Smoke alarm 4am, house filled with smoke Whitfield Advantage

[dreamingofpalmtrees]

First? Check your smoke detectors. Ours went off yesterday at 4 AM, came downstairs to find the house was filled with smoke.

We have two pellet stoves, a big Harmon allure that we bought new five years ago. That thing is a work horse, no issues. The other is a 30-year-old Whitfield advantage. The issue with the Whitfield.

My husband found a smoldering pile of pellets in the Whitfield, with the fan turned off. The stove is supplementary, the harman is the main source of heat. We opened the windows and turned on the stove fan and eventually emptied the house of smoke.

The Whitfield does not seem to like to run low. It is direct vented. We typically turn it off before it runs out of pellets, or we get a smoke smell. Not like fill up the house with smoke, but a smell.

At 4 AM there were still pellets in the hopper. He suspects he turned the feed down too low and the damper wasn’t adjusted correctly (it’s got a manual damper) so the fire died, stove cooled enough to shut down the fan and voila.

Having pellet stoves for 25 years, this has never happened, it was very scary.

Thinking it might be time to replace this. I will say it’s running currently (not low) and looks like this.

Thoughts?

 

[Washed-Up]

Seals are way cheaper to replace than the stove itself, have you done the dollar bill test on the door? Also check your tailpipe connection

 

[Nevins MHP]

First? Check your smoke detectors. Ours went off yesterday at 4 AM, came downstairs to find the house was filled with smoke.

We have two pellet stoves, a big Harmon allure that we bought new five years ago. That thing is a work horse, no issues. The other is a 30-year-old Whitfield advantage. The issue with the Whitfield.

My husband found a smoldering pile of pellets in the Whitfield, with the fan turned off. The stove is supplementary, the harman is the main source of heat. We opened the windows and turned on the stove fan and eventually emptied the house of smoke.

The Whitfield does not seem to like to run low. It is direct vented. We typically turn it off before it runs out of pellets, or we get a smoke smell. Not like fill up the house with smoke, but a smell.

At 4 AM there were still pellets in the hopper. He suspects he turned the feed down too low and the damper wasn’t adjusted correctly (it’s got a manual damper) so the fire died, stove cooled enough to shut down the fan and voila.

Having pellet stoves for 25 years, this has never happened, it was very scary.

Thinking it might be time to replace this. I will say it’s running currently (not low) and looks like this.

Thoughts?

View attachment 323324

I'm not particularly familiar with this stove. I recommend having at least 36" of vertical rise outside for the vent system. That will give you some natural draft to pull smaller quantities of smoke out when the fan is off.

 

[zrock]

Depending on what pellets im running my old breckwell will die out sometimes when i have it down on low.. It could run all day on low and then just randomly dies out.. I always chalked it up to maby it got a few larger pellets in the feed so it went a few rounds with low pellet feed and went out and then dumped pellets ontop after the larger pellets cleared and started to smolder after it went out.

 

[Don2222]

If that is a Whitfield Advantage I there is a steel baffle behind the fire brick held on by 2 bolts on each side. I call them the Iron Curtain They must be removed so the ash can be vacuumed out behind them. This can cause that problem.

 

[Ricks]

Besides removing the fire brick and cleaning as Don suggested I would also use the leaf blower method to clean the stove.

 

[Don2222]

Also the cause maybe due to the barametric pressure being low at night and maybe a back draft, to prevent the smoke from coming out the air inlet pipe filling the room with smoke, an OAK outside air kit should be installed. A 3’ vertical rise should be added on the inside of the house then go thru the wall. This will give natural draft to keep the smoke from going into the room too!

 

[hamhock75]

I run my Advantage II fairly frequently at the lowest setting. It does go out occasionally but there is never any smoke or smell. The fan continues to run for some time after the flame goes out. The only way the fan stops even before the flame goes out is in the case of a brown out.

Just losing electricity momentarily will cause this condition so the Advantage II is connected to a li-ion UPS which prevents any issues with brown outs.