Next years primary heat won't be from pellets

[osagebow]

Sorry I assumed you were new to woodburning, thought maybe that saw was a buddy's or something .Sounds like you have a good "start" on wood hahaha...I've never milled, would love to try it someday.
Havagoodun'
OB

 

[smwilliamson]

You ha e 2 different problems. First off, if you get feed but failure to co tinue after start...vacuum or vac swtich id failed. Fail to feed initially os a poor thermostat contact.

 

[blanc12]

When my furnace turns on it will set an error on my alalvon astoria. It will start right up when the thermostat calls for heat. Thank God. Get a better stove. Name brands will work with you. find one close to you. It is great to only lug a sac of pellets as aposed to cutting splitting piling and loading wood. screw that. been there. done that. my back has gotten old with arthritus.

 

[gfreek]

You tried burning pellets, it did not work our for you. It's not for everyone. Enjoy the outdoors and the wood fire. Burn safely.....

 

[Cross Cut Saw]

Wife and I bought this house in December of last year (2011). I installed a Heatilator P-35 on December 22nd of the same year. We used 2 tons of pellets from December 22nd until we quit heating the house in late April (had less than half of a bag left in the hopper). We live as far north and east as you can go in New York before you either in Canada or Vermont. It gets cold here. So your asking yourself why I would want to stop using pellets since it cost me less than $430 to heat the house for the coldest part of the heating season? Well, if it weren't for my wife being home all the time and being around to keep an eye on the pellet stove, the thing wouldn't have worked at all. We probably have the reset button just about worn out on the thing. Here are the list of things it has done....

1. Exhaust fan will start and it will never drop pellets
2. Exhaust fan will start, it will drop pellets and never light (didn't even heat the igniter)
3. Exhaust fan will start, it will drop pellets, light and then not drop any more pellets.
4. Exhaust fan will start, it will drop pellets, light, drop pellets a couple of time and then stop dropping pellets.

This goes on and on. It might go a day or two working correctly and then we will wake up at 4am and realize the house is cold. You don't have to use the reset button if you don't want to. You can turn the thermostat down below actual room temp and them back up to desired room temp and the stove will click and come to life. I have tested the T-stat and wire with a very high tech paper clip to jump the terminals on the back of the stove to make sure it wasn't t-stat or wire related. Either way, next year will be a wood stove for primary heat, pellet stove for backup and the fuel oil as a backup for the less than reliable backup. Here is next years heat supply in the making.

Nice haul!

I'm sure if you felt like you did all you wanted to do to solve the problem that was enough. Babysitting a stove would be a pain and hardly worth the effort.

 

[will711]

I need to appologise for my post. It was done out of frustration and I gave so little background info that it made me sound like a 7 year old that didn't get what they wanted for Christmas. I won't go through and quote posts but I will try to give some better info. We researched pellet stoves in general for about a year before deciding on the one we have. I read on this forum as well as others and decided that if the Heatilator was nothing more than a Quad in different skin then it would be the best choice for us with the budget we had to work with. My parents have a Quad and love it. We have received good response from the service department as far as general help goes but they have failed to figure out why the stove does what it does. They have been here 6 time total. If some one here has some information about what I can do to make it work as it should I would love to hear it. Flame height is adjusted perfectly. I have a single hash mark on the fuel rod and several hash marks inside the hopper next to the fuel rod so I have a reference of what I have done when I adjust it. I have used only one kind of pellet as I didn't see what good it would do to change pellets mid season when trying to diagnose a functionality issue.

As for the living trees.....they were scheduled to be taken down to make room for a mining operation that we started here at work. There are 2 more just like them that I have to take down. It's better I get it for fire wood instead of the mining company taking them down with a 345 CAT and throwing them on a burn pile. I have 10+ face cords of white oak, 7 face cords of ash (removed from my parents building lot when they built there house), 10 face cords of sugar maple (removed to make room for a road here at work), 2 face cords of Elm (taken from a tree in a tree row between 2 fields that were turned into one field) and countless amount of red maple (no reason to cut it other than for firewood), cut and split for next year. I may not be a pellet stove master but growing up burning wood and spending the last 15 years burning wood outside of living with mom and dad has given me at least a little experience in that department. I have never paid for wood. I have cut every bit of it myself. The saw pictured is just a Stihl 440 with a 32" bar. It also wears a 20" bar for limbing, bucking and it even does some milling with both bars. The 075AV come out when things get serious.




This one I will quote. Did you know that there are places outside the internet to ask questions and try to solve your problems?

There is a crap load of info and people on here that are invaluable but the same thing exists here in the real world where I can have a conversation face to face with some one

that might very well know just as much as some one on here. Now your going to say "If there advice is so good, how come your pellet stove still doesn't work?" Well, maybe some day it will. It's like going to an automotive forum and asking why your car is making a clicking sound in the left rear of the car. Some times the problem needs to be seen and heard first hand, otherwise your taking shots in the dark.

I hope that I have not offended any of you with my original post or this one.

Hey Sam,
Nice statement in this tech world we live in there is a lot less face to face conversation. I can go weeks with out speaking to my boss which is ok means all is good no issues then I get the "evil"email about some small BS then emails back and forth... when 5 min. of face time where I look you in the eyes read your body language hear your tone of voice lets me know where you are coming from and vice versa. What a concept.

