Olivia Pellet/Corn flames in the pellet shute

Our Olivia Pellet/Corn stove has been real good until tonight. The hopper was full. It had been burning 2 hours. My husband turned it up to 5, which is the highest setting, and we've done this many times before. After awhile he smelled something strange and called me into the room. Flames were coming out of the hole the pellets fall....so pellets in the auger were burning?

We grabbed every extinguisher we could find. Turned the stove off. And waited. The fire in the pot burned out and everything died down. The inside of the hopper wasn't hot at all. So I presume the burned/warm pellets are sitting in the auger right now.

I'm going to call the company in the morning, but what would you do?

The burn pot was not even close to being full...it was really low actually. It takes HOUR to fill up at the highest setting.

The intake is set to 1/2 way open per the repair man from Kozy. It's windy out tonight. How much of a factor can that play?



Thanks for checking on the burn back feature...or lack thereof.

Thank you. I emailed them right away too.

The hopper was closed.

To the other poster: "How about your venting - does it go up a bunch or just the minimum?" You mean the piping right? Well we didn't install it so I don't know that it's the miminum. It comes out of the stove and pretty much goes straight out the wall. It isn't straight up through the ceiling, if that's what you mean. The fella from Kozy said the venting was fine.

I'm wondering if we just can't burn the stove at a 5 (the highest) when it's windy out? I have no idea if that even makes sense. And even then, the idea of the hopper catching fire is alarming.

I wonder if those pellets that were burning would have just fallen down eventually when the auger dropped them. Maybe the fire wouldn't have climbed up into the hopper as long as the auger kept turning.

...but I couldn't wait that one out because the fire in the burn pot was impressively frightening...and it wasn't full...

that doesn't make much sense to me, but I know very little about these machines...

Right now the winds are at 14 mph...the biggest gust (according to the local weather) was at 24 mph. There is no tree or neighboring home offering as a wind block. I think we burned it when it was windier though... We haven't changed pellets.

Thanks for looking at their specs.

I hope to hear from them tomorrow.

Driz said:

Are you sure it is actually burning inside there or just on the edge of the drop chute at the end of the auger? I get that visual effect sometimes when I have the Countryside really cranking. It has never led to anything negative in 4 seasons. Of course I have no experience with your stove but mine feeds straight out at 90 degrees only a couple inches above the top of the pot and seems to behave the same whether its vented with a 5' rise or in its current through the soffit configuration with 12'. I see it more with pellets than corn, a lot more. Could it be that this is what you are seeing?

Click to expand...

I'm sure it was burning up in the chute, at least at the end of the auger. Our chute is several inches from the burn pot. I knew it was burning because we turned the stove off, the burn pot died, and the fire in the chute kept going (flames, fly ash, crackling). I really WISH it were just a visual.

I called Kozy. The fella I needed was out. The other installer had no idea what to do and our call ended with me agreeing to call the other guy back in the morning. I don't know how to feel about that. I hope it gets resolved. I had the worst fire nightmare last night.

I finally got an answer from Kozy. They think that I poured in saw dust from the bottom of the bag (crushed pellets). Once those came through the auger they caught fire.

I'm supposed to take the stove a part and look at the end of the auger. And make sure I don't put smashed pellets in the hopper (I don't know that I did).

I left work early and cleaned the stove. I thought I'd give an update to see what you thought.

I pulled out the center panel that exposes the chute and there was a TON of fly ash behind it.

I cleaned EVERYTHING.

Then in the hopper I did my best to sift out all the crush pellets/saw dust. THERE WAS A LOT. 1/2 an ice cream pail, at least. Is that normal? We've used it a good month.

I put everything back together and started it up at the lowest setting. We were told by Kozy that the 1 setting is a real lazy fire, so I thought that would be good to start with. Within 10 min or so it was burning, but the flames were HUGE. They never touch the top of the stove, even on the 5 setting. But tonight at the 1 setting, the flames were hitting the rods at the top (the heat exchange tubes?).

In fear of a repeat fire accident, I turned it off. My husband says he thought the burn pot was plenty full. I didn't think it was that bad. Even then, why did the pot fill up more than it should?

Esh...

so you're saying there's a good chance I bought cheap pellets, right? I wouldn't be surprised since this is our first time buying/burning.

Yes, you've said that and I understand that. The company that installed it won't do anything different because they feel they've done it correctly.

Today I decided I was going to try and clean the exhaust pipes on our troublesome stove. Because smoke was leaking out the pipes when we first got the stove, they sealed all the pipes when they came back, which was great. But now I'm not real sure how to clean it. So anyway, I decided to take an air compressor to the exhaust. That's when I noticed a lever that's NOT in the manual and no one has said anything to us about. It's a level that controls how open the exhaust tubing is. I am struggling to explain.

I was set to closed. I think air still could get around it, but it was probably 75% closed, I think.

Can someone explain that to me? It's not in the manual. And the fella that installed it had never put one in before.