little heat from my pellet stove,St.Croix Auburn

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R

Rallysport

New Member
Feb 5, 2015
12
Michigan
Hi all,

I have a St Croix Auburn. I have had this stove for several years now. Its been in two different homes. Recently my son forgot to pull out the upper rod on the burn pot and I ended up having a fire in my hopper. Not good, Lots of mess to clean up and a smoke filled house. Anyhow it gave me a good excuse to take it outside and give it a good cleaning(in the snow...brrrr). I thoroughly cleaned the stove and blew it out with an electric leaf blower. Got it back inside and crossed my fingers that it still would work.

It's burning great. No problems except that I'm not getting much heat out of it. No matter what setting I put it on, the blower heat is luke warm at best. The fire looks great and after several days of burning there is no soot on the glass so it's burning clean. I am not going thru pellets either which is great but the house is not being heated by my stove. Any Ideas on what it can be? Thanks to all who respond.
 
Probably going to have to take out and clean the back passages very well Again:( Others should chime in and help with methods to get in there and hopefully get it working properly. Take a minute and fill in the signature so we can all see what stove(s) you have.
 
Bioburner said:
Probably going to have to take out and clean the back passages very well Again:( Others should chime in and help with methods to get in there and hopefully get it working properly. Take a minute and fill in the signature so we can all see what stove(s) you have.
Click to expand...

I really don't want the hassle of pulling the stove again. I'm thinking about buying an ash vacuum. Hoping I can get to those passages with that. But other than the ash traps under the fire brick I really don't know what else should be cleaned for ash residue. so any other help would be apprieciated. Thanks
 
Did you take off the baffle and scrub all the fly ash and soot off it and the pipes?
 
There is most likely a passage between the two ash doors that fills up with ash. You will need to use a coat hanger or semi-rigid tubing to push it out close to the doors where the vac can get to it.

However, if it burning great, without soot, I doubt it is an airflow issue (never hurts to check though)
 
Rallysport said:
Hi all,

I have a St Croix Auburn. I have had this stove for several years now. Its been in two different homes. Recently my son forgot to pull out the upper rod on the burn pot and I ended up having a fire in my hopper. Not good, Lots of mess to clean up and a smoke filled house. Anyhow it gave me a good excuse to take it outside and give it a good cleaning(in the snow...brrrr). I thoroughly cleaned the stove and blew it out with an electric leaf blower. Got it back inside and crossed my fingers that it still would work.

It's burning great. No problems except that I'm not getting much heat out of it. No matter what setting I put it on, the blower heat is luke warm at best. The fire looks great and after several days of burning there is no soot on the glass so it's burning clean. I am not going thru pellets either which is great but the house is not being heated by my stove. Any Ideas on what it can be? Thanks to all who respond.
Click to expand...
You have had the stove for several years so you probably know about the hidden places that it needs to be cleaned There is two clean out ports with a little slide that comes off. You should be able to stick a flexible piece of wire or something like a choke cable up inside those ports and work any soot etc down. Use of a rubber mallet has been spoken of. Don't be bashful smack the crap out of it both in front and in back. You may have to open the side panels to get at the back of it. You may also have to remove the exh fan to get any blockage out in that area.
My guess is in moving it around you probably dislodged a bunch of soot and it is plugging it up. Or the other possibility is there maybe something blocking the fuel from being augered into the drop tube and it simply isn't getting enough fuel. If you had a fire in the hopper it may have caused a clump of something to stick blocking the fuel from getting to the pot.
 
Did you pull the fans and clean them and the passage way also

Instead of a leaf blower next time. Use an air compressor. You can really get those hidden spots with that
 
bogieb said:
There is most likely a passage between the two ash doors that fills up with ash. You will need to use a coat hanger or semi-rigid tubing to push it out close to the doors where the vac can get to it.

However, if it burning great, without soot, I doubt it is an airflow issue (never hurts to check though)
Click to expand...

I have not done the coat hanger trick but I did beat on it with a rubber mallet. Ill let the stove cool down and try the hanger/semi-rigid wire.
 
rona said:
You have had the stove for several years so you probably know about the hidden places that it needs to be cleaned There is two clean out ports with a little slide that comes off. You should be able to stick a flexible piece of wire or something like a choke cable up inside those ports and work any soot etc down. Use of a rubber mallet has been spoken of. Don't be bashful smack the crap out of it both in front and in back. You may have to open the side panels to get at the back of it. You may also have to remove the exh fan to get any blockage out in that area.
My guess is in moving it around you probably dislodged a bunch of soot and it is plugging it up. Or the other possibility is there maybe something blocking the fuel from being augered into the drop tube and it simply isn't getting enough fuel. If you had a fire in the hopper it may have caused a clump of something to stick blocking the fuel from getting to the pot.[/quot

Actually this is my first time giving the stove a thorough cleaning as the ex used to do it. So i'm not sure i'm getting all the hidden places. I did use the rubber mallet and beat the back panel pretty good. Stuck the leaf blower right in the ash trap holes and blew the hell out of them after the mallet trick.

I'm thinking there is blockage in the auger. after the hopper burn, there were some crunching noises as the auger fed. I will have to figure out how to remove that next and check it. Thank you all.
Click to expand...
 
Rallysport said:
I took the plate off the top (above the burn pot) cleaned and blew that out with the leaf blower it has a baffle scraper and I pulled that rod several times too.
Click to expand...

