Timber Ridge 55-SHP10 Ash Issues

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Hi-Standard

Hi-Standard

Member
Sep 4, 2011
16
Newfoundland
I recently purchased a Timber Ridge 55-SHP10, (I meant to say that in my post but said 25-PVDC instead and I can't seem to change it) and was quite disappointed with regards to heat output and ash build up. So I made the following non-permanent modifications to the stove which have improved it greatly. First off, I changed the control board from mode "D" to "C". Note the following pics show my changes.


First off I down sized the two large holes under the burn plate to 1/2" by sticking two pieces of aluminium pop can over the holes with high temp. silicone. This cut down some of the air flow to the sides and left more to be used up through the burn plate.


Next, I made a new burn plate with 1/4" holes instead of 1/8" holes. I also reduced the size of the cut outs by the auger and eliminated the 8 holes on the bend of the plate, which were a waste of air in my opinion.


Here is all of the ash that is left in the burn pot after 16 hours of burning, as you can see most of it is in the ash bin where it should be.




Here is my glass after 16 hours of burning.


And here is how she burns! Also, if this doesn't work for you, all you have to do is remove the aluminium and reinstall the original burn plate, and you're back to factory.
 
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Looks like its working pretty well now - glass and burn plate look like a stove running right to me. Inquiring minds are going to want to know about the vent setup (size, EVL), the OAK setup, altitude, type of pellets, heat level, trim settings (LFF and LBA), etc. Pellet stoves are basically big air pumps and rely on airflow to run properly. The manufacturer has to sort of build a "jack of all trades" that'll work in most setups and installs with regards to airflow, as well as a stove that accepts a pretty broad variety of pellet fuel. In stock form they should work right in most setups with some tweaks to the control board, but in some situations, as you've found, some modifications may make all the difference. I don't think you can argue with the results, the glass tells a tale of a nice clean, hot burn. I'd keep an eye out for over-firing - if you get an E3 code you'll know you're getting too much exhaust temp.

I am tempted to employ some similar modifications on my 55-TRPAH once it's out of warranty to increase the maximum heat potential. The design is more traditional pellet stove, drop shoot into a rectangular burn pot, but there are a few places where airflow can be tweaked. The airwash system looks like it could be closed up relatively easily which would push more air through the burn pot. There are also some tweaks to the cradle design that might yield a hotter fire. But, I have to keep in mind that the factory invested a fair bit of money into R&D and has these things they way they are for a reason.
 
I'm a mechanic by trade so I'm used to tinkering. The stove is installed in an older home, so it's not exactly R2000 specs so I cheated on the OAK and haven't hooked it up. My sister has a brand new home with a $5000 pellet stove hooked up by a contractor and her's doesn't have an OAK, and she's been running hers for 5 years now. With regards to EVL, I'm running a 90 degree up 3' to another 90 degree and out my 6" woodstove prefab chimney which goes up two stories outside my house. It's a 3" vent pipe and if I recall correctly I'm running about 11.5 EVL and less then 500' above sea level. I know an OAK is highly recommended but I really didn't want to have to cut another hole in my concrete basement wall. The way I look at it, clothes dryers suck more air out of a house then just about any other appliance, bathroom fans, range hoods, and a wood stove when she has a good burn on. By the way, the wood stove is gone, that's why I decided to utilize the existing chimney. The manual for this stove says it's good for up to a 6" flu. With regards to overfiring, I rarely ever use the high heat setting. Right now it's 3 degrees centigrade outside and my stove is on heat setting 3, blower is on 5 and the house is a nice balmy 25 degrees centigrade. However, I do keep a close watch on the stove and we don't run it while my wife and I are at work. Just in the evenings and all day on days off. Rest of the time it's the electric heat. PS, the stove was purchased new.
 
With regards to pellets, I've found the soft wood pellets ok without too much ash, but they don't seem to produce the heat in my stove like the hardwoods. So now I'm using Canawick brand hardwood from Canadian Tire. Lots of heat but they sure produce a lot of ash. Fortunately, the non-permanent modification I made to my stove seems to have almost eliminated that problem. Before I changed my burn plate the old plate would be completely covered in ash in about 4 or 5 hours, and the only place for air to flow was through the two large cutouts near the auger, which made for two big pencil like lazy flames with poor heat output. Also I'm using the factory trim settings of 6-4-1, since I heard they only effect the stove on heat settings 1 and 2. Can someone else chime in on that, my stove was made on 09/14.
 
