New Regency Hampton GCI60 not blowing hot air

Welcome to the forum from an Eastcoast newbie! Any chance you're a Cowboy fan? I realize not ALL Texans are Dallas fans, LOL Sit tight and be patient, you'll be recieving some excellent help from the experts here at the Mill, unfortunately for you, I'm not one of them! Seriously, they'll fix you up right, just check back every once and awhile.

Here's to hoping you get it sorted out! Wish I could help you out. I have the same stove being installed this Friday. Can't wait!

Do you have any pics of the stove? We love pics!

I'm not sure if this is your issue, but worth a check. I believe your stove is the same as the enviro m55. I had trouble getting a good heat and flame on my M55 after install. It turned out that there is a magnet glued to the bottom of the hopper lid that was rubbing on the thermostat switch every time I openrd the lid it would drag the switch to manual, and when I closed the lid it would push it back to on/off thermostat mode, but I thought it was still in manual. With no tstat installed, it would drop to low with little heat. You can check to see if this is happening by lifting the lid a little when opening and checking the switch position. The magnahelic setting will get your draft in the sweet spot, you need to get the draft correct first then make minor adjustments with the feed and blower trim settings

I think the "installed it myself" is what I'd be looking at, simply meaning that there is either an installation issue(s) or a setup issue with the draft or whatever. I know my Accentra has a safety switch that shuts down the stove if the draft is impeded. Do yourself a favor and have an expert give it the once over.

do you know how to get access to the slider damper.if it is set wide open then all your heat is being lost out you chimney.if its currently open fully you will have a very low flame with decent size pieces of pellets being blown out of the fire pot.close the damper fully and you should see a noticable difference in the flame in that it will be a tall lazy fire and orange in color.now start to open it up again until you get an active flame.this will get you close on your setting.look on ebay for the dwyer draft gauges.they can be had for reasonable money and in my opinion they are a must for someone who is a DIY kind of a person.you will have peace of mind knowing the draft is in the right position.over time you will come to know what the flame should look like.and you wont need the gauge.hope this helps.Peace,Corkman

i have a free standing stove but the guts and operation are pretty much the same as yours.there are instructions in the manual for setting the draft.run the stove on heat level 5 for an hour with feed at 3 and air on 3.then adjust damper till you get a reading of .15 to .17 on your gauge.most people seem to settle on .16
look on ebay for a gauge that reads from 0 to .25
in the mean time i would put it on heat level 3,feed 3 and air 3 and see how it burns .flame should be a few inches above the pot,upright flame and not lazy,white to yellow in color

0-.25 is the one i have.i got it for $32 shipped.the sooner you close off the other side of the fireplace the better.you will lose a lot of heat up the chimney.what are you burning for pellets

not sure what that copper connector is but dont think that will work.an inflating needle that you would use to inflate a ball will work if you have one.if not then an auto store will have a kit that has 1/8" copper tubing and adapter that you need.i think its for testing oil pressure or something along those lines.

Lkb-TX said:

We just installed our new Regency Hampton GCI60 pellet insert. I am absolutely in love with how it looks but not so impressed with the heat it is giving off. I'm positive we are doing something wrong. This particular unit is listed to heat up to 2300 sq ft with a 55,000 btu burn capability. The fireplace is in my living room and I was actually worried it might get too hot but last night I couldn't really feel the heat sitting 10 ft away on the sofa.

We intend to install the thermostat but hadn't yet so we ran the stove on manual last night. We set the heat setting, feed trim, and air trim to 2 and we woke up this morning and the fire had gone out. There are still plenty of pellets in the hopper. This morning we turned it back on and even at a heat setting of 5, air at 5, and feed trim at 4 the air blowing out of it wasn't incredibly hot. I was expecting to put my hand in front of the blower and not be able to withstand the heat for too long yet the heat coming out was like warm.

We did the installation ourselves. Honestly it didn't seem too difficult so I'm not sure if we don't yet understand how to operate it or if we missed something during setup. We did run across an instruction that we didn't understand. There are instructions to setup the slider/damper that requires pressure range measurements of .15-.16 inches of water column (37-42 Pa). Says this can me measured by a Magnahelic pressure gauge but we don't have one obviously.

I will call the installer here but the closest one is over an hour away and I'm guessing this might be a simple fix so thought I would start here.

