Englander PDVC flame height

Here's some videos from earlier in the week.

http://s716.beta.photobucket.com/us.../2013-01-18_19-18-48_553_zpsa9e461d4.mp4.html

http://s716.beta.photobucket.com/us...c/2013-01-18_16-41-43_96_zps901890e7.mp4.html

Here I am thinking that I was doing a good thing with the 3' vertical giving me good draft. Could I have a poor draft which is effecting my air intake? I can take the tee and everything off outside the house put 1 more foot of horizontal and stick my chimney cap on it. Oh by the way, does anyone think it is dangerous to burning the stove with the flame getting that large?

imacman said:

Can you explain again your exhaust? Is what smoke show said above true? You have (2) tees and (2) 90's in the system? If so, your exhaust has too many bends for 3" pipe.......your EVL is at least 23. Max for 3" is 15.

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Yeah, you read that right. Stove is kitty cornered so I have stove adapter into a tee, a 90, then 2' horizontal out the wall thimble into a second tee, then 3' vertical, 90 to turn away from the house and the chimney cap. This is the setup on my father-in-laws stove. We just copied it when I installed mine. Damn.

smoke show said:

2 tee's and 2 90's. If I'm reading it right he's over 20 ft evl.

Click to expand...

imacman said:

Can you explain again your exhaust? Is what smoke show said above true? You have (2) tees and (2) 90's in the system? If so, your exhaust has too many bends for 3" pipe.......your EVL is at least 23. Max for 3" is 15.

Click to expand...

Hey guys two questions:
1) What do you think about me removing the exterior pieces since my run is way too long and running this: stove adapter, tee, 90 elbow, then 2 or 3 feet horizontal through the wall thimble and putting the chimney cap there? Is it safe? Some people go straight out horizontal with no vertical rise in their venting at all. I know what I'm contemplating may not be ideal, I like having the vertical for a natural draft, but I'd rather wait until the spring to cut a new hole and move the thimble lower to rid myself of the tee inside the house.

2) You think my current venting setup could be effecting my lack of air intake?

Thank you for your help.

h2ochild said:

Can the stove be moved a little, to allow the interior Tee and 90 (with combined EVL of 10) to be replaced with a 45 (EVL 3) ?

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Not without raising my stove an additional 5-7 inches off the floor.

Update: My venting is now run as follows: stove adapter, tee, 90 elbow,3 feet horizontal through the wall thimble, chimney cap. It's hard to say if it has made a difference or not. If it has is not drastic enough. I'll have a better idea in 6-8 hours.

I'm uploading another video, it's around 1 minute. It shows how my flame is currently cycling from low to high. When I stopped recording the flame began to reduce until it got back to what it looks like at the beginning of the video. I'm on heat 1 blower 2. Video was taken 45 minutes after start up.

http://s716.beta.photobucket.com/us.../2013-01-21_12-22-13_614_zpsf1a84df4.mp4.html

I also experimented with disconnecting my OAK from the back of the stove. It didn't seem to make much of a difference. How strong of a suction should there be? The stove did not seem to be pulling air in as much as I thought it would. I could definitely feel it pulling air in, just thought it would be stronger. Also, is the air intake at all influenced by the blower speed? I was curious if turning the blower to a higher level would cause the stove to draw more air in. If it is supposed to I didn't notice. I know my bare hand isn't the most precise instrument for measuring such things but it's what I've got. I was thinking of removing the screen from my OAK, to let more air in but I don't even know if it would make a difference at this point.

imacman said:

Well, I think if you compare your original video vs this one, there is a HUGE improvement....flame is much shorter and less "lazy", IMO. As for your question on the OAK air inlet....it is not a huge suction there, but if you can feel it easily, then I'd say it's OK. Yes, the volume of air going in the OAK is directly proportional to the comb. fan speed. Raising the LBA will increase the blower speed and therefore, air velocity at OAK. That said, raising the LBA above 6 is self defeating....it sends too much heat out of the stove through the exhaust, and not enough time spent inside the heat exchanger pulling BTU's from it to heat the house.

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Well, as I expected the flame has been raging more often than not. I cleaned the burn pot a little and then played with the LBA. I raised it to 6. So I'm running 6-6-1 on the lower 3 buttons. Seemed like the flame was more active but sure enough the flame is still really big running on heat level 1 blower speed .

http://s716.beta.photobucket.com/us.../2013-01-21_14-13-08_591_zps36ea1bce.mp4.html

I think I need to cut thee feed rate down but no word of a lie, 5 minutes before I shot the video I had no flames and just coals in the pot. So naturally a few more pellets are fed into the pot before the fire reignited and I end up with a large flame for awhile until things sort of even out. I plan on grabbing some stove chow at HD tomorrow. That's what I started with, they seemed to feed more consistently. I had a very large flame with them too, but I don't recall the fire ever going out.

LBA has been at 6 for almost 2 hours. I just scooped some ash out of the pot and I'm lowering the feed rate to 5. My settings are now 5-6-1. Heat 1 blower 3. I'll keep you posted.

FYI. The flame height issue is all set. Changing the flue really did it. It calmed down some more with the new settings. My neighbor has the same stove his runs with a large flame. So, no more worries there. I have a new problem for a new thread but while on the phone with Englander I described the flame, the tech confirmed what my neighbor and I have been experiencing.