Pellets not burning completley

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Chris04626 said:
Dont have a attic, have a crawl space but thats insulated. It is much colder upstairs im talking 60-64. We have a heater running up there at night

Our hosue is about 1800 square footage upstairs and down.

That heat loss calculator thing is over my head i have no clue the info t oenter or how t ofind the info needed.

I did put a regular themometer about 2eet from the front of my outpull holes on my stove and the temp was 119 degrees if that can tell you anything, I believe alot of cold air is coming from my basement as its only 40 degrees down there.

Do you have a way or return vent for the cold air on the second floor to make its way down to the first floor?
 
chris04626,

PM me your telephone number and we can chat, it is likely that we will be able to find the figures to plug in and get some idea of what is what.

Playing 20 questions can be a problem one at a time.

I'm assuming that the number after your name is your zip code if that is the case I can look up the degree day information along with the lowest normal temperature. What I can't do however is figure out the wall area , insulation, window types and area, floor area, cap area, etc ...
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
chris04626,

PM me your telephone number and we can chat, it is likely that we will be able to find the figures to plug in and get some idea of what is what.

Playing 20 questions can be a problem one at a time.

I'm assuming that the number after your name is your zip code if that is the case I can look up the degree day information along with the lowest normal temperature. What I can't do however is figure out the wall area , insulation, window types and area, floor area, cap area, etc ...

chris , i think smokey is on to somthing , i'd chat with him , i understand perfectly what his posts mean , i could talk to you as well. either way, i would obviously strongly recommend the OAK, we dont toss one in every stove we build just for jollies. it truly does make a difference. get in touch with one of us either me or smokey, im pretty confident reading his posts that he is someone who would be good to listen to, heck i wouldnt mind chatting with him myself just on general stuff (hint) drop me a pm one day when you have a while to chew the fat smokey.
 
Thanks for the backup Mike.

I'll drop you a PM one of these days and we can chat. I'm no expert on this stuff but I've been exposed to all of the concepts, can dig into things real well, and have operated lots of different heating equipment over the years.

Chris will also discover that I'm originally from that area, just not that town.
 
Ok, im working on getting someone to come put in the OAK, not sure when he can do it.

This morning about 7 am i woke up to a living room of 66 degrees and a kitchen of 62 with the stove set at 9-9 2-6-1 There was also a smokey smell in the house, no smoke just the smell. THis has now gone away, so not sure what happened with that. Only other time i had smokey spell was when the power went off and it was sending puffs of smoke into the room.


Also is there an adapter that goes onto the back of the stove which then connect to duravent piping? Right now i just have my duravent elbow on over the stove pipe
 
"Also is there an adapter that goes onto the back of the stove which then connect to duravent piping? Right now i just have my duravent elbow on over the stove pipe "

What? I can't speak to what the connection requirements are for your stove, however an elbow over stove pipe doesn't even sound close to correct.

When you were getting the puffs of smoke did you notice where on the stove they were coming from?
 
Try different pellets before you do anything with the stove. I have Penningtons dated July 08, the better improved ones premium hardwood bla bla bla. These are the ones that are ok, not the poor ones from last year. They burn fine in my multifuel but let me assure you they are as dirty as corn or worse. They heat OK but that is about it and I tend to run my 3/4 open rather than half to make up for it. My pellets burn to dense ash which tends to plug up the air holes and slow the fire down. Your stove may not cope as well with this ash as mine does so it could easily be your problem. Try manually cleaning out the build up a couple times a day and see if it helps, it works for me though I have a very large burn pot.
 
Power went out today and puffs of smoke came fron the holes above the doors and from around the hopper lid.

Are these puffs normal for when power outages happen or is it because i dont have the OAK. If it is normal it's not very safe for it to be doing this. It lerrally fills the room with smoke and the smell is throughout the house.
 
Send a PM to Mike Holton from Englander, doesn't your hopper have a gasket around it and latches for the fill door? I seem to remember Mike saying their systems were all closed.

I would have expected the smoke to come out the air intake (it might be and you aren't looking there) (which is where the OAK would connect) if anyplace.

It also sounds like you don't have any natural draw, exactly how is your exhaust system setup?
 
Yes the hopper has a gasket, the skoke was coming from the little area between the front of the top of the stove and the hopper lid. First time its ever came from there, it usually puffs from the holes i nthe front of the stove above the door where the heat comes fro

I have an elbow attaches to the pipe on the back of the stove, elbow connects to a 2 or 3 foot straight pipe out the wall, that goes to a T, then a 3 foot straight pipe up.
 
I'll bet the smoke is actually coming from the air intake and then up through what ever path it can find including getting into the convection blower fan and out the heat holes.

