Motor Wiring & Pellet Build Up

Hello Folks,

I am at wits end with my St. Croix Prescott EXL. I have tried to join every forum and read every article that I can about this stove. Anytime I try to run this stove at any heat setting over three the stove will back up the pellets in the burn pot and its backs up into the chute where the pellets drop & for the most part my flame is huge. This stove has run like this since day 1. As long as I stay at 3 and below its fine. But sometimes in New England that is just not enough. I also have to keep the feed level at 1 & 4 which is the lowest setting. Ok so tonight I get my infamous #2 light that I get a couple of times a year. So I pulled the stove out of my fireplace and start to take the motor out. Getting ready to disconnect the Black and the White but the brown is chopped off. Look on the side of the door and their no schematic. I am sure that it is user era but I can not get this stove to work properly and I have had it for 3 years. I have had two boards replaced in the computer, and I have had this unit installed by professionals. Chimney is probably 20ft high and the company put a liner in the fireplace. I am getting a lot of clunkers in the burn pot, I am using New Englander Pellets. I love the stove and I love the money it saves me. But it can't be this hard to get a stove running properly. I clean the burn pot area once a day. I would appreciate any input you could provide. I have gone back to the dealer numerous times with no luck. I have emailed the company and still no luck, and actually I have never got a reply back from the company.

I would to thank all of you for your quick response. I will try to answer what I can and will get the information that you need to give me best case senario.

1. I bought the stove brand new from a dealer $3500.00. And it has run this way since day 1.
2. In the 20 years I have been in my house the fireplace that I showed you in the picture had never been used until I put the new stove in.
3. I do not know the diameter of the pipe but I will find out and I do not know what a EVL is.
4. My Damper is open to the point that I can just squeeze my pinkie in the opening. If I go less than that I get a lazy flame. At a pinkie " sorry for lamen's terms" I get the nice v-flame. But still cannot run it above 3 without backup in the burn pot and up the shoot.
5. I clean the exhaust pipe on the back of the stove two or three times a year. That is how many times I get light#2. The chimney lining has not been done since I put the stove in, but the chimmy was never used until the pellet stove went in. And this is how the stove had always run, except for excessive klinkers.
6. My routine for cleaning the stove is as follow: Empty ash pan and vac out left over ash. Then I remove the top plate near the exhaust tubes and plate and the tubes get cleaned. To the immediate right and left in the corner of those tubes there are a couple holes you can get a snake in and get ash to drop down behind the fake side wall. That fake side wall also gets a cleaning. Then I remove the quick access plates that allow you to get behind the brick wall and I run a snake up there on a electric drill and I hit that. I have even gone as far as run a aircompressor line in and a attach a small pvc hose that will go on my air compressor blower attachment and stuff that behind the brick wall. Makes a mess but hey if the kids are warm that's all that matters to me.
7. Take the burn pot out and scrap off any debris or build up on the pot itself. Right across from the burn pot this is tube that runs in behind the brick wall. I clean that out with my attachment for my pellet stove vac. Then I put it all back together and fire it up...This is my major cleaning to me gets done every other week. My daily cleaning is to shut the stove down..empty ash pan...clean the burn pot and the burn pot area. Reinstall the parts and off I go. My brick crumbled and I never bothered to replace but most people seem to say you really don't need it.
8. What size bottle brush will fit behind the firewall??
9. I don't know what you mean by having oak installed. If you mean the flooring in the room its just a laminate.
10. I only take the combustion fan out when I have too. Its difficult with my fireplace to get at the combustion motor out without pulling the stove off the hearth and that stove weights a ton for one guy.
11. Like I said it has run this way since day 1...Replaced computer boards twice as well. Are these stoves or any stoves supposed to be this much maintenance??
12. Also I have a very high vertical chimney probably 20' high so using a leaf blower on the roof would be kind of tough to do.
13. Does this stove like a certain kind of pellet over another??

Here is the link and the specs on the pellets I am using.
http://www.pelletheat.com/products-a-services/our-products.html

I have tried other pellets lot of kinds of pellets and it did not seem to make a huge difference.

Thanks to all of you,
Mark

Do you have OAK installed? What is your EVL (Equivalent Vent Length). Did the installers use 3 inch or 4 inch exhaust pipe. Do you clean your exhaust piping at end of year? After running 1 ton thru, do you clean behind the plates inside stove. Do you take out your combustion blower and clean the fins? Number 2 light blinking could be “The vent system is plugged with fly ash.†or “defective vacuum switch or hose†or look here on page 17:
http://stcroixstoves.com/pdfs/Pellet Manuals/Prescott Manuals.pdf


Clunkers or Clinkers could be the result of bad pellets, no OAK or poor or dirty venting.


