smoking earth stove

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rdgirls

New Member
Dec 4, 2010
10
eastern md
I have a earth stove PI35 insert that I have had for about 10 yrs. I bought the stove used, about 2yrs old, and ever since I put it in I have had a problem with smoke backing up into the hopper. I have had a co. come out and look at it and they said it seemed to them it was the combustion blower put a new one on but that didn't solve the problem.
At one time I could cut the damper back, run it like that, it wouldn't smoke but, the pellets would pile up in the burn pot.

Any ideas?
 
Welcome to the forum rdgirls.

Usually burn pot pile up is caused by a dirty stove, dirty venting, bad gaskets, improper damper setting, blocked air intake, or an improperly seated or dirty burn pot.

Where do you want to start looking and cleaning? There are all kinds of places to start. Maybe you'll find that something is stuck in the exhaust blower or you have acorns in your ash traps or at least a lot of ash.
 
I hear what your saying, I clean my stoves completely pipes and all twice a yr and general cleaning once a week. I also have had a breckwell for 18yrs and thought I understood how they work. This one has got me stumped! With the breckwell it has 2 blowers, 1 for the exhaust that sucks out all the time and 1 that blows air across the heat tubes.
The earth stove has 2 blowers also, 1 that blows into the fire box, across the tubes and out the exhaust pipe. The second is the heat exchanger fan, that blows across the tubes.

I only need to burn the earth stove on low 75% of the time, sometimes when it's realy cold, in the evenings, I turn it up to the med. setting. Before the start of the season I brushed out the piping, pulled the exhaust access and vacumed it out, all the heat exchanging area was brushed out with a brush, burn pot was taken off and cleaned and the complete stove vacumed out. The stove has only bee run twice since cleaning it.

After posting I started the stove again, it ran all night with out any problems and this morning (12 hrs burn time) it slowly started smoking through the fill hopper again. I shut the stove back down and pulled the combustion fan apart, didn't see alot of dust build up. I went and got a compressor and made up a flexable tube to get up in there and blow everything out. I blew out the fan and oiled it. I have put everything back together and lit it again, I'll see what happens.

It looks like the tube for the combustion blower, where it mounts to the tubing that carries the air to the stove (burn pot) has about 6 holes drilled across the top. It looks to me like this let's a limited amount of air blow down the feed auger tube to keep smoke from backing up through the auger. I have never been able to figure out if the damper should be all the way open on the combustion fan or partialy closed, other than pellets building up along with excessive ash, it doesn't seem to make a difference with the smoking problem. Any ideas?

As you sugested, I will check for any blockage and do some more cleaning.
 
Is there a gasket on the hooper and does it close tightly, the reason I'm asking as that in an insert it is possible for a second exhaust air path to open up if the hooper area gets exposed to any chimney draft with a bad or missing hooper gasket or the install not being quite right can lead to this happening. This is also why you close the lid on a hopper as it makes it highly unlikely for the stove to exhaust through the pellets in the hopper.
 
Only gasket it would have, on the hopper, is where the hopper bolts to the feed auger. The earth stove pi35 does not have a sealed lid, it's made to so that the hopper lid is unsealed, acually the controls are inside the lid.

I built a bump out on the outside of the house, the inside around the stove is tile and it's piped in vertical through the roof with 4" dbl wall pipe. The pipe comes out of the stove with a 45deg and then streight up 15 ft. I built a door on the outside to access the stove for maint. I have made it as simple as possible.

I would think, you should be able to burn any stove wide open, with out any chance of smoke backing up through the hopper?
 
rdgirls said:
Only gasket it would have, on the hopper, is where the hopper bolts to the feed auger. The earth stove pi35 does not have a sealed lid, it's made to so that the hopper lid is unsealed, acually the controls are inside the lid.

I built a bump out on the outside of the house, the inside around the stove is tile and it's piped in vertical through the roof with 4" dbl wall pipe. The pipe comes out of the stove with a 45deg and then streight up 15 ft. I built a door on the outside to access the stove for maint. I have made it as simple as possible.

I would think, you should be able to burn any stove wide open, with out any chance of smoke backing up through the hopper?
Click to expand...

No that is a false assumption. A draft of sufficient strength can cause the little wimpy exhaust blower to be overcome.

The same thing can happen through the air intake in the presence of a negative pressure situation in a house. Also air wash gaps can act the same way.

This is the reason why in the cases of manufactured housing and new tight construction outside air is either required by law or highly recommended by the stove manufacturer.
 
