Slow Combustion motor, resulting in smoke out of clean out tee

[Whitfield20help]

Hello,
I have been reading this forum trying to fix my pellet stove and I am stumped.

I have a Whitfield Profile 20, and on start up it is leaking smoke from the clean out tee.

I believe the issue is from the combustion motor spinning too slow. It spins on start up, but quite slowly.

Once the fire is going all operations seem normal. Eventually the combustion motor speeds up to a normal speed.

My best guess is it is the control board. As the pellet stove has had some recent possible electrical issues. Including the blower(room) motor not spinning, or the combustion motor not spinning. And it has previously not turned on properly and clicked on start up, with the on/off button flickering on and off. Same problem(https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/whitfield-profile-20-2-freestanding-blinking-clicking.134881/)

While those problems all seem to be resolved(maybe through deep cleaning). It still remains the combustion motor starting very slow and not strong enough to blow all the smoke up and out.

I am at high altitude and moved to this house with the pellet stove 18
months ago.

 

[gthomas785]

Sounds like the combustion fan motor could be going bad. Is there a way you can test the motor by giving it some power independent of the control board and see if it runs at full speed?

 

[tbear853]

I would think a slow combustion motor would result in less exhaust volume / pressure, not more than intended by manufacturer. If it's leaking smoke, seal the joints or if the tee has loose rivets / etc ... replace it.

Does it leak after it gets up to speed too?

 

[Rascus]

I would think a slow combustion motor would result in less exhaust volume / pressure, not more than intended by manufacturer. If it's leaking smoke, seal the joints or if the tee has loose rivets / etc ... replace it.

Does it leak after it gets up to speed too?

To add to this, I had a couple small leaks that would go away after the fire lit. I assume expansion took care of any leaky joint. I taped every joint inside my house because I didn't want to smell that small amount of smoke on startup. My cleanout tee was an extra pain in the butt; I ended up making a sharpie reference mark so I knew for sure that it was completely rotated shut every time I cleaned it out and reinstalled. Before making this mark, I would get it to what I thought was tight, but it was just bound up and only half closed.