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If you close the damper so that you have about 1" of opening you'll be pretty close to in range and honestly the .15-.17 they ask for is a bit restrictive and your glass get kinda cloudy. I usually install to .18-.2 and a lot of times I cannot get the stove to drop lower than .18.

Pellets? Tell me your burning infernos or nations choice and we will all give you a finger wag

smwilliamson said:

If you close the damper so that you have about 1" of opening you'll be pretty close to in range

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im at the factory setting right now with the damper and my gauge reads .17
im burning maine woods and great flame and clean pot.
somersets need a bit more air and the trim settings don"t seem to get me to where i need to be so i open the damper a bit more and burn with the gauge reading .18-.19
dont be afraid to play with your stove

I just joined this forum and came across this post on the GCI60. I installed the insert back in January in a zero clearance enclosure and have been fighting with it ever since. The dealer has been no help other than throwing a new control board in it just because. The factory is baffled. I cannot seem to achieve a good pressure balance in the stove. Using a magnehelic gauge the only way I can hit the upper end of the .15 to .17 range is to have the damper all the way shut. I set the flame by eye, which is about 1-1/4" out on the damper. I am still getting a lot of soot both in the burn chamber and outside on the side of my house. I have an outside air kit installed. The weird thing that nobody can figure out is why the vacuum in the combustion chamber actually increases when I lower the heat level. This should decrease proportionally with the lower heat level, which decreases the voltage applied to the exhaust blower. I had a pedestal fan in the room within 2 feet of the unit and it made the flame dance around to where it wouldn't sustain itself. This fan creates a large draw of air, so I'm thinking a leaky door seal or something. I am buring American Wood Fibers Ultra White Pines and barely getting the benefit of a hotter pellet. On heat level 3 with a thermostat on High/Low I am going through 2 bags of pellets per day. This is with feed trim at 1 and combustion trim at 4. The GCI60 also has a gate inside the hopper to limit the amount of pellets fed into the auger. I have that 1/4" from the lowest setting. The down side is it leaves about 2.5 lbs of pellets in the hopper that it can't feed, triggering an error code 3.

Any advice is appreciated.

OP never came back to let us know what was going on or if they found a solution?

jmdeng13 Welcome to the forum and sorry to hear you are having issues. Besides the fan, what other air handling units (or appliances that will effect air pressure) do you have in your home near your stove room? Dryer, bathroom or kitchen fans, cold air return?

Has the company provided you with new gasket for the door so you can at least try that?

Lake Girl said:

OP never came back to let us know what was going on or if they found a solution?

jmdeng13 Welcome to the forum and sorry to hear you are having issues. Besides the fan, what other air handling units (or appliances that will effect air pressure) do you have in your home near your stove room? Dryer, bathroom or kitchen fans, cold air return?

Has the company provided you with new gasket for the door so you can at least try that?

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Lake Girl...thanks for the response. The fan is the only appliance within 20 feet of the stove.
The company has not provided anything. My dealer has ignored the over 12 requests I have made to come out and the factory refuses to deal with me directly. This is a nightmare situation and the worst customer service I have ever experienced.
The door gasket seems like a likely possibility for the leak.

What is your exhaust set-up?

Lake Girl said:

What is your exhaust set-up?

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It's an insert so straight out the back to a tee and then up about 3 feet and a 90 deg elbow out through the wall. I tried adding 2 more vertical feet outside but it had zero effect on the pressure balance, which doesn't make sense.

jmdeng13 said:

It's an insert so straight out the back to a tee and then up about 3 feet and a 90 deg elbow out through the wall. I tried adding 2 more vertical feet outside but it had zero effect on the pressure balance, which doesn't make sense.

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You might want to check the damper, slide plate, whatever in that stove isn't blocked from freely moving and that the control rod or other linkage is solidly attached to the device. Further the entire assembly must ride in any channel if there is one.

Otherwise every setting you make is subject to change by any vibrations in the area, also it isn't unknown for slide plate type dampers to pop out of their channels or to be blocked by crud or to rub against other parts such that you think there is no adjustment left. Then control linkages have been known to come loose.

A bit of time looking the damper area over really well can stop a lot of issues.

Smokey,
I checked the slider damper on the left side of the unit and it moves freely. There is no blockage at all. It is a very basic setup essentially opening a gate to the exhaust channel. The position I set by eye has not moved.
I hate having to troubleshoot the unit myself due to a nonresponsve dealer and a manufacturer that won't stand behind their product.

What else could cause an increase in vacuum in the combustion chamber when the heat level is lowered?