scotthershall
Member
I'm new to this too, and have been doing a lot of tinkering. I had the same exact problem you do with the stove on the factory settings (6-4-1). The pellets would get the lava effect and the glass would turn brown/black in 8 or so hours. After an overnight run on a lower heat range setting, the ask cake would be covering nearly half of the lower auger, so close it look like there wasn't any room for new pellets to drop. A few things that contributed to this and I made some adjustments...
Pellet quality. The Green Supreme pellets left the worst "ash cake" in the burn pot. Other brands are better. I've tried (ordered from worse to best) ThermaGlo (Home Depot), Greene Team Platnium (Lowes), and Spruce Pointe (at the local Ace). All of these brands were better with regard to the ash cake. Out of that grouping, I found the Greene Teams to be the hottest. I think the Spruce Pointes are a nice middle ground. Englander's are great stoves but they need more upkeep, so finding a low-ash pellet means cleaning somewhat less often.
The "magic numbers." As you found setting that Low Burn Air higher really helps. But as you mentioned, that means more heat goes out the vent pipe. If you want to tune in some efficiency, you can tinker with the Low Burn Feed and Low Burn Air settings to dial in a balance between efficiency and a clean burn pot/glass. I've found I can run the Green Supremes and ThermaGlos at 4-6-1, and Spruce Pointes at 3-5-1. YMMV.
And the best change I made... plugging the small holes in the burn pot below the wear plate. Just use some balled up steel wool to do this. You'll probably need to replace the steel wool periodically. Once I did this, the stove ran much better. From my research around here I found out that those holes (and the corresponding ones above the wear plate) allow additional air to move around the fire. This lowers the stoves overall emissions by allowing clean air to move around the fire and go out the vent. Essentially, this leaves more soot in the stove as opposed to exiting the stove via the vent pipe. This design allows the stove to pass EPA testing. Plugging those holes forces all the air through the wear plate allowing the pellets to burn completely. So give that a try if you'd like. You'll probably see a night and day difference just like I did. With this modifications, even the Green Supremes burned pretty well.
In the near future I'm going to try a few brands considered to be top of the heap, namely, some Okies, Blazers, and Okie DF, just to see how much of an improvement they are.
You'll still need to break up/remove the ash cake and do the scraping as suggested in the stoves Operating manual (videos) two or three times per day but there will be much less ash to scrape.
Edit: my stove is currently running in mode D.
Hope this helps.
Pellet quality. The Green Supreme pellets left the worst "ash cake" in the burn pot. Other brands are better. I've tried (ordered from worse to best) ThermaGlo (Home Depot), Greene Team Platnium (Lowes), and Spruce Pointe (at the local Ace). All of these brands were better with regard to the ash cake. Out of that grouping, I found the Greene Teams to be the hottest. I think the Spruce Pointes are a nice middle ground. Englander's are great stoves but they need more upkeep, so finding a low-ash pellet means cleaning somewhat less often.
The "magic numbers." As you found setting that Low Burn Air higher really helps. But as you mentioned, that means more heat goes out the vent pipe. If you want to tune in some efficiency, you can tinker with the Low Burn Feed and Low Burn Air settings to dial in a balance between efficiency and a clean burn pot/glass. I've found I can run the Green Supremes and ThermaGlos at 4-6-1, and Spruce Pointes at 3-5-1. YMMV.
And the best change I made... plugging the small holes in the burn pot below the wear plate. Just use some balled up steel wool to do this. You'll probably need to replace the steel wool periodically. Once I did this, the stove ran much better. From my research around here I found out that those holes (and the corresponding ones above the wear plate) allow additional air to move around the fire. This lowers the stoves overall emissions by allowing clean air to move around the fire and go out the vent. Essentially, this leaves more soot in the stove as opposed to exiting the stove via the vent pipe. This design allows the stove to pass EPA testing. Plugging those holes forces all the air through the wear plate allowing the pellets to burn completely. So give that a try if you'd like. You'll probably see a night and day difference just like I did. With this modifications, even the Green Supremes burned pretty well.
In the near future I'm going to try a few brands considered to be top of the heap, namely, some Okies, Blazers, and Okie DF, just to see how much of an improvement they are.
You'll still need to break up/remove the ash cake and do the scraping as suggested in the stoves Operating manual (videos) two or three times per day but there will be much less ash to scrape.
Edit: my stove is currently running in mode D.
Hope this helps.
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