Greenfire Europa 75

Rather than resurrect the old thread, I thought I'd just post anew. My new Europa 75 was fired up for the first time this morning. The thing almost lit itself. Main effort was opening the bag of pellets and dumping them into the hopper.

The manual is not exactly quality instruction. But, it is close enough. Been running about 4 hours so far. Any hitches pop up, I will add them to this thread.

Jerry

Burnt three bags of pellets. Looks like room for six in ash pan. The three bags lasted about three days and six hours. Restarted the Europa and everything went smoothly.

I figure to empty the ash pan every five bags. This latest burn ought to last longer than the last, as I could not resist playing with the burn level to see how hot it would get.

Jerry

BeGreen said:

Pictures! Time for show and tell. What pellets are you burning?

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Remember BG, I don't do pics of the homestead.

Pellets are La Crete, Canadian spruce. Will be trying another soon, but this seems ok.

Interesting item, the Europa name tag came on a magnet, it was stuck onto the door and I missed it as magnetic. The name fell off the magnet, due to heat from the door. I put it back onto the magnet and set it up on top of the stove. No big deal, to me.

Jerry

Starting to learn more on the finer points of running the Europa. I have been running it in the "default" settings. Recently, I have been slowing down the ash removal It "defaulted" to the setting of 10, I dropped it down to 3 and the fuel-bed still seems ok. I suspect some of the pellets were not completely burning. When it turns colder and I run up to the higher heat rates, I might increase air feed to help manage the fuel-bed. My gas furnace is rarely cycling. It appears to be a better situation than I expected in reducing gas usage.

On the Europa you can fiddle with both the ash removal and the air feed to manage burn rates at all heat settings. This stuff is fascinating to me. It will be interesting to see how this effects the different pellets.

I love wood burners of all kinds, but this pellet stove is really nice. It is almost self running. At low settings, I can get by on one bag every two days, almost. Close enough for my definition. Normal wood stoves have their positive side. Fuel is easier to come by at lower prices, but more labor intensive. 50 days of split wood surely takes up more room that 50 days worth of pellets. And, it burns cleaner, with less outside oder than split wood. In fact, I can't smell it, even standing by the pipe!

I am having fun here!

Jerry

taylormade said:

Hi kinda new to the europa 75 and having some trouble with the settings i tried the default setting but seem to go threw alot of pellets do you have the same stove and what setting do you recommend

Thank taylormade

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Slow down the ash extraction, I went all the way down to #1 here. The combustion air is running at less than #10, too. I went too low on the last weeks burn and got incomplete burn of pellets. I have it set at #7, or#8 currently. Been burning on heat setting 3 and 4. This will be different with any change in pellets, I suspect.

As my combustion air was too low, yesterday I had to let the stove burn out and empty the ash bin. I had a lot of coarse ash. Keep an eye on this. The fine white powder ash takes up a lot less room. I saw a lot of "black rice" in this last load of ash.

My stove defaults to heat setting #3 and #10 on both ash extraction and combustion air. I don't get any thrown pellets, but "sawdust' does get blown out the pot. I suspect your pellets are lighter and combustion air is to strong? I hope they are not missing the pot entirely. Is the stove pretty well leveled?

Jerry

taylormade said:

thanks for the help i will try and see if it help i do worry about the flame seem to be very high at times not sure why that is

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I don't think you need to worry about this. I have seen nothing that would be damaged by high flames. FWW, my flame never goes larger than a few inches past the pellet feed pipe. The top of my stove never gets too hot to rest my arm on.

What pellets are you using?

Jerry

taylormade; How does your fuel bed level look? I seems difficult to keep mine as high as the manual says to. I have ash extraction down to #1. When I lower the combustion air enough to allow the fuel bed level to built up, I get incomplete burn of pellets.

I am burning La Crete spruce pellets. I did try AWF and Pennington hardwood pellets, it did not seem to make much difference.

