DON'T SCREAM - WE THINK THAT'S IT
!! We would have NEVER thought the thermocouple was related to our problem without your help! THANK YOU The manual and the Quadrafire technical help line were pretty worthless. We checked the thermocouple yesterday, and the wires were NOT touching the end of the ceramic cover - about a 1/8" gap, with a lot of pinkish powder (perhaps remnants of heat sink paste?) at the end. The wires were fine, weld good; we cleaned the cover, made sure the wires were touching the end of the ceramic cover, and moved the thermocouple into the firebox about 1/4" so it extends 1" into the firebox. We didn't do anything else, other than checking the baffles again, and since then the stove seems to be "normal" once again - hasn't gone out The flame looks about the same as it was before.
We don't know if we have any other problems, since we're still puzzled as to why the air is hotter on one side of the stove (the left, facing the stove) than the other. The baffles on that side had a white ash deposit on them, while the ash was darker (dark brown) on the cooler side. The air flow is the same on both sides. Perhaps the baffle ash deposit will change now that the stove is burning properly.
Some day (perhaps in the spring) we'll pull the insert out and look at the convection motor housing - hate to get into that right now, when we need the stove and it seems to be working fine once again (thanks to you!) Thanks for your description of the play in the motor housing - that sounds like what's happening.
Sounds like our firepot cut off plate is a little different, but it seems to have a good tight fit. We'll look more closely at that.
So, that's it for now. We wanted to watch the stove a day before we responded to say - PROBLEM SOLVED! THANK YOU!
!! We would have NEVER thought the thermocouple was related to our problem without your help! THANK YOU The manual and the Quadrafire technical help line were pretty worthless. We checked the thermocouple yesterday, and the wires were NOT touching the end of the ceramic cover - about a 1/8" gap, with a lot of pinkish powder (perhaps remnants of heat sink paste?) at the end. The wires were fine, weld good; we cleaned the cover, made sure the wires were touching the end of the ceramic cover, and moved the thermocouple into the firebox about 1/4" so it extends 1" into the firebox. We didn't do anything else, other than checking the baffles again, and since then the stove seems to be "normal" once again - hasn't gone out The flame looks about the same as it was before. We don't know if we have any other problems, since we're still puzzled as to why the air is hotter on one side of the stove (the left, facing the stove) than the other. The baffles on that side had a white ash deposit on them, while the ash was darker (dark brown) on the cooler side. The air flow is the same on both sides. Perhaps the baffle ash deposit will change now that the stove is burning properly.
Some day (perhaps in the spring) we'll pull the insert out and look at the convection motor housing - hate to get into that right now, when we need the stove and it seems to be working fine once again (thanks to you!) Thanks for your description of the play in the motor housing - that sounds like what's happening.
Sounds like our firepot cut off plate is a little different, but it seems to have a good tight fit. We'll look more closely at that.
So, that's it for now. We wanted to watch the stove a day before we responded to say - PROBLEM SOLVED! THANK YOU!