Question for the Pellet pigs on forum: what’s the quality of New England Pellets?

OMG I am such a idiot I had no idea what those terms meant... basically from what I can see they did not do a block off at the flue. Everything is wide open the lining goes straight up the chimney with a cap on the top...There is no block near the bottom of the fireplace. They put one elbow and that is at the bottom of the fireplace to get the pipe into the stove. Would pictures of the fireplace inside and out be helpful??

FYI the fireplace is on the main floor of the house. so its only heating the main floor and the top floor, no basement.

A couple of other things. Now that I have looked up some of the terms and done a bit of reading, I understand a bit more.

There is no OAK installed, and we have no block off. When we went to purchase this stove, told the dealer what we needed. I took pictures of the house, inside and out. What we have is what we ended up with.

Thank you all for your help. I appreciate it very much.

Yes, I have a few, but I think I need to post some pictures of my house first. Thanks so much

ETA: I also want to provide more of the requested information.

Sigh.

I'm back. March 1st. I just don't get it. I took the entire stove apart completely. Blew the entire thing out. I am vacuuming the thing out every other day. Doing a weekly cleaning. It shut down with light #2 today, and the entire thing is backed up with ash. Even the pipe leading into the chimney is packed solid. I pulled that stove off the hearth and blew out every single part. It had never worked so good. Here are photos pf the piping, the chimney, the ash, everything. The ash is very powdery, like clay dust. Is my chimney too tall? Should I go right out the back and not straight up? I had a cover over the openings of the fireplace so everything was sealed up, and I took that off. The stove seemed to run so much better, but now it just stopped again. I am at a loss. Pictures are really big so you can see detail.

SmokeyTheBear said:

Have you cleaned out the ash traps in the stove?

There are at least two (and possibly three) plugs that can be removed to gain access to the ash traps. You need to really loosen up and suck all of the crap out of those areas. If you have only two plugs you need to go in from the combustion blower cavity to really reach the third problem area. Do not open up the combustion blower cavity without having a new gasket. When you remove the combustion blower you are likely to destroy the gasket.

Also is your versagrate operating? If that stops running it is possible it is partially blocking your air flow.

You should also check your damper to make certain it hasn't been inadvertently closed to far.

Click to expand...

Thank you for your reply. This has been an ongoing issue from day one. Every ash trap has been and is now clean. I just finished blowing and vacuuming that stove yet again. My versagrate motor is operating fine - that has never seemed to have been an issue. My damper is open.

I had to take off the combustion motor and blow out the stove from there, but I didn't destroy destroy the gasket. Would that gasket have anything to do with clogging the pipe in the chimney? This major cleaning needs to be done three to four times every year since I have purchased this stove, and that just does not seem right. I can see the stove getting plugged, but the chimney? I just spent the entire night cleaning the entire stove, and light #2 is still on.

I am going to have to call someone, I think.

It's just me and my wife. I don't know if I can get that thing outside. That's a great idea, though.

I did something I swore I swore I would never do. I bypassed the pressure/ vacuum switch, but the flame wouldn't stay running because there just wasn't enough air. Obviously, I missed something when I cleaned it.

$175 for the first two hours and $60 for each hour after for a professional to clean it. God. I don't know that I have a choice.

SmokeyTheBear said:

mkpanache said:

It's just me and my wife. I don't know if I can get that thing outside. That's a great idea, though.

I did something I swore I swore I would never do. I bypassed the pressure/ vacuum switch, but the flame wouldn't stay running because there just wasn't enough air. Obviously, I missed something when I cleaned it.

$175 for the first two hours and $60 for each hour after for a professional to clean it. God. I don't know that I have a choice.

Click to expand...

Can you get to the vent pipe in the chimney?

If so check the termination cap for crud plugging it and while you are up there and the stove is completely back together attach an electric leaf blower and suck the crud out.

I wasn't kidding when I said there was a hard spot to clean on those stoves, also have you used a stiff brush and given the heat exchanger tubes a very good cleaning (remember to use a face mask)?

Also make certain there is no down slope in that section that the clean out tee attaches to.

You need to do a deep cleaning job (stove) every single ton of pellets burned.

Click to expand...

The roof is covered with snow - I can't get up there the way it is now, but I am going to suck the stove out with the leaf blower. I know the combustion motor area is plugged; I thought I got everything last night, but I was wrong. I am going to turn my stove and run bendable piping outside the window to suck it all out. I have not cleaned the heat exchange tubes. Will the blower take care of this? There is no down slope, so I think I am okay with that. I should have been using a face mask all along - I haven't been.

But what is this about a deep cleaning after every ton? If I go through three ton a season, that's three of these cleanings each year? I have been told by many that this kind of cleaning should only be done once per season.

Thank you for your help.