That baffle scraper and leaf blower aren't enough, Use an old paint brush (at the least), or a smaller wire brush to get between the tubes. Also make sure to scrub along the inside of the stove front as fly ash will collect there too.

I'll bet you will be amazed at how much comes out/off of those things.
 
bogieb said:
That baffle scraper and leaf blower aren't enough, Use an old paint brush (at the least), or a smaller wire brush to get between the tubes. Also make sure to scrub along the inside of the stove front as fly ash will collect there too.

I'll bet you will be amazed at how much comes out/off of those things.
Click to expand...


Ok ill give that a try too. Thanks much
 
Rallysport said:
I have a St Croix Auburn. I have had this stove for several years now.
It's burning great. No problems except that I'm not getting much heat out of it. No matter what setting I put it on, the blower heat is luke warm at best. The fire looks great and after several days of burning there is no soot on the glass so it's burning clean. I am not going thru pellets either .
Click to expand...

If ya ain't burnin' pellets, ya ain't gonna get heat. Crank up the feed rate.
 
Rallysport said:
Hi all,

I have a St Croix Auburn. I have had this stove for several years now. Its been in two different homes. Recently my son forgot to pull out the upper rod on the burn pot and I ended up having a fire in my hopper. Not good, Lots of mess to clean up and a smoke filled house. Anyhow it gave me a good excuse to take it outside and give it a good cleaning(in the snow...brrrr). I thoroughly cleaned the stove and blew it out with an electric leaf blower. Got it back inside and crossed my fingers that it still would work.

It's burning great. No problems except that I'm not getting much heat out of it. No matter what setting I put it on, the blower heat is luke warm at best. The fire looks great and after several days of burning there is no soot on the glass so it's burning clean. I am not going thru pellets either which is great but the house is not being heated by my stove. Any Ideas on what it can be? Thanks to all who respond.
Click to expand...


Looking at last paragraph. If your not going thru any pellets then you won't be getting much heat no matter how well the fire looks. Something changed and it sounds to me like it's stuck on low setting. Don't know anything about this stove but any stove equals fuel + air equals heat no matter whether it goes out the exhaust or saved to the room.
 
If you have good fire and the blower is working, something is keeping the heat away from the heat exchanger, probably ash. Remove the baffle and really clean the exchanger tubes. Also, the air intake for the room blower which can be found on either side of the ash pan compartment. Make sure those are cleaned out.
 
TimfromMA said:
If you have good fire and the blower is working, something is keeping the heat away from the heat exchanger, probably ash. Remove the baffle and really clean the exchanger tubes. Also, the air intake for the room blower which can be found on either side of the ash pan compartment. Make sure those are cleaned out.
Click to expand...


Thank you. I'll check that too.
 
jawquin said:
Looking at last paragraph. If your not going thru any pellets then you won't be getting much heat no matter how well the fire looks. Something changed and it sounds to me like it's stuck on low setting. Don't know anything about this stove but any stove equals fuel + air equals heat no matter whether it goes out the exhaust or saved to the room.
Click to expand...

That is something I hadn't considered. Jawquin is correct, so the question is, if you raise the heat setting, does the flame get bigger like it should? If so, then it is most likely a heat transfer issue (go thru the steps that Tim and I listed). If you are not running a thermostat, check your thermostat connection at both the stove and the stat. If those are okay, check your control board - actually tug on those leads as once I found mine looked okay, but one was loose, keeping the board from recognizing the stat. If you don't run with a thermostat, check and make sure you are in manual mode, not thermostat (not sure how the Auburn is set up - I'm going by my Hastings).
 
jawquin said:
Looking at last paragraph. If your not going thru any pellets then you won't be getting much heat no matter how well the fire looks. Something changed and it sounds to me like it's stuck on low setting. Don't know anything about this stove but any stove equals fuel + air equals heat no matter whether it goes out the exhaust or saved to the room.
Click to expand...


Thank for the insight. i think it might be a combination of things. I'll look into it deeper today.
 
bogieb said:
That is something I hadn't considered. Jawquin is correct, so the question is, if you raise the heat setting, does the flame get bigger like it should? If so, then it is most likely a heat transfer issue (go thru the steps that Tim and I listed). If you are not running a thermostat, check your thermostat connection at both the stove and the stat. If those are okay, check your control board - actually tug on those leads as once I found mine looked okay, but one was loose, keeping the board from recognizing the stat. If you don't run with a thermostat, check and make sure you are in manual mode, not thermostat (not sure how the Auburn is set up - I'm going by my Hastings).
Click to expand...


Thanks for all the advice. I hope to get this thing whipped into shape today.
 
I think you misinterpreted the use of the leaf blower. The idea is to connect it to the exh side of the stove so you suck the junk out of the stove. The way you described using it you could have either cleaned it out or really plugged it by blowing the soot into those clogged spots.
 
rona said:
I think you misinterpreted the use of the leaf blower. The idea is to connect it to the exh side of the stove so you suck the junk out of the stove. The way you described using it you could have either cleaned it out or really plugged it by blowing the soot into those clogged spots.
Click to expand...


I didn't misinterpret just could not get it to work because of the design of my blower so had to improvise. And it's northern Michigan and frigid cold outside . So I blew the hell out of the inside as best I could. But after working most of the day on it and no change, I give up. I'm tired of the SOB not working right and I'm tired of working on it. Thanks all for the suggestions. Guess it's time to call a professional. I'm done with this and over it.
 
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