your heat range. I just ran my 5510 for a week 24/7, just done a cleanning this morning. I'm burnning green teams from lowes.

 

[Bobby]

Sorry I mean like ke5hde says. And make sure the two cleanout doors are closed tite

 

[urkiddin]

[quote author="ke5hde" date="1261855996"]newf27

Try adjusting the pellet feed rate. They don't say anything in the manual about it.
To do this you need to
PRESS THE HEAT RANGE AND AUX DOWN BUTTONS AT THE SAME TIME.
FACTORY DEFAULT IS 1.75
YOU CAN VARY THIS RATE BY USING THE AUX UP/DOWN BUTTONS.
TRY GOING DOWN TO 1.40 AND SEE IF THAT HELPS.
TO SAVE THE SETTING JUST PRESS THE ON BUTTON.
Depending on the pellets we use we can go anywhere from 1.40 up as far as 2.00

.
thanks for the info.wonder why they don't include this kind of information in the manual.

 

[caledoniacars]

Good to see some us stove customers here. They don't get rave reviews, but some of us have had some good luck with them.

 

[ad356]

for the price that us stove company products sell for they seem reasonably well made. i paid $999 for my 5510 from tractor supply and it heats my entire home. im sure stoves like the astoria are nicer but they are also almost 4 grand. i like US stove company products so far. seem reliable and are very very reasonably priced. the only disadvantage i can see with the 5510 is that its a litte on the noisy side. the BTU rating of the 5510 is also very competitve to the astoria's btu rating. for 1,000 bucks, i dont think you can go wrong, and i would recommend one to a freind. the only thing that remains for me to see is the longterm longevity of my stove. im hoping it lasts a long time

 

[newf27]

Thanks for the advice on feed rate: it did help. Set the temp rating at 2, then went into manual mode and dialed the feed rate down from factory pre-set of ~1.75 lbs per hour to 1.4. , t hen set the draft at 2. I've run it 48 hours now which is longer than anything previous. Going to start inching it up to see what happens. I have a fairly large house, and I installed this in my walk out basement which is well insulated with ICF's and underfloor insulation (R 40 basement). I'm running my propane furnace fan on manual full time and pulling heat out of the basement and circulating through the entire house. My objective was to use the furnace at it's higher heat settings, which seems now to be an unlikely outcome. I tried it for a period at heat setting 4 and 5 with the settings on auto, and it turns out an astonishing amount of heat, but the burn pot fills up quickly in 8 hours and plugs, so we can't leave the home for work without worrying about the pot overflowing with unburnt pellets. Any other experience in the correct settings at the higher heat output? Seems strange they would sell a furnace that has such a difficult time being dialed in, i.e. with a "narrow operating window". We live in the UP of Michigan, and routinely get temps well below zero down to 25 below real temp, so I'm going to stick with trying to get this thing to perform without plugging at a higher heat setting. Further advice is welcomed.
newf27

 

[imacman]

....... I'm going to stick with trying to get this thing to perform without plugging at a higher heat setting. Further advice is welcomed.
newf27

Basically, it's getting overfilled w/ pellets due to a lack of burn air. As you increase feed, you have to increase air somewhat to the burnpot, or the pellets will never fully burn, and results in a full pot & shut-off stove.

Most all pellet stoves have this problem unless the feed and burn air are tied together like the Englander digital control......as I raise the feed, the combustion blower increases accordingly to supply more air.

 

[rayboggsjr]

Newf27
Macman is correct. Your problem seems to be a lack of combustion air. We have been burning our 5510 for about a year and I can let it burn on auto at heat setting 2 and I shut it down about every three days to clean the ash but the fire is still good. I have to clean it more often because I got a really good deal on Big Heat pellets and they are a little ashy but burn fine.On setting 1 I change my draft fan to 2 or 3 and that seems to make it burn fine. The osculation you see in your flame is normal if you are seeing it go up and down. I called US Stoves about this when I got mine and it is a feature on the 5510. If you go out to your exhaust vent you will hear the draft fan come on and go off. You are right about the owners manual. It should be a little more in depth. You may want to call US Stoves and talk to tech support or customer service. I have had 2 issues with my stove and both times it was qiuck and painless. They give you no hassle and are happy to stand behind their product which is rare these days. You may have a defective draft fan. It may not be running at the preset speed in auto mode. Also they advised me to make sure all the joints on my exhaust piping was sealed with heat rated stove or fireplace caulking. You can buy this at most harware stores. Also make sure the 2 little doors on the back wall inside the stove are installed correctly, dont foget to clean behind those doors. The one on the left is where the pressure switch is to detect negative pessure in the combustion chamber. I think once you get your draft issue fixed you are going to be very happy with the stove. I hope this helps a little bit and good luck.

