how do I get my st. croix scf-50 running optimally

I recently purchased a st. croix SCF-50 furnance and I'm trying to get it working to its full potential. I'm not all that familiar with wood pellet furnaces, so it is difficult for me to judge if it is giving out the full heat it can. I've tried adjusting the dampers but don't see a lot of difference between the damper half way open vs. all the way open. If I close the damper fully, I do see the flame die down a bit but other than that, not a lot of difference.

The install wasn't a professional install, had a friend who is a plumber come and help me hook it up. I have an existing oil furnace, so we hooked up the return air into the back of the stove and hooked things up also into the existing duct work.

The house is about 2000 square feet, so it is a little larger than the recommendations, but I've seen posts of others using it on slightly larger homes. I can run furnace 24/7 on 5 without issue. On 5 the house at most will get to 60-65 degrees. 65 degrees when the temps is closer to 30 degrees, closer to 60 or little less when temp hit single digits.

I don't feel a lot of airflow nor is it very hot coming out of the registers. Certain rooms definitely more air flow than others, especially those closer to where the furnace is located. The other side of the house or upstairs, air flow is virtually nonexistent but do feel heat coming out of the registers, but again not all that hot. Temp up stairs is almost always less than 60 degrees even on high heat. I've been working on insulating the duct work, but I'm wondering if I have an issue with static pressure in my venting since airflow isn't all that great.

If I feel the duct work closer to the furnace, it feels warm, if I go to the other side of the basement and feel the duct work, I feel virtually nothing so doesn't feel like the heat is really reaching the other side of the house.

If I look at the glass, I am getting a darker color black film after a few days of burning, definitely not white of gray, so maybe I've got some issues there.

I've read some people have used infrared thermometers to check the temp, any recommendations where to check the temp to see if I'm getting the right amount of heat of the stove, registers, etc would be nice to know. I can report back on here.

Also as a side issue, the front panel to the stove doesn't feel super sealed, given the heat comes out and up, seems like that panel should be super tight. I don't really understand the design here either given the heat coming out of the stove is directed towards the front panel rather than straight up into the plenum (think that is what it is called.) Also what is up with the holes at the top of the stove, seems like you'd want to direct all heat towards the duct work some is escaping through those holes at the top of stove...

Any thoughts on this would be great I'm not all the familiar with the installation in terms of vent size, etc. But, I can probably figure it out.

Thanks,
Chris

I'm uploading some videos to youtube now to hopefully give an idea of the burn and my setup. See comments bellow.

In terms of black soot, the air intake is not hooked up to an outside source, so I'm wondering if that should be done.
Maybe the videos will give a better idea of what the flame looks like.

The unit is not used, brand new... So I doubt that I have air leaks from gaskets and such.

I showed in the video where the backdraft dampers are installed, so it shouldn't be traveling backwards if I understand you correctly.

I'm working on fully insulating the duct work, about half way done right now.

I've got twice as many registers as you (12 of them) and in the video show all my pipes shooting off from the main duct work. If this is truly too much, I wonder if I can block off half of them, maybe have the furnace only heat the upstairs and maybe the opposite side of the house. I've got an englander in the living room that does a good job heating the first floor, opposite side is a little cooler, so maybe the furnace can throw some air into that side, kind of a zonal heating system. There are manual dampers but even shutting these off, I didn't notice a huge difference in airflow.

When my videos are uploaded, I'll post them.

Thanks,
Chris

DexterDay said:

Im in the same boat as Hoss +gotta go to work+. But here a couple quick things

A black soot is a sign of a dirty burn, which means to much fuel or to little air, which leads to the 1st question...

Is this unit used? If so, were ALL internal passages cleaned, comb blower removed and cleaned, and ash pan and door gasket checked for tightness? (Open door and place a dollar bill between door and gasket surface, close door and see if dollar pulls out easily, or is there some resistance?) Air leaks (gaskets) or Air restrictions (ash plugged up in the works) will cause a Nasty situation

Are the proper back draft dampers installed in the existing duct? So the Hot air isnt traveling backwards through the system?

Are your ducts insulated? How many total registers are there?

