Mt Vernon Quadrafire won't ignite

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Nov 5, 2014
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NEW JERSEY
I just purchased a home in which has a beautiful Mt Vernon Quadrafire pellet stove. Its an older model, not the AE. It appears the previous owners did not take care of it at all. After cleaning, replacing gaskets, a new ignitor, new control box the pellet stove was working pretty good….up until this weekend. Plugged it in, set thermostat to call for heat, ignitor gets red hot, but no pellets feed into the fire pot. After going through the troubleshooting in the owners manual, I believe its the thermocouple. There is a flashing green light on the control box. Before I replace yet another part, does this sound accurate? Would a bad thermocouple cause it not to feed pellets? And since the ignitor gets red hot, shouldn't it start a fire even if I put a handful of pellets directly into the fire pot? Any advice would be great. Thank you
 
I just purchased a home in which has a beautiful Mt Vernon Quadrafire pellet stove. Its an older model, not the AE. It appears the previous owners did not take care of it at all. After cleaning, replacing gaskets, a new ignitor, new control box the pellet stove was working pretty good….up until this weekend. Plugged it in, set thermostat to call for heat, ignitor gets red hot, but no pellets feed into the fire pot. After going through the troubleshooting in the owners manual, I believe its the thermocouple. There is a flashing green light on the control box. Before I replace yet another part, does this sound accurate? Would a bad thermocouple cause it not to feed pellets? And since the ignitor gets red hot, shouldn't it start a fire even if I put a handful of pellets directly into the fire pot? Any advice would be great. Thank you
You should read this thread.
In most stoves the thermocoulple is used to verify that there is, or has recently been, fire. There is usually a vacuum switch to verify that the vacuum requirements are met. Most stoves will not feed pellets unless there is vacuum.
That leaves door seals, vac switches, hoses, and gaskets as likely targets.

If it doesn't start when you have fed it pellets there isn't air moving the heat from the igniter to the pellets. It is hot air the ignites the pellets. If there isn't air moving you likely have a major leak or the blower isn't running or is clogged. Can you hear the combustion blower running?
There are others here that know your stove better than I do.
The thread I referred you to has a lot of useful information.
 
Before replacing it, you can check and make sure the cover is clean of debris, and also make sure the thermocouple is touching the inside end of the cover. You can also do a continuity test on thermocouple. Keep us informed. kap
 
If the thermo couple checks out OK, next step could be to jumper the vacuum switch (remember to unplug it before you disconnect anything) to see if it is a vacuum problem. Vacuum tube from switch to auger nipple is plugged up maybe?
 
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Thank you guys for the responses. So far I can definitely say the front door gasket seal looks shot, although it has been working fine for a few weeks. I checked the vacuum hose and its well connected on both ends. The thermocouple is definatley touching the end of the ceramic cover. I'm not too handy with electric stuff so I don't have the ability to do a continuity test on the thermocouple. But there is definatley a green light flashing on the control box which according to the owners manual, says a problem with the thermocouple. So frustrating!!
 
The thing with the vac hose is to take it off and blow thru it to make sure there is no blockage. But, as you say, with the light flashing, it is time for a thermocouple. Do you know someone that can test it with a multi-meter, when heating the tip? A new one should be around 75.00. kap
 
Action - You can buy an analog multi - meter for dirt cheap - invaluable for countless of electrical tasks - continuity, resistance, battery testing, etc. Here's one on sale on Amazon for $9.00 + shipping. http://www.amazon.com/Mastech-YG188-Pocket-size-analog-multimeter/dp/B00064CH6A . You just hold one meter probe against one connection spade terminal of the thermo-couple, and the other probe against the other connection terminal and see if it 'bumps' the multi-meter needle dial from one end of the scale to the opposite end of the scale as you heat up the soldered end of the thermo-couple with a lighter.

My electrical knowledge pre-pellet stove ownership was somewhere between zero and the null set . So I was initially pretty paranoid about 'defibrillating' myself or my stove circuit board at the thought of trying any electrical diagnostic stuff, until the fine folks on this forum helped me be more confidant 'landing the airplane'. Key is to remember to UNPLUG THE STOVE before you do any electrical connector removal or poking around w/ multi-meter probes.

I see Kap just posted the suggestion to blow through the vac hose to make sure it is open (blow from the vac switch end with the auger nipple end still attached and you won't blow any loose sawdust into your vac switch). Or as Kap said, you can remove the hose from both ends - probably a good thing to do to check for any cracks in it - then you can take a straightened out paper clip and stick it in the auger nipple to make sure it is not plugged, which has happened twice to my stove when I was burning especially dusty pellets.
 
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Thank you DMKNLD for the info. Yes, i have a buddy that has a multimeter who I can have test it this weekend. I really should buy one. I just bought a house for the first time, so I needed a lot of stuff, just didn't think a multimeter would be on the shopping list..lol. I will take the vac hose off tonight after work and try blowing through it and examining it as well. I'll check the auger nipple with a paper clip as well (good tip by the way). Funny thing about the pellets, I bought a ton from Tractor supply and three of the bags on the pallet were wet. So I brought those 3 bags back and they were out of the good hardwood pellets and gave me a different brand replacement which seemed quite dusty when I added them to the hopper. I'm hoping its just one of these simple things. I'll have time sat/sunday to diagnose it some more. Thanks again for the info! I should have came here months ago for advice!
 