Sorry I got way off topic I appreciate that you got back on here and as Paul Harvey would say " gave us the rest of the story"

You didn't offend me with either post all is good you needed to vent.

Hope it all works out Best of luck!

Will

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

I for one don't get bent out of shape because of your post, however there are more than a couple of folks on here that burn that stove or it's sibling without issues.

So when a stove has a good case of the hiccups the very first thing folks tend to think of is oh good grief it is a lemon. Frequently it turns out the install is out to lunch or it got bounced around in someones truck etc.. We have pretty good luck getting stoves working on here.

One of hearth.com's members a guy with the handle Krooser has a sig line that handles better than 80% of all problems that show up on here and in the real world.

Enjoy your wood stove, remember for a safe burning experience keep the stove and flue clean and the wood well seasoned or as it is said on here a clean stove is a happy, safe, and warm stove.

 

[DexterDay]

If I read the post right? Will you be installing the wood stove for Next Year?

If so.... Then the Pellet stove will need to run this year. Which will give you time to work on it. The best troubleshooting tips have already been noted in this thread. Check gaskets, clear vacuum hose/barb, clean stove, open feed gate, etc, etc.

If all else fails, then once you get it started, just run it on Low or Med. If the house gets to warm on Med, either lower feed gate or drop to Low. If it gets to cold on low, then go to Med or open feed gate. Once running the only way its really gonna shut down is from lack of feed. Find the line in which that happens? Make a mark on the feed rod and NEVER go below that point. Ever...

Is the wood stove going in this season?

 

[samdweezel05]

Sorry I assumed you were new to woodburning, thought maybe that saw was a buddy's or something .Sounds like you have a good "start" on wood hahaha...I've never milled, would love to try it someday.
Havagoodun'
OB

You have no need to be sorry as I didn't put any of that info in my original post.

Hey Sam,
Nice statement in this tech world we live in there is a lot less face to face conversation. I can go weeks with out speaking to my boss which is ok means all is good no issues then I get the "evil"email about some small BS then emails back and forth... when 5 min. of face time where I look you in the eyes read your body language hear your tone of voice lets me know where you are coming from and vice versa. What a concept.

Sorry I got way off topic I appreciate that you got back on here and as Paul Harvey would say " gave us the rest of the story"

You didn't offend me with either post all is good you needed to vent.

Hope it all works out Best of luck!

Will

I am one of the few people left in the world that have no idea what Facebook is or what the hell a twitter is. I like it that way. As far as off topic goes.....I am the king of ADD or ADHD threads.....oh look, a quarter.

If I read the post right? Will you be installing the wood stove for Next Year?

If so.... Then the Pellet stove will need to run this year. Which will give you time to work on it. The best troubleshooting tips have already been noted in this thread. Check gaskets, clear vacuum hose/barb, clean stove, open feed gate, etc, etc.

If all else fails, then once you get it started, just run it on Low or Med. If the house gets to warm on Med, either lower feed gate or drop to Low. If it gets to cold on low, then go to Med or open feed gate. Once running the only way its really gonna shut down is from lack of feed. Find the line in which that happens? Make a mark on the feed rod and NEVER go below that point. Ever...

Is the wood stove going in this season?

View attachment 77008

Yup, pellet stove has to work for this year. Also has to work next year as it will be the source of heat when the wood stove goes out if and when the wife and I are both out of the house during the day for 12 hours at a time. I went with a pellet stove in this new/used house because I was tired of my wife having to deal with bringing in wood and having to clean up the mess it made in the house. I don't care if I have to deal with it but truth of the matter is, she is home more than me. We can put enough pellets in the house to run for a week at a time with out having to bring more in no matter how cold it gets. -30F for a week and we used 14 bags of pellets and kept the house at 72-73 degrees, 24/7. Once a week for pellets was/is better than dealing with wood every day but I don't pay for wood and a wood stove would save me at least $900 a year. The pellet stove saves me almost $1000 a year as I used 20 gallons of fuel oil last year only because of some issues with the pellet stove.

 

[samdweezel05]

And maybe some milling with the underpowered 440.. Here's a nice little 31" wide Elm bar top. I am a welder/fabricator and diesel mechanic and heavy equipment mechanic by trade and I build my own chain saw mills and guides.

 

[DexterDay]

And maybe some milling with the underpowered 440.. Here's a nice little 31" wide Elm bar top. I am a welder/fabricator and diesel mechanic and heavy equipment mechanic by trade and I build my own chain saw mills and guides.

Damn I wish you lived closer

I am looking to buy an Alaskan 36" Mill here in the next year or two. Time is all thats stopped me thus far. They dont cost much, but they do take time to run

Thats a beautiful board you have. Are you leaving the bark on? Or squaring it up? Looks great all natural.

 

[DexterDay]

Oh and the words "Underpowered" and "440" can never be used in the same sentence.

I was looking at a 440 or 441, but got way to good of a deal on the 460!

 

[Monosperma]

This is exactly why I would be leery of the pellet stove, and why, so far, I am a wood guy. Pellets are wonderful when they work, but when they don't, you've got problems. Wood, being inherently low-tech, and with few moving parts (fan? damper?) tends to have fewer problems, IMHO. And you can get nice, long, burns with the modern ones, particularly the cats.

 

[krooser]

My back hurts just looking at all that stacked firewood..