My furnace only has an 800 CFM blower on it, but I only have mine ducted to 6 registers (half my house) I tried it with both Main Trunks hooked up and my airflow was considerably less. So I installed a damper and shut off the other Main trunk. (Basically the South side of the house). The fewer the registers, the better the Airflow. Standing near a register, I can feel the air from over 6 ft away.

In the meantime, do.a search on your stove (SCF 050) up top. There are a couple of threads on that unit, with burn isseus (black soot) last yr.

Welcome to the Forum

Click to expand...

The pellets are just home depot pellets, North America Pellets, the englander that i have in the living room puts out a good heat with these, but maybe different furnace, so should consider a higher grade.

No outside air kit.

Holes in the top of the stove are the two holes just to the right and left of where the heat comes out into the pipe... I'll take a picture if you still don't know what i mean..

Chris

hossthehermit said:

Quick thoughts in addition to Dexter's

Got a manual ? Believe me, it IS your friend.
What brand of pellets ya burning?
Outside air kit? Not necessary , but good to know for diagnostics.
What holes in the top of the stove are you talking about?????????
SCF 50 was designed primarily as a corn burner, will do a good job w/pellets, but a few tricks have been worked out, some people at http://www.iburncorn.com/new-forum may very well be more help than you can find here, good bunch there, too, but a little slow over there at times.
I'll check in thru the weekend

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Yeah that maybe true, so is there a way that I can tell it is putting out the most amount of heat, e.g., running most efficient and I just want to make sure I'm not doing something wrong with my duct work installation where I might be losing pressure.

Chris

rona said:

Your furnace is rated at 50,000 btu on a good day. For a very small house it will work but I've seen it come up short many times. As been said cleaning a St Croix is tricky as there is hidden chambers inside and often times the stove worked ok when new but as time went on the hidden passages get plugged and then it won't work right. I have pictures of a St Croix cut in half showing how the insides look to make it easier to clean. If i have a e-mail address i will mail them and someone better then me can post them here. Ron

Click to expand...

First video (burn I'm getting from the furnace) and the black soot that is forming on the window, this is about 3-4 days from the last time I cleaned the glass. The first has been running on the highest setting most of that time:


Chris

cgokey said:

I'm uploading some videos to youtube now to hopefully give an idea of the burn and my setup. See comments bellow.

In terms of black soot, the air intake is not hooked up to an outside source, so I'm wondering if that should be done.
Maybe the videos will give a better idea of what the flame looks like.

The unit is not used, brand new... So I doubt that I have air leaks from gaskets and such.

I showed in the video where the backdraft dampers are installed, so it shouldn't be traveling backwards if I understand you correctly.

I'm working on fully insulating the duct work, about half way done right now.

I've got twice as many registers as you (12 of them) and in the video show all my pipes shooting off from the main duct work. If this is truly too much, I wonder if I can block off half of them, maybe have the furnace only heat the upstairs and maybe the opposite side of the house. I've got an englander in the living room that does a good job heating the first floor, opposite side is a little cooler, so maybe the furnace can throw some air into that side, kind of a zonal heating system. There are manual dampers but even shutting these off, I didn't notice a huge difference in airflow.

When my videos are uploaded, I'll post them.

Thanks,
Chris

Click to expand...

Here is a walkthough of the piping installation.


The main duct work:



Finally, the air intake:


So any thoughts on where to start would be greatly appreciated...

Chris

cgokey said:

First video (burn I'm getting from the furnace) and the black soot that is forming on the window, this is about 3-4 days from the last time I cleaned the glass. The fire has been running on the highest setting most of that time:


Chris

Click to expand...

Yeah blower is rated at 800cfm. If the oil furnace turns on, I see a significant difference in what comes out of the registers. One difference is that the oil furnace blower is at a 45 degree angle and pushes the air across the main trunk. What we installed goes straight into the bottom of the main duct work and I wonder if that would make a difference in terms of getting the air to the other side? Also, not sure if you noticed that where the plenum piping goes into the main trunk, there is a offshoot piping that goes upstairs almost on top of it, thinking bad placement as the air might take the least path of resistance and not fully move across... Not sure thoughts here would be helpful.

