So I know it has been cold as heck recently. But my XXV (I got it just over a year ago) seems tobe acting up. So he last few days if the stove is allowed to run extended periods of time the house starts loosing temperature. The flame goes low. Turn her off allow her to cool and clean her and brings the house right up to temp, or a bit above (say 73, I usually shoot for 72), when on the same exact setting it was down to 68, or this morning 66. I had done a full fire box clean out on wednesday in anticpation of the cold, so cleaning it on thursday and Friday after about 2 or less bags each time seems very excessive. I know the heat demand is very high, but what has me scratching my head for a 8 hour run last night i burnt less then a bag of pellets, like under 30 lbs tops, possibly only 20 lbs. I remember last year that if i went about 10-12 hours on cold days the hopper was just about empty (65 lb hopper).
My setup is a Harman XXV (I believe produced 2012) corner install. It is vented using duravent. It goes into 3" cleanout, up ~18", 90 degree out of the house, 4" cleanout (now outside), up 4' using 4" pipe, 90 degree, end cap (the venting is exactly the same as last year, minus I siliconed it all up). This year i added an OAK, to do so I used the Duravent thimble with integrated OAK. The OAK is a 2" flexible pipe. Total length is under 24", I didn't extend the flex pipe at all. Ido full cleaning (exhaust system, exhaust blower, fines box, ESP, everything in the firebox every ton. Every week I do a full clean out of the firebox. I generally run in room temp mode and have the temp sensor genrally about 6" from the stove (I have generally done this), but because I wa hinking heat soak I have moved the sensor around and it hasn't really had an impact.
Some observations I have made
This year my pellets seem more ashy (I burnt exact pellets last year near the end of the season, bought pellets in may so they were from the same shipment to the pellet house), volume has gone up. The ash seems coarser and there seems to be more black soot. The blask soot causes what I would call aliens, the soot seems to light up odd shapes then dim out (seems like a flikering ember) , this is most noticeable when you open the door with the fire going. The glass also gets dirtier quicker this year, and it is cvered almost instantly with black soot. To me the extra ash, its coarseness, the black soot which seems to burn on the inside surfaces, all point to the fact that I am burning rich, likley as a result of the OAK choking down the exhaust flow??? To test this I have removed the oak and capped it temporarily, initial impression is this is spot on. Do I increase the OAK diameter to 3" to fix this???
As mentioned on really cold days it seems like my pellet consumptionis down. I can not get the pellets to reach 1" of the edge of the burnpot with the stove in stove temp set to max or room temp set to max and the feed rate turned al the way up. On cold days I am burning under a bag while I am work, last year I burnt nearly a hopper full.
Prior to cleaning I will try to warm the house up a bit. To do so I generally set the stove to stove temp mode and turn it all the way up. This has resulted in reduction in flame size and the house cooling off. I figured stove temp mode, max temp setting would be the highest setting the stove would run at.
In room temp mode I generally set it and forget it. Say at a level that gets my first floor to 72 degrees. I have noticed that as it gets cold it seems that the stove at times s having a hardtime keeping temp at 72, but when I look at the stove it seems that the stove is running pretty lo. The flame level is just above a maitenance flame, it would seem that if i am below my set point and loosing temp the flame should be higher. Again if I were to shut the stove down, do a quick firebox cleaing (not muh ash) it will go right back up to 72 (to get the house to 72 the temp nob is turned to be in between 70 and 75, go figure).
So today as a result of my thinking that my OAK is starving the fire a bit I have removed it. I disconnected it from the air inlet and capped the hose to prevent ingress of cold air this was done as part of a one ton cleaning. after 8 hours ash seems less. It is 73 in my house. This with the stove turned all the way up for several hours in room temp mode. Followed by several hours in stove temp mode at maximum temperature. Again the fire seems to be going high then going low, or mostly staying at a medium height. On first fireup the flame was tall proud and active, asI would expect it to be. So am I nuts? My gut is telling me that either my ESP is acting up, or that the potentiometer for the temperature knob i going a bit crazy. Anyone have thoughts? Sorry for the long post wanted to get my thoughts out and provide all the information I have.
D
My setup is a Harman XXV (I believe produced 2012) corner install. It is vented using duravent. It goes into 3" cleanout, up ~18", 90 degree out of the house, 4" cleanout (now outside), up 4' using 4" pipe, 90 degree, end cap (the venting is exactly the same as last year, minus I siliconed it all up). This year i added an OAK, to do so I used the Duravent thimble with integrated OAK. The OAK is a 2" flexible pipe. Total length is under 24", I didn't extend the flex pipe at all. Ido full cleaning (exhaust system, exhaust blower, fines box, ESP, everything in the firebox every ton. Every week I do a full clean out of the firebox. I generally run in room temp mode and have the temp sensor genrally about 6" from the stove (I have generally done this), but because I wa hinking heat soak I have moved the sensor around and it hasn't really had an impact.
Some observations I have made
This year my pellets seem more ashy (I burnt exact pellets last year near the end of the season, bought pellets in may so they were from the same shipment to the pellet house), volume has gone up. The ash seems coarser and there seems to be more black soot. The blask soot causes what I would call aliens, the soot seems to light up odd shapes then dim out (seems like a flikering ember) , this is most noticeable when you open the door with the fire going. The glass also gets dirtier quicker this year, and it is cvered almost instantly with black soot. To me the extra ash, its coarseness, the black soot which seems to burn on the inside surfaces, all point to the fact that I am burning rich, likley as a result of the OAK choking down the exhaust flow??? To test this I have removed the oak and capped it temporarily, initial impression is this is spot on. Do I increase the OAK diameter to 3" to fix this???
As mentioned on really cold days it seems like my pellet consumptionis down. I can not get the pellets to reach 1" of the edge of the burnpot with the stove in stove temp set to max or room temp set to max and the feed rate turned al the way up. On cold days I am burning under a bag while I am work, last year I burnt nearly a hopper full.
Prior to cleaning I will try to warm the house up a bit. To do so I generally set the stove to stove temp mode and turn it all the way up. This has resulted in reduction in flame size and the house cooling off. I figured stove temp mode, max temp setting would be the highest setting the stove would run at.
In room temp mode I generally set it and forget it. Say at a level that gets my first floor to 72 degrees. I have noticed that as it gets cold it seems that the stove at times s having a hardtime keeping temp at 72, but when I look at the stove it seems that the stove is running pretty lo. The flame level is just above a maitenance flame, it would seem that if i am below my set point and loosing temp the flame should be higher. Again if I were to shut the stove down, do a quick firebox cleaing (not muh ash) it will go right back up to 72 (to get the house to 72 the temp nob is turned to be in between 70 and 75, go figure).
So today as a result of my thinking that my OAK is starving the fire a bit I have removed it. I disconnected it from the air inlet and capped the hose to prevent ingress of cold air this was done as part of a one ton cleaning. after 8 hours ash seems less. It is 73 in my house. This with the stove turned all the way up for several hours in room temp mode. Followed by several hours in stove temp mode at maximum temperature. Again the fire seems to be going high then going low, or mostly staying at a medium height. On first fireup the flame was tall proud and active, asI would expect it to be. So am I nuts? My gut is telling me that either my ESP is acting up, or that the potentiometer for the temperature knob i going a bit crazy. Anyone have thoughts? Sorry for the long post wanted to get my thoughts out and provide all the information I have.
D