 

[ke5hde]

I just realized that the biggest change I made to the stove I forgot to mention.
I sealed the ash pan doors on the bottom closed.
When I was watching it burn one day I noticed that the doors were sucking air....piss poor seal...really no seal at all.
I took some of the same silicone I used on the vent and ran a bead around both of the doors.
Not the clean-out doors on the back but the ash slides on the bottom.
Try it and it just might help. If it doesn't then just peel the silicone back off.

Chris

 

[Bobby]

The ash doors on the bottom ride in little tracks. I pulled the doors open and squeed them a little with medium pump pliers. They don't leak so much air now. I'v also found buy not cleaning out the ash to much it helps

 

[newf27]

All the advice has been helpful. To stick with the "not getting enough exhaust air flow" theory, I tried an experiment. Set the draft fan to maximum setting of 500, then crancked up the feed rate to the minimum that would keep the fire burning. I was able to get about 6 days of burn time and probably could have let it go longer. Ash went from a darker black to a lighter grey and window stayed much cleaner. That feed rate is 1.7 lbs per hour which would be roughly 40 lbs or 1 bag per day. Although this measurement unit is not accurate, since the amount of pellets I'm burning is almost twice that at 2 bags a day (so much for accuracy). I tried dropping the exhaust rate back to 400 and could see a change. At the 400 - 500 exhaust level, there is no more oscilation, it seems to run flat out. On a hunch similar to the advice given on sealing the combustion chamber, I tightened the two small access doors on the back, as the bolts they slide behind were adjusted from the factor rather far out on the threads, as a result they were loose and could pass pressure or draw air through in a vacuum: I surmise this may have been causing some looping. Since I don't use the ash doors in the floor (I cool it down and vacuum it out), I will try the suggestion to seal the floor ash doors. Since I have a large house, my objective is to get as much heat as possible, so I'm now going to keep the exhaust flat out and keep cranking up the feed rate until I get to about 2-3 days when I need to clean it out. I can live with that: I've done it for short periods, and the heat output is astonishing. The only negative, which is not too bad, is the flame seems to rise and fall (not the oscilation) but at about a 2 minute cycle: it seems to over burn the pellets, nearly starve, then recover. But hey, I'm getting 6 days where as before I could hardly get to 24 hours. Incredible we have to figure this out on our own vs. there being a decent manual. I will also try to call them: they are not responding to e-mails on their website. This has been a good learning experience so now I can speak with intelligence about how the unit operates. If anyone else has experience at the higher temps, let us know what your settings are. We were able to keep the house at a comfy sleeping temp of 67 degrees all night when it was 8 below zero, real temp, and a howling wind. Starting to have a real impact of offsetting propane.
Newf 27 in the cold UP of Michigan

 

[newf27]

Just to clarify some of my previous comments. When I make reference to crank up the exhaust rate to 500; this is the maximum speed, and it results in no more oscilation, the fan runs flat out. There is no separate fan supplying feed rate air to the burn pot. If you look in the back and shine a flashlight into the air feed tube (1 - 7/8 " inside diameter) you see it goes straight to the burn pot chamber. I.e. the burn pots slides into a somewhat sealed chamber. It is the exhaust fan that "pulls" air through the holes in the burn pot which in turns pulls it from the feed tube. The higher the exhaust rate, the higher the vacuum pulled through the burn pot holes. The higher this air flow out the exhaust, the better job it does of suspending and pulling the ash out of the burn pot so it can't accumulate. That is what causes these things to fill up with unburn't pellets, the ash is not being removed from the burn pot and it plugs the air flow, then the unburnt pellets start to accumulate. All the advice to take steps to create a better seal on leaks into the comustion chamber will have an effect of pulling more vacuum through the burn pot and helping the ash evacuate more easily out the exhaust. Seems that if we could tighten the clearances on the burn pot where it fits into the steel box, we could further improve this dynamic. But, it has to be removed for cleaning, so good luck figuring this one out. I'm going to chamfer the inside radius right at the inlet (I am pulling from my room vs outside air), it should help, i.e. like the inlet to a jet engine vs. sharp edges on the end of the pipe. It should increase air flow 2-3 %, based on some previous research I did in this area in my previous pre-retirement life. Every little bit helps. Sealing vacuum air leaks in the chamber should help the most.
Newf 27 in the cold UP of Michigan