Jerry

Just an update here. I am down to about a week of pellets left. Ordered another two tons of pellets from a local supplier yesterday. Two tons of AWF at $274 per ton, free delivery. Multiples of tons will get me free delivery. Not a great price, but I can live with it, due to the convenience of not having to go get them myself. I could have gotten them at $230 per ton from my stove dealer. But, by the time I made two trips in my Dakota to get them, the savings would be gone.

This Europa is an entertaining thing, might be a small mind issue? Things keep catching my attention. I have watched clinkers start to form and then begin to disappear. I think it is the gasifier aspect of this stove. I can see jets of burning gases begin to cut the clinkers up and the ash auger finishes them off.

I have settled in on a setting 1 for ash extraction and 9, or 10 for combustion air. This reduced the "black rice" issue in the ash pan to an acceptable level. It seems like the incomplete burn is in the start up and shutdown cycles. The middle level of heat setting #3 is giving better than a 24 hour burn per bag. I have seen more than a few 30 hour burn per bag. The stove is doing what I bought it to do. Furnace cycle is drastically reduced.

Ash clean out is on a weekly basis. For effort and attention, this Europa beats any normal wood stove I have ever operated. If reliability remains constant and the repairs I expect occur on a two year, or better cycle, I am gong to be extremely pleased.

Remember, I bought this stove as both an auxiliary and a back up heat source. I did not and do expect to not use it as a whole heat source, except in the event of grid failure. It will keep the house from being damaged in a freeze up.

It would make a fine primary heat source in a small vacation cottage, though.


Jerry

I had my first automatic shut down this morning. I happened to be on hand when it happened. It seemed the pellet auger just stopped feeding in pellets. I had no error codes indicating a blown fuse, or anything. I waited for it to complete the shutdown cycle. Emptied the hopper expecting to find a jam. Nothing showed up.

When I did the restart routine, everything seemed to go well. It seems this stove may have that particular gremlin I read of with other stoves. It must have been pellets bridged up and not allowing the auger to do as it should. Every alternative has its price, this may be one. It happened just as I finished my first ton of pellets. So, not too bad at all. It was a relief to my paranoia over the reliability of this stove and did I jump too soon on a new product.

Jerry

taylormade said:

Hi kinda new to the europa 75 and having some trouble with the settings i tried the default setting but seem to go threw alot of pellets do you have the same stove and what setting do you recommend

Thank taylormade

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I have been playing around a bit more. The combustion air goes all the way up to 20. I had it there for a while and no pellets blew out of the pot, or missed the pot. Are you certain it was a full diameter pellet? All I ever see is sawdust sparking and flying around outside the pots chamber area.

If the stove is reasonably level, i can't picture this, uless they put the wrong blower into your stove, or something along the idea.


Jerry

Pook said:

called local dealer about europa & found out the new models burn pellets only not multi fuel. he said it was so to drop the price of the unit. said he had used multifuel unit as display that he was selling at discount. now i'm wondering...
do you have the multifuel model?

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I do. Wood pellet, corn and wheat. I haven't tried corn, or wheat yet, tho. Under the current conditions it seems wasteful, wood pellets will do. But, I view it s a nice option to have.

If I were Dellpoint, I would have made the stove a straight 12VDC system and let the owner supply the power source. A battery bank and its own charger are not a biggie. It would have been a decent price reducer.

Is it still called the Europa 75?


Jerry

Pook said:

yes . they discontinued the multifuel & now its pellets only. i wondered why the dealer decided to replace the multifuel in his showroom & was trying to sell it.he told me the multifuel involved a much higher price. he wanted $1800 for ex-showroom stove which used multifuel.

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Who is the dealer???? :bug:

It sort of bugs me there is so little info about the Europa.

Jerry

Just checked with my dealer. They say they can still get the multi-fuel version and the pellet only model has been available all along. Sounds like another false rumor to me. There seems to be a viable market for the multi-fuel version.

Jerry

Pook said:

i just looked at europa & dell point sites neither has pellet only model, only multifuel. seems pellet only model should also be listed if available in the past.
definitely differentiation happening.

