Pellet Stove Techs...PLEASE HELP. At the end of my rope with this thing.

[EarthStove]

I repositioned everything again. It looks perfectly straight to my eyes. LOL

The logs actually keep a good deal of the flame off the glass. That is one of the reasons we keep them in the stove.

I will start the fire again tonight and report back in the next day or so.

 

[imacman]

....The logs actually keep a good deal of the flame off the glass. That is one of the reasons we keep them in the stove.......

Not a great reason.....flames won't hurt the glass. Try the stove w/o the logs for a few days to confirm they are NOT a problem.

 

[webbie]

FYI, this is off the cuff, but if you have an old bottom-fed Earth Stove - those things are quite old at this point (some are 20+ years), and I remember one "in the field" test where a particular Earth Stove model came out at the lowest efficiency of all the tested stoves....in the report it was something like 42% when everything was figured in.

Not saying that (design, engineering, construction) is YOUR problem, just that there may come a point where an "old boat" is not worth trying to fix, especially if the boat never floated well in the first place.......

Disregard this message if it does not apply!

 

[EarthStove]

I did run the stove with the logs out a couple of times and it didn't make a difference with the ash problem. But the glass quickly will build up because the gases and flames are directed right at the glass with he combustion blower on full blast.

The earth stove we have was purchased at the end of 1996/ Early 1997. I am not sure how long this particular model was in production before we purchased it.

 

[Meneillys]

I did run the stove with the logs out a couple of times and it didn't make a difference with the ash problem. But the glass quickly will build up because the gases and flames are directed right at the glass with he combustion blower on full blast.

The earth stove we have was purchased at the end of 1996/ Early 1997. I am not sure how long this particular model was in production before we purchased it.

This might seem odd but after reading that the flames come towards the glass more with the combustion blower on high have you checked the hopper for air leaks? The only way I could think the flame would get pushed towards the door would be air coming from around the auger. IDK just an idea I know our Harman boiler doesn't like it when we open the hopper lid to fill it and it is burning.

 

[EarthStove]

I did run the stove with the logs out a couple of times and it didn't make a difference with the ash problem. But the glass quickly will build up because the gases and flames are directed right at the glass with he combustion blower on full blast.

The earth stove we have was purchased at the end of 1996/ Early 1997. I am not sure how long this particular model was in production before we purchased it.

This might seem odd but after reading that the flames come towards the glass more with the combustion blower on high have you checked the hopper for air leaks? The only way I could think the flame would get pushed towards the door would be air coming from around the auger. IDK just an idea I know our Harman boiler doesn't like it when we open the hopper lid to fill it and it is burning.

The hopper door just falls down, no latches or anything like that.

I think MAYBE I have finally solved this problem after all of this time. I sure do hope so...After several days of burning...It appears the problem may have been related to how the fire pot is seated into the darn auger opening. Now that I have gotten everything perfectly straight both sides have been almost completely clear of pellets. The left side for a time had some build up but by later this evening it had all fallen. Flames continue to look darn near perfect too.

I have not had a chance to run this on full yet because it's just not cold enough. I guess that will be the final test.

So as of now, if anyone else runs into a problem like this, check the alignment on the fire pot. Very VERY strange.

 

[rickwa]

have you ever hooked up a draft meter to see if your readings are what they are supposed to be?

 

[EarthStove]

Don't have one.

The fire continues to burn great. Sure hope it keeps up but so far it looks like the problem was with the fire pot alignment.

 

[lmjr]

Don't have one.

The fire continues to burn great. Sure hope it keeps up but so far it looks like the problem was with the fire pot alignment.

That was it...mis-aligned fire pot will do that every time.

Glad you were able to resolve.

Maybe start a little Mad Money Stash and save up some bucks for a new stove in the future.

 

[lmjr]

Double Post

 

[EarthStove]

Had one problem earlier this week. I mixed in some of my lignetics from last year that gave me a ton of problems - dumped on top the already burning Hamers. It burned perfect for hours on end. But I turned the stove off for another reason and restarted it with the lignetics that was left over and within 8 hours it started building up on the right side again.

Shut down and restarted with Hamers and its been burning perfect for several days.

I had to shut the stove down during that terrible wind storm we had. The flame kept blowing out again. Looks like that additional 5 ft of vertical was not enough. I guess the only way I am going to be able to eliminate that problem is to get the flu up and over the top of the roof line. Too much money for this year so I will add to it in the summer next year unless someone has any other ideas?

 

[EarthStove]

Just finished burning through our first ton of Hamers. The pellets and the fire pot alignment has made all the difference in the world.

This things burns better than it ever has on low, medium and high. No build up unless the fire pot gets too full but I have been doing a good job cleaning it every 4 to 5 days on medium and every 2 days on high.

I think I may even try to back off the combustion fan now that this appears to be sorted out. The stove does not appear to get as hot while on medium as it did in the past as it often does not kick the room blower on at all times like it did last year.

I have even been able to go for 2 weeks or more before the glass needs cleaning.

The only remaining problem is when we get strong winds like today...Still getting smoke blown back into the house from time to time. I hope that taking the pipe over the roof line in the spring will fix that though.

 

[EarthStove]

Update!

I found a new fire pot locally that was brand new along with brand new logs. I decided to jump on it since the price was very good.

Been burning the Stove Chow pellets for a few hours now and WOW, what an amazing difference again. The Stove Chows are burning like the Hamers did. On high the stove appears to be working perfectly with nothing but ash in the ash drawer now and very little of it. The Stove Chows were filling up the ash drawer within hours. Now with about 4 hours 0f burning the bottom of the ash drawer is barely covered. Of course before it was mostly black, partially burned pellets and now its just ash.

I guess I should have jumped on the new fire pot sooner. The old one was moving all around on the auger pipe. This new one barely moves allowing it to be what I guess is perfectly aligned.

 

[EarthStove]