Basket case St. Croix Revolution

The old Austro heated the house last winter but I wanted to get more even heat throughout. The living room, where the insert is, would be about 74 degrees but the dining room and upstairs bedrooms would be pretty chilly. We keep the bedroom doors closed to keep the cats out. Cats and air beds don't mix. There were a couple of PF 100's and an Endurance 50F on craigslist but they were $1500 for the Endurance and between $2000 and $2600 for the Harman's. Not bad pricing, but more than I hoped to pay. There was a pellet furnace in craigslist as part of a garage sale, but no mention of brand or price. I answered that ad and was told I could look at it. It was a St. Croix. They were asking $500 for it, used one season. I figured it was something I wasn't interested in but since it was around the corner from my house I stopped to look at it. It turned out to be a Revolution and they had taken it out of the house they sold. It doesn't run. They had a service guy look at it and he diagnosed it as a bad control board. When I looked at the stove, it had been taken apart. The Revolution drum motor is missing and it's partly disasembled. We found most of the panels for the exterior. Before I start buying parts I want to clean it and test everything I can. I have a York insert in the garage that I can "borrow" the auger motor from to use as the Revolution drum motor to see if I can get it working. I ended up paying $400 for it since it was missing parts and it won't run. We'll see how much work and $$$$ it takes to get this going, Stay tuned.....

hossthehermit said:

Manual is available online last I knew. If not let me know and I can send it. Been my sole heat source since 2009 ..........

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Thanks Hoss,

I've had the manual on my computer for over a year so I'm all set. I considered a SCF 050 last year but by the time I got The Integra fixed up and installed I had had enough of pellet appliance installation. The deals didn't seem to be around at the end of the season so I waited until this year. It probably won't get installed until Dec/Jan since I've got other stuff that needs to be done before the snow flies.

Good tip. I'll check to see if it's the new one, if possible. I don't know if they'll send a free board to a unit purchased secondhand......maybe?

Looks like he's still in business. I don't see a Revolution on his site but I think it's not made anymore, correct? It would be handy if he has parts as it's on my way home from work if I go the back way.

As long as I can find parts, I can keep it going. I have a welder and I'm not afraid to use it.;-)

Ooooops. I got ahead of myself. I have to get it working first.

UPDATE: I've only had a little time on the weekends to work on the Rev. For starters, it was really dirty. No surprise there. After a deep cleaning with the furnace brushes, a compressor and a shop vac it looked better. I took the fans apart and cleaned them. I took the burnpot out and diassembled and lubed it up with neversieze. I "borrowed" the auger motor from my old York insert (the burn pot motor was missing when I bought it) and installed it on the Revolution burnpot. I didn't have the microswitches in position but I figured I would try it to see if it would run. It didn't. I was out of time for that weekend but I made good progress.

This weekend I installed the microswitch plates on the Revolution burnpot position cam mechanism and tried it again. This furnace was sold as "not working, needs a control board". I plugged it in and pushed the power button and off she went. The small pellet hopper auger started and ran and the igniter tried to get the fire started. It timed out on the first try but started on the second go-round. The fire lit and was growing like it's supposed to. It would run for almost 20 minutes and then shut itself and the #3 LED would flash. That's lack of POF. I checked the voltage on both brown wires. 5 Volts on each. The switch was still open when checked with a meter. I started it up again and this time I jumpered out the POF switch after the fire got going and it ran just fine. The big hopper auger started up and ran fine. I think the only thing wrong with this furnace is the POF switch is a little flakey. I will probably get a new auger motor for the burnpot and a new POF switch. I think I need a permit to install this thing. No permit required around here for stoves or inserts but I believe a permit is required for central heating furnaces. I felt pretty good that there doesn't appear to be anything major wrong with this furnace. So far, looking pretty good.