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I did this earlier. Dellpoint has a limited website, this is certain. My dealer assures me the pellet only version has been a special order option all along. Today, I can order both from my dealer. The multi-fuel is in stock, actually there. Perhaps your dealer does not know this aspect of the Europa 75?

One thing to keep in mind, the owner operator is French/Canadian. There are language barrier issues, I am told. He designed and built the only gasifier pellet stove on the market and actually got it on the market. This is an accomplishment. I'll cut him some slack on the language issue.

Jerry

BennyLee said:

Hi, I'm new to the whole wood pellet scene. We just bought a Europa 75 after Thanksgiving and it's worked out great so far. BUT, this morning after I cleaned it out (a once weekly task), it shut down halfway through startup with an error code of F6 (ash auger stuck - fuse blown). Are the fuses behind the 'control panel?' Of course it's Sunday and the dealer is closed. I'm kind of at a loss. I feel unprepared for anything other than perfect functioning.

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This is my one gripe over Dellpoint. The documentations sucks. Try shutting down completely, unplug, disconnect the battery, reconnect and see if the same error code comes up. Did you see any clinkers jamming it up? I am going to have to look into the fuse situation, myself. I have no idea where they are. Or, what type they are.

I just went through a 1.5 hour power failure and my Europa sailed through with flying colors.

Jerry

BennyLee said:

I agree about the documentation! And I really feel the dealer was not forthcoming with all that needed to be done.

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I keep waiting for the hammer to fall. Mine has been more trouble free than I expected.

What settings are you running? I tend to run at heat settings of 3 and 4. My ash auger is down to 1 most of the time. Combustion air runs between 8 and 12. Have you been able to keep the recommended fuel bed ash levels? Mine tends to run to the low side. If you are getting a lot of what I call "Black Rice", this is an incomplete burn, I went too low on combustion air and experienced this. I have gone through about a ton of pellets. Mine were La Crete Candian Spruce. I just switched over to AWF hardwood.

Jerry

BennyLee said:

When I took out the augers they were completely caked over with ash. But it was ash that is hardened like cement.

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What color was the ash, dingy-white? I am getting this build up inside the pot, on the sides. It seems to flake off and work through the auger. I don't see much black stuff. It will build up a little and then burn off. I am really curious about your settings.

Jerry

BennyLee said:

I pretty much keep the settings at the factory pre-set. I run the heat on 3 or 4, the ash on 10 and I adjust the air combustion mostly up to hit the desired 'water column' numbers on that little meter. The ash is very dark and there are some bits that look like incomplete burn, but not too much. The burn pot gets some whitish ash build up that I scrape off, but again nothing alarming. I'm curious about the ash auger setting. I haven't changed it from 10 and I don't really know what effect it has one way or the other. Nothing in the documentation even mentions what happens when you change that setting. I tried to restart the stove, but no go. The error code says F6 and it's not budging. To the dealer tomorrow for a fuse (and hopefully some answers).

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What kind of fuse is in there? Regular automotive?

Emptying the ash pan once a week would indicate you are not getting the incomplete burn I got at low combustion air. Still, I am seeing nothing like your issue. You might ask about slowing down your ash auger. it seems to work for me. Keeps things in there long enough to completely burn, I think.

BennyLee said:

I pretty much keep the settings at the factory pre-set. I run the heat on 3 or 4, the ash on 10 and I adjust the air combustion mostly up to hit the desired 'water column' numbers on that little meter. .

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I don't see any recommendations for any desired numbers on the gauge. All I see is a picture and it shows zero. It does tell you increasing air and ash extraction will raise the gauge numbers. This is like HAM radio manuals. At least with ICOM, their manuals are pretty much as hard to decipher. Mine runs pretty much in the middle of the gauge. I go more by the look of the flames and fuel bed level.

My docs do say to juggle the air and extraction to maintain the fuel bed level.

Jerry