 

[schoondog]

Here is a pic of my 6039i. Nice to see the US Stove folks are growing!!

Schoondog

 

[imacman]

Nice stove set-up Schoon. Yep, seems like more & more US Stove owners are showing up on the forum.....good for you guys!

Amazing how the animals always know where to hang out.....LOL.

 

[mrmuse]

Good Morning,
Being a newbie and not owning a pellet stove yet, I've been doing a lot of research. I'm finding the reviews very helpful and hope to purchase a Model 5510 very soon.
Here is the problem. As I'm researching, I'm finding a HUGE price difference. TSC sells this model in my area for $999.00, and I've seen it as high as $2399.00.
I'm curious as to why pellet stoves are so much more expensive that a gas furnace, or even a wood burning stove. Also, being in West Michigan with an unemployment
rate of 18% I am looking for a dealer that offers financing, or a payment plan. Can anyone point me in the right direction. I installed a new propane furnace (burned wood
for the last 15 years) but at a $1.64 a gallon and a 200 gal minimum order to achieve that price, and only lasting 2 months, it makes sense to go the pellet route.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. And just an observation, but a $1500.00 tax credit to someone on unemployment trying to make ends meet makes no sense. I can't
afford that initial outlay to save 75.00 a month...I'm just trying to get out of that rock and a hard place.

mrmuse

 

[newf27]

To report progress: I tried the suggestions to seal up the ash doors in the floor of the 5510. Wow, did that make a difference. I also sealed the small gap in the ignitor tube where it comes through the back wall. Using furnace cement which is sort of a combination of high temp plastic putty and cement. The only caution I have with that stuff is it is rather permanent and hard to remove if you don't like the outcome. The outcome is that I now have TOO MUCH air flow through the burn pot at the highest flow of 500. So much so that it emptied the pot and I lost the fire. In fact, even at 300 it is almost bit too much. That tells you how much it was leaking. The new problem at the higher exhaust flow rates is it will elevate the pellets right out of the pot as soon as they begin to glow, and when new pellets drop in it disturbes the glowing pellets and the smaller ones will elevate out. Well, I'm now satisfied I've got exhaust flow capability, now need to dial in new target air flow and feed rates to get it all leveld out again. The good news is I am indeed able to get burn times of 3-5 days without the pot clogging with ash almost regardless of the heat range I set, and probably could go a lot longer. Seems like a clean out frequency of about 3 days is optimum, given my high feed rate. I can live with that. I'm able to base load my home with about 95% reliance on the 5510, and use the propane to top it off when my wife cranks the thermostate to 71 degrees. On our cold nights, the 5510 easily keeps the home at 67 to 68 degrees, which is a comfy sleeping temp. Really slowed down the propane $$. I'm burning about two 40 lb bags a day, but I'm probably cranking >40,000 BTU's or more constantly 24/7.
Newf 27 in the cold UP of Michigan

PS to previous question about financing. I bought this 5510 from TSC about 4 weeks ago for the $999 mentioned, and thought they had financing available there.

 

[ke5hde]

Good to see you got it running better.
I had my first problem with ours last night.
Shut it down for a cleaning and when I started back up....NO IGNITOR!
Manually lit the stove and made a call to US Stoves this morning.
Quick and painless...will have the new ignitor in 3-5 days.