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Hi-Standard said:
I'm a mechanic by trade so I'm used to tinkering. The stove is installed in an older home, so it's not exactly R2000 specs so I cheated on the OAK and haven't hooked it up. My sister has a brand new home with a $5000 pellet stove hooked up by a contractor and her's doesn't have an OAK, and she's been running hers for 5 years now. With regards to EVL, I'm running a 90 degree up 3' to another 90 degree and out my 6" woodstove prefab chimney which goes up two stories outside my house. It's a 3" vent pipe and if I recall correctly I'm running about 11.5 EVL and less then 500' above sea level. I know an OAK is highly recommended but I really didn't want to have to cut another hole in my concrete basement wall. The way I look at it, clothes dryers suck more air out of a house then just about any other appliance, bathroom fans, range hoods, and a wood stove when she has a good burn on. By the way, the wood stove is gone, that's why I decided to utilize the existing chimney. The manual for this stove says it's good for up to a 6" flu. With regards to overfiring, I rarely ever use the high heat setting. Right now it's 3 degrees centigrade outside and my stove is on heat setting 3, blower is on 5 and the house is a nice balmy 25 degrees centigrade. However, I do keep a close watch on the stove and we don't run it while my wife and I are at work. Just in the evenings and all day on days off. Rest of the time it's the electric heat. PS, the stove was purchased new.
Click to expand...

The OAK is required on your unit, your sister's might not be.


From the manual:


WARNING: USE OF OUTSIDE AIR IS MANDATORY WITH THIS UNIT.
 
Yes, OAK is required, must be to code / building specs. Insurance can refuse to pay out if there is a fire and the OAK was not installed.
 
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Actually the manual says that OAK in mandatory for this unit to operate properly because so many houses are air tight and there is not adequate combustion air inside the dwelling. None the less, I do know of a local company that does concrete coring and I'll check on having a hole bored in my basement wall. I'd love to see a 30 year old air tight house though? I've had my range hood running, clothes dryer running and bathroom fan all running at the same time and still for all my old wood stove burned like a charm, and nobody in the house suffocated. I have 3 smoke detectors and 2 carbon monoxide detectors installed.
 
Hi-Standard said:
Actually the manual says that OAK in mandatory for this unit to operate properly because so many houses are air tight and there is not adequate combustion air inside the dwelling. None the less, I do know of a local company that does concrete coring and I'll check on having a hole bored in my basement wall. I'd love to see a 30 year old air tight house though? I've had my range hood running, clothes dryer running and bathroom fan all running at the same time and still for all my old wood stove burned like a charm, and nobody in the house suffocated. I have 3 smoke detectors and 2 carbon monoxide detectors installed.
Click to expand...

Yes, with the key word being....mandatory.
 
Did you ever think maybe if you had oak Installed you wouldnt have had to fabricate your stove to run correctly? Maybe if you hooked up oak it would burn more even? Just a suggestion
 
joed2323 said:
Did you ever think maybe if you had oak Installed you wouldnt have had to fabricate your stove to run correctly? Maybe if you hooked up oak it would burn more even? Just a suggestion
Click to expand...

No !

These stoves are known to burn crappy due to the design of the burn pot.
 
joed2323 said:
Did you ever think maybe if you had oak Installed you wouldnt have had to fabricate your stove to run correctly? Maybe if you hooked up oak it would burn more even? Just a suggestion
Click to expand...

Depending on the configuration (windward side of house, etc) I think using an OAK could lead to greater fluctuations to be honest. I've noticed with mine if its a windy day my burnpot tends to burn down to almost nothing between auger cycles. Though I haven't tried pulling the OAK in these situations just to confirm whether it makes an effect or not, maybe later. This is after fixing my earlier issues (I hope my issues are fixed at least). Seems to me inside air would be far more 'even' (unless the house is too tight of course). But yes required for ESW anyhow. Though I wonder about the insurance thing, could they really deny an insurance claim of the house burning down by something that had absolutely nothing to do with it? (unless of course it did have something to do with it).
 