There are manual dampers on each offshoot pipe going from the main trunk to the registers, I'm trying to close them but they are pretty old and difficult to tell if they are fully closed even though I'm turning the level perpendicular, don't always hear it turn fully inside when I'm turning the lever. I'd rather shut it off there that at the registers as it will have to fill the pipe and some cases has a pretty long run.

As I mentioned in a previous thread, I've got another wood pellet stove in the living room, Englander '04 and love it, I wish that made a basement pellet furnace they were the first company I called when I started looking around. Anyhow, I can probably close off a bunch of registers and do some kind of zonal heating system but I think that I might have more issues that just closing off these dampers as even when I do so, still don't feel a huge difference.

Chris

DexterDay said:

Flame looks pretty good to me too...

That is an awful lot of ducting and registers for a small distribution blower.

Could you have installed a couple 45° angles instead of all the 90°'s? Those are gonna slow things down considerably.

Can you install an inline damper or close some registers? To rooms that don't necessarily need them? (If a room has two, then close off one?)

Click to expand...

I'll look up in the manual trim. I am not running on a thermostat at the moment. Right now the distribution fan has two setting, low and high, I've got it running on high (800 cfm.). I saw at home depot they have fans you can put in the duct work, not sure if that would help or hurt my cause though.

Chris

hossthehermit said:

Your flame doesn't look too bad to me, might want a little more air, try a little at a time, wait 10 or 15 minutes between any changes.
You can also adjust the speed (trim) of your combustion fan.
Just a guess, but the holes on top look like they may be for a flange to hold the ductwork.
Are you running on a thermostat ?
You can also make adjustments on the cut-in and cut-out temp for your distribution fan.
You DO have a lot of ductwork there, does your distribution fan run for a long time before it shuts down? Might be able to go with a bigger fan, not sure.

Click to expand...

Here is picture of the top of the stove, the holes are to the left and right of the plenum opening.


Those are just open holes... Almost thought about taking some aluminum tape and covering them up... Just can't figure out why they are there...

As for the control board, I looked in the manual for any docs on changing jumpers based on whether you are running corn vs. wood, only things I found is changing the burn pot based on whether you burn corn vs. pellets.

Today I bought an infrared digital thermometer, running on 5, when I point it at the fire in the burn pot, I'm getting about 500 degrees.

Coming out the vent where it hits the sensor which tells it to turn fan on or off is about 200 degrees.

My englander on #1 setting in my living room , if I point at the burn pot reads 380 degrees. I have not been taking the burn pot out weekly, but I've only had the the running for less than a month, by I will add that to my weekly maintenance list, although I haven't notice much difference than 3 weeks ago in terms of flame.

Chris

MilkandPie4u said:

There is are jumper on the main board, one side is for corn the other is for pellets. You will not get as much heat if you burn pellets in corn mode, I know! What is yours set on?

The pictures posted above don't match my SCF-50 for cleaning, there are not any holes beside the pellet chute.

When adjusting the burn air, start with it open 1/2 way.

I have my flame adjusted so I am only getting white ash on the glass, the flame needed to be crisp not lazy.

Be sure to drop the ash before the burn pot fills, and remove the burn pot weekly to clean behind it.

I leave my fan on manual on most of the time when I need max heat and am running on heat setting 5, I run my fan on low.

Click to expand...

Here is a picture of the side of my panel, any ideas if both of these should just come right off? I haven't pulled this thing apart yet like my englander, so not sure what to unscrew, don't want a control board falling to the ground

DexterDay said:

What temp is your On/Off at? There should be something that looks similar to this on the side of the furnace (small panel may cover it). Mine has a black cover that goes over it, so you cant see it and also so little fingers (kids) cant mess with it
View attachment 90994 View attachment 90995

Click to expand...

Yeah, hot air comes out, makes no sense!

DexterDay said:

Does air come out of them?? I would cover them, if so.

Click to expand...

cgokey said:

Yeah, hot air comes out, makes no sense!

Click to expand...

In your revolution, when you take the front cover off, is the plenum opening slightly behind the vents where all the air blows out? How sealed is your front cover when you put the front cover on.

I would think the piping coming down into the stove would completely cover the vents where the air shoots out, that is not the case, looks like it just fills the cavity that the front cover is used to enclose, it does blow up, but not quiet as directed as I would expect.

Chris