A sealed OAK will stop that, as will setting up a decent natural draft. If those elbows are 90 degree ones you are at the end of equivalent vertical pipe for 3" vent and the horizontal takes you over what is considered to be proper venting. This can also cause poor burning. The cutoff point would depend upon the combustion blower's abilities and is stove specific. In any event I don't think 3' of vertical is considered enough to start a natural draft sufficient to draw the smoke out of the stove when the combustion blower isn't working.

90 degree elbows and T count as 5 feet
45 degree elbows count as 3 feet
each foot of horizontal counts as 1 foot
each foot of vertical counts as 0.5 feet

Your system has 3 x 5 = 15 for the three elbows
and (2 or 3) x 1 = 2 or 3 for the horizontal
and .5 x 3 = 1.5 for the vertical

or 15 + 2 + 1.5 = 18.5 or 19 depending upon the horizontal length.
 
I jhave my unit kiddie cornered so i need the elbow coming from the stove in order to make it out the wall

The pipe i installed for length is consitent with what the manual said to use

I only have 1 elbow, the one ocming from the stove. The other is a T
 
Your system is elbow 5 (or 3) horizontal (2' or 3') T vertical (3') so that is 5 + 2 (or 3) + 5 + 1.5 or 13.5 or 14.5 if that first elbow is 90 degree which isn't likely if 45 then it is 12.5 or 13.5 which is fine except for the vertical length which the last I had seen was at least a four foot vertical run. But again the actual details are stove specific (a lot depends upon how much of the flue is blocked by the stopped combustion blower).

The only other thing is that any air pressure difference that makes the room be in negative pressure will cause smoke to be sucked back into the room through the air intake or any non sealed portion of the stove including venting.

Again it is mandatory for you to have an OAK with the stove you are running and a violation of code not to have it. That is if Cutler gives a hoot about such.
 
Didn't an adapter come with the stove or the vent kit? I had mine installed (new house, wanted someone else to handle it if a mistake was made it'd be their nickel) so I don't know.

Is that elbow sealed to the stove pipe? If not smoke could come out there as well.

I had some come out through the spindle of my exhaust blower (don't ask) and a couple of other places (long since sealed).
 
Oh, did you get that much snow? We got what looks like 9 to 11 here yesterday, had some sleet towards the end. I still have to shovel off the back steps and cut back the right hand side of the 600' or so driveway. Have to make room for the next one.
 
Just wanted to throw my 2 cents in.....im currently burning penningtons in my englander 55-shp22....after reading most posts on this whole site and trying alot of the tips given...ive gotten these pellets to burn quite well ,but still deal with the clinker build up also.....I ended up adjusting the resticter plate in the bottom of the hopper to 1/8 back from the smallest opening....then on the #2 feed setting I adjusted the three bottom setting to 4-9-1...........Im heating my whole single floor modular house(1800 sq.ft) with good results......I open the door from time to time and stir out the clinkers that form and throw them to the side...Only on the coldest night do I turn the stove up to the #4 feed setting, and always run the fan on #9.....Also im running selkirk pipe in a pipe venting(4inch inside) up 5 feet inside the house then out 2 feet....this setup heats the incoming cold air up 150 degree as measured on my digital thermometer gun.......and the air being blown into the room varies between 240 and 300 degrees......
 
probably6 or 7 inches here got alot of sleet last night though, diriveway is a glare of ice.

I will give that a try, untill i can get someone to do my OAK for me.

You just slide that plate back?
 
yeh when the hoppers is empty, youl see 1 screw hold down on that plate.....loosen screw, slide plate to the smallest opening then come back a 1/8 of a inch......i tryed it at the smallest setting,but some times the pellets would stack up and not drop in the auger......definatly put in the cold air kit.............good luck
 
fuel feed at 2....blower at 9..........(when your on feed setting 1 or 2 you can set the bottom three buttons to 4-9-1).......on higher feed setting the bottom three buttons are preset)..................oh and im running this stove 24/7.....only shuts off for cleaning
 
KINGOFTHENORTH,

That is likely to work towards solving his unburned pellet issue, however it isn't necessarily going to solve his overall heating issue.

There is still that nagging heat loss possibility. The OAK will help with that issue a bit, how much depends on the amount of air infiltration not having it was adding to the mix. He even mentioned having a lot of windows and his furnace not being able to keep up when it gets really cold out.

I picture this two story turn of the century new england or Victorian style house with high ceilings and little to no wall insulation and lots of old windows. Been there refurbished two big old places and one not so big old place. Can still feel the itching from installing insulation. Not to mention the thirty windows replaced in the last one.
 
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