Now have you located any ash traps on that puppy? Most stoves have them usually behind the fake fire brick lining people go gaga over, The air generally goes over and around the heat exchanger tubes and then down behind a baffle and then through some plumbing to the exhaust blower cavity. The ash trap allows the ash to settle out of the exhaust path prior to reaching the combustion blower (well thats the theory) this area has been known to also have other stuff get in it. In any event when these get filled the stove starts acting funny, burn pots overflow, smoke stays in the fire box, maybe even going whoosh boom etc ..., the flame looks like crap. This is when people toss up their hands and sell the stove on craigslist or in the newspaper.
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
Now have you located any ash traps on that puppy? Most stoves have them usually behind the fake fire brick lining people go gaga over, The air generally goes over and around the heat exchanger tubes and then down behind a baffle and then through some plumbing to the exhaust blower cavity. The ash trap allows the ash to settle out of the exhaust path prior to reaching the combustion blower (well thats the theory) this area has been known to also have other stuff get in it. In any event when these get filled the stove starts acting funny, burn pots overflow, smoke stays in the fire box, maybe even going whoosh boom etc ..., the flame looks like crap. This is when people toss up their hands and sell the stove on craigslist or in the newspaper.
Click to expand...

it has one to the left of the heat exchanger.
i cant remember if you need to remove both baffles to get at it or not..

op,
have you reviewed the svc book>?
PM me your email and model for a copy
 
Thanks for the info Dave.

I try to let the person with the problem find such things that way they get to know their stove a lot better and when they finally get the cover off and see the crud they will never forget it.
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
Thanks for the info Dave.

I try to let the person with the problem find such things that way they get to know their stove a lot better and when they finally get the cover off and see the crud they will never forget it.
Click to expand...

my policy is: give out manuals, save on "my stove doesn't work right" phone calls

this is a relatively rare model, natural fire series after the hp40
 
Wood Heat Stoves said:
SmokeyTheBear said:
Thanks for the info Dave.

I try to let the person with the problem find such things that way they get to know their stove a lot better and when they finally get the cover off and see the crud they will never forget it.
Click to expand...

my policy is: give out manuals, save on "my stove doesn't work right" phone calls

this is a relatively rare model, natural fire series after the hp40
Click to expand...

Excellent policy, not always done, and since I'm not a dealer I don't have to worry about spending my valuable time answering those phone calls instead of selling a few stoves or such.

People who find things out on their own generally remember them a lot better. I know many people that if given a book or manual or even told have trouble remembering.
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
Excellent policy, not always done, and since I'm not a dealer I don't have to worry about spending my valuable time answering those phone calls instead of selling a few stoves or such.

People who find things out on their own generally remember them a lot better. I know many people that if given a book or manual or even told have trouble remembering.
Click to expand...


just wondering if you have heard back from this person with the earth stove pi35 with it smoking up thur hopper an how they made out with it? i also have this same stove with the same problem and and gone as far as removing the stove and completly blowing it out with the shop air. i have done everything the other person has also done, i can cut the damper and it will not smoke up thur hopper but the pellets pile up and they seem like they are not burning correct? with that said just wondering what ever came out to be the problem with their stove or if you ever got a reply back to what the problem with their stove was. thank you
 
I had the SAME EXACT PROBLEM with my Eartstove Mp 35/50. Drove me nuts for about 3weeks. Cleaned EVERYTHING the manual called for, replaced every gasket on the darn thing. Got a new blower and and even re welded my hopper to the stove because i saw a hair line crack in the factory weld. To make a long story short...I fixed the problem. Turns out I needed to clean out something the manual never even mentioned! The fly ash box on the back of my stove was cleaned out throughly, however the area above the box that the ash goes thru before collecting kn the trap itself needed cleaned. Its hard to describe, but I had to disconnect my flue and with a bent clothes hanger, a air Chuck, and a shop vacation I had to loosen and clean out ash/soot in the 2-3" area between my top baffle plate and the actual top of stove. Where the flue pipe is connected to stove. The manual never mentioned this area and no tools are made (or to my knowledge) to clean this pain in the a$$ area. The only acres I had was thru the flue exit of the stove. However, after I cleaned this area out...boom!...no more smoke ever backed up into my pellet hopper! EVER. I realize u have a different model and an insert at that, but that was the solution to my problem. Hopefully this helps you or anyone in the future researching this problem with their Earthstoves. If more detail is wanted/needed I will do my best to provide
 
I think these stoves have a positive pressure burn chamber. I think I worked on a Earthstove a few years ago, comb fan pushed the comb. air into the burnpot. So yes if it is clogged it will spill smoke into the room. I found the same thing, removed top shield and found I think 2 cleanout covers and brushed and cleaned cavity between burn chamber and top of stove.
 
I worked on an old Earth Stove (Traditions). It is a positive pressure stove, had a bad burn. Finally figured that the area just under the top of the stove was clogged with ash. They are using the top vent. I removed two bolts, and the entire top of the stove came off, making it very easy to clean the heat exchanger and all the passages. Stove burns great now.
No mention of this in the manual, either, and the dealer never heard of doing this.
 
heat seeker said:
I worked on an old Earth Stove (Traditions). It is a positive pressure stove, had a bad burn. Finally figured that the area just under the top of the stove was clogged with ash. They are using the top vent. I removed two bolts, and the entire top of the stove came off, making it very easy to clean the heat exchanger and all the passages. Stove burns great now.
No mention of this in the manual, either, and the dealer never heard of doing this.
Click to expand...

X2!!
 
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