Running a couple of bags of Greene Teams right now and WOW.
Just like every other brand I've tried..totally outperforming the Schuyler NEWP's

Chris

 

[newf27]

Agree, big hopper is a plus. It is what attracted me to the 5510 to begin with. I'm sure you already know this, but there is a timing factor after shut down before the ignitor will come on again. If all lights are off and nothing is blinking, it should have ignited on a restart. I find that a pain in the rear, since I can do a cleaning while things are still on the ramp down. Good to hear the factory is responsive.

Where do you buy your Greene team pellets? I've not seen those in the midwest or the UP of Michigan. Tried Tractor Supply brand, they are OK. Tried Home Depot, they were a little bit better. Paying $188 per ton at TSC, I think that is a good price. Sure a lot better than all the wood I was cutting and splitting, whew! Burned 10 full cords last year. So much for the twice warmed thinking: twice driven into the ground, twice the dirt, twice the headache, twice the backaches, and 20X the time!

 

[ke5hde]

Got the Greene Team and Marth's at Lowes.
I think they were 4.58 a bag..both brands.

Stove was off for well over a hour. Did see it glow real dim for a minute and that was it.Checked the fuse and it was fine so we'll see in a few days how it goes.

 

[newf27]

Got it; nearest Lowes is 50 miles north in Marquette Michigan. I get there from time to time, so I'll see if they have it. At Tractor Supply their pellets are $188 per ton, or $3.76 per bag, so I'll be interested in the comparison. They just opened a store about 30 miles from here and it's where I purchased the 5510 USSC stove. What is interesting is the local Home Depot store was well over $4.00 a bag, and quickly lowered their price when TSC opened. What does that tell you....Maybe I can show them and they will price match.
There is a local company that makes them, but they are pine softwood, although completely kiln dried before hand. I suspect the BTU value may be lower. Will try them also.
As they say, we are "in the middle of no-where"
Good luck on the ignitor.

 

[toyotagearhead62]

hello everyone
I live in vermont and we got a 5510 back in oct.09 we paid 1699.00 and we pay 289.00 aton for pellets
we have had nothing but problems with our unit with what seems to be the common problem on here
the burn pot not burning completly and filling with ash and unburnt pellets , but thanks to your posts
I have now got it working great , the think the most improvement came after sealing the ash doors and tighting the screws that
hold the clean out doors ,I have adjusted the feed rate and the draft fan and so far so good by the way it was 3 below this morning
when I started this project with very little heat because i started this last night by adjusting the feed rate
not much sucess but when i seal those doors hold on it was like turning on a switch
I want you all to feel my thanks
with out your help I would be waiting till monday to call us stove witch I have found to be helpfull but not open on the weekend
and this stove heats our home so thank you guys so much
also I had the igniter fail also

 

[jtakeman]

hello everyone
I live in vermont and we got a 5510 back in oct.09 we paid 1699.00 and we pay 289.00 aton for pellets
we have had nothing but problems with our unit with what seems to be the common problem on here
the burn pot not burning completly and filling with ash and unburnt pellets , but thanks to your posts
I have now got it working great , the think the most improvement came after sealing the ash doors and tighting the screws that
hold the clean out doors ,I have adjusted the feed rate and the draft fan and so far so good by the way it was 3 below this morning
when I started this project with very little heat because i started this last night by adjusting the feed rate
not much sucess but when i seal those doors hold on it was like turning on a switch
I want you all to feel my thanks
with out your help I would be waiting till monday to call us stove witch I have found to be helpfull but not open on the weekend
and this stove heats our home so thank you guys so much
also I had the igniter fail also

Glad the members here all work together and share what they found. You all deserve kudo's from the rest of us! Thanks is in order! It makes hearth.com a great place to be at. Tell all your freinds and we will be the best on the planet(might be there already)! One big happy family too!

Great to hear your running top notch now.

 

[urkiddin]

Just gave my 5510 a good cleaning out.i took the vent apart from stove to outside cap and gave it a good cleaning.i couldn't believe the grunge in it.i also sealed the ash slides.what a difference now.i picked up over 50 degrees in temp on 2 setting.only thing is now the draft sounds like a jet until the room fan kicks in.gonna have to keep an eye on the little dog or it might just suck him into the stove.

 

[ke5hde]

Good to see that we're starting to get a handle on these stoves.
Happy to help any way I can, now to see how long they last.

Chris