The problem with an OAK kit where I live is that we have very high wind speeds. Wind speeds of 110 kph are common here. Now, combine that with blowing and drifting snow over an OAK screen and it could spell disaster. CladMaster is right, from my research these stoves (55-SHP10) were designed in the 1990's and the burn pots were too large with not enough air flow under the pellets. The reason I restricted the airflow left and right under the burn plate was due to the fact that ESW had cut two very large holes to feed air to the sides. The holes looked to me to be about 3/4" each. This in my opinion robbed valuable air which could and should be utilized underneath the pellets. Furthermore, the burn plate only had 1/8" holes in it and that further restricted air flow to the pellets, and didn't blow the ash out of the burn pot. I made my own burn plate so I did not have to alter the original, and regards to the air restrictors, since they are only held into place with high temperature silicone, they can easily be removed. In 5 minutes I can have the stove back to it's original condition. By the way, I ran the stove from 5 am yesterday morning (I'm an early riser) until 11:45 pm last night. I checked the stove this morning and found only a handful of ash in the burn pot, all the rest was in the ash bin. I believe this stove is running as it should now. By the way joed2323, it was CladMaster who responded to your post, not me, so no hard feelings at all. Also I'm always open to suggestions, so by all means anyone who'd like to chime in feel free.
 
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I am awake and on second cup of Joe.
 
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Hi-Standard said:
First off I down sized the two large holes under the burn plate to 1/2" by sticking two pieces of aluminium pop can over the holes with high temp. silicone. This cut down some of the air flow to the sides and left more to be used up through the burn plate.
Click to expand...

I simplified this by just putting 3/4" plugs in those holes, before any other mods.
Helped a lot.. ( in my application). Put a lot more air under the fire.
And like you say, much more ash blown out, and better looking flame..
10 second modification. If it didn't work, 10 second reversal...

Dan
 
Yep, same with the mods I have done to my stove, just do a search here with my screen name and you will find the mods I have done.
 
Cool beans guys. I think most ppl that buy pellet stoves buy them for the ease and automatically think hassle free.. I feel its the opposite.
Yes no splitting wood and stacking wood but pellet stoves do require some daily maintenance in my case...I am a diesel mechanic so I'm use to getting my hands dirty, digging into my stove and keeping It clean is what I signed up for when buying a cheaper stove with no ash pan.

The design of my burn pot has me cleaning it once to twice daily.
I don't run a Harman here so yes I clean my 1k$ stove often, probably more then the next guy... I've been looking at my burn pot with all its holes and wondering if their is too many holes as well... Hmmm, decisions decisions
 
I'm a diesel mechanic as well and I don't mind the ritual of the morning clean outs, since we shut the stove down before going to bed anyway. The big issue I had was that with the factory set-up I was only getting 4 or 5 hours and the burn plate was blocked with ash. I've since added a few more holes to my burn plate and now have completely blocked the two side holes under the plate. The burn pot really seems to be really throwing out the ash now. I will monitor this closely.
 
I have yet to find the benefit in doing this mod. I have ran my stove for 3 consecutive days numerous times without opening the door. Sure there was a lot of ash in the burn pot , but there was no difference in heat from day one to day three. It's a lot easier to get the ash off the burn pot plate while the stove is still on, than it is to get it out of the bottom sides, shut down!
 
I shut down every night before going to bed, and vac out in the morning. The problem was that I burn canawick hardwood pellets(very ashy), and although they give excellent heat, after about 4 hours of burn time my original burn plate had about an inch of ash on it and the only flame I was getting was from the two large cutouts in the plate near the auger. Now I have a nice even burn across the plate and my glass is almost crystal clear after 15 hours or more of burning, and there is only a handful of ash on the plate.
 
I'm surprised you feel like you get more heat out of the Canwick! A premium softwood should get more heat for you, and the ash is lighter. Why do you shut down the stove at night?
 
This is my burn pot after 15 hrs, almost a bag of Granulco from Rona, 8400 btu/hr premium softwood. The glass hasn't been cleaned in 5 days nonstop burn. IMG_20141228_163157619.jpg IMG_20141228_163157619.jpg IMG_20141228_163219372.jpg
 
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