Thank you DMKNLD for the info. Yes, i have a buddy that has a multimeter who I can have test it this weekend. I really should buy one. I just bought a house for the first time, so I needed a lot of stuff, just didn't think a multimeter would be on the shopping list..lol. I will take the vac hose off tonight after work and try blowing through it and examining it as well. I'll check the auger nipple with a paper clip as well (good tip by the way). Funny thing about the pellets, I bought a ton from Tractor supply and three of the bags on the pallet were wet. So I brought those 3 bags back and they were out of the good hardwood pellets and gave me a different brand replacement which seemed quite dusty when I added them to the hopper. I'm hoping its just one of these simple things. I'll have time sat/sunday to diagnose it some more. Thanks again for the info! I should have came here months ago for advice!
Yes it's a great forum, we all learn from one another here. Be sure to pop us a message when you find the problem which probably/hopefully is a simple one.
 
So heres an update to my ignition problems. My father in law who is a commercial electrician stopped by with all his tools and meters and crap and tested everything out. Thermocouple is fine, all wires check out and blower motor etc all good. Snap discs are all fine as well. We plugged it back in, and the auger motor started and pellets started to drop. It just worked again. Very confusing/frustrating. So it ran for about 45 minutes and then stopped dropping pellets once again and eventually shut it self down. I read through troubleshooting info and saw snap disc 2 could be defective. So i just pushed the little button in between the two wires, plugged it back in and it worked fine…..for about 4-5 days, no problems at all. Until yesterday. Put a bag of pellets in the hopper, plugged it in, motor starts up, but when I turn the thermostat to heat, no call light, no pellets drop. And now there is the green flashing light at the control box once again. IM SO FRUSTRATED! If I was strong enough to pick this thing up and throw it in the street I would….lol. Please help! Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I tried blowing through the vacuum hose again with it disconnected and its clear. Put a wire through the nipple as well and there is no blockage. Brand new door seal gaskets too as of 2 weeks ago
 
With no call light, you could have bad conections at either end of the thermostat wires, or bad thermostat. Try jumping the screws together at stove where tstat wires go to. If stove starts, then it is one of the above. As far as flashing light, make sure the firepot thermocouple is touching the inside end of the cover or it won't read correctly. kap
 
And I would wonder why snap disc #2 tripped. Did the convection fan not come on and stove got hot?
 
With no call light, you could have bad conections at either end of the thermostat wires, or bad thermostat. Try jumping the screws together at stove where tstat wires go to. If stove starts, then it is one of the above. As far as flashing light, make sure the firepot thermocouple is touching the inside end of the cover or it won't read correctly. kap
OR it could be as simple as weak batteries in the thermostat that can't pull in the relay in the thermostat.
 
Quad thermostats don't have batteries, unless he is using a different one
 
Ok, so heres an update. It is not the original quadrature thermostat so it does have batteries. However, I found part of the problem. There was a disconnected thermostat wire going into the back of the stove, which I fixed. Now when I turn the thermostat to heat, the call light does come on. But I still can't get pellets to feed. The auger is not moving
 
Kap, I checked the thermocouple to make sure its touching the ceramic cover and it is. I blew it out to make sure nothing was blocking the connection inside as well. Not sure what tripped the snap disc 2 last week, but I tried resetting it again and its not doing anything. I'm just guessing all you do is push the little button in on the middle of the snap disc to reset it right?
 
What you need to do is have your father in law there now. He can trace where power is, and where it isn't, when stove is calling for heat. Process of elimination.Is green light still flashing? You can also try jumping snap disc #2 wires together and vac switch wires together, to eliminate them. Just always make sure nothing can get grounded as it will short out your control box! Hopefully tjnamtiw can post the pic of start up sequence on here for your father in law to follow. kap
 
Are you sure your snap disc has the reset post on it ? The reason I ask is that my #2 snap disc doesn't have the reset red center post, unlike my #3 disc does on the back of the auger tube. I've read that some newer style snap discs have automatic reset capability, but only for a finite number of resets - 2 or 3 maybe? Perhaps yours has 'used up its quota' ?
 
Quad changed discs thru the years. Some have it, some don't.
 
Here it is - I figured it out on my own ! Quad start-up sequence pg1.jpeg Quad start-up sequence pg2.jpeg
 
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DMKNLD, no my #2 snap disc doesn't have the red post like the #3 snap disc, but it has a little plastic button that I believe once it pops, you can push it back in. I was not aware that there only a few times you could reset the snap disc then its no good. Maybe thats the problem here? Although I used a wire to bypass the #2 snap disc and that still doesn't solve the problem.I jumped the two wires together and still nothing. Those flow charts are very helpful. The vacuum switch wires are the two on the bottom left side below the control box that go into the vac switch right?
 
Yes, and those discs should last longer then just a few times.. And can you tell if the auger is not running at all? Not even backwards, when stove is calling for heat?
 
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