St Croix York Insert build-up on glass

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I agree, eventually I will get the stove adjusted. I am making progress, it's heating better, the build-up on the glass is less, and more tan than black, with less of the shiny glaze. More recently my burnpot gets full overnight, with less ash falling through to the ash pans. This is probably more of a pellet issue, the burnpot and versa grate holes are cleaned out daily. I found there were two fireplace clean-out doors in my basement but only one fireplace with a opening for them, yes the one where the York is. I opened them both and find things better. I tried having them both closed, that didn't work. I've tried one open, one closed, with no better results, even alternating which one was open. So far both open seems the best. I still never get the full "fan" pattern for my flame. There is always a space in the middle, which is where the pellets seem to be dropped when fed, which knocks down the fire in the middle. I am also finding the fire still isn't very strong unless running on heat level #4. Set it back to heat level #3 and the fire builds up, and then goes back down to almost no flame, than back up again, and so on. This causes the burnpot to get plugged quickly, within hours. My flame is far better than the first stove which was replaced because I only had half of flame. Even running on heat level #4 my flame is usually no better than 3" - 4" tall on average. These stoves are supposed to run for the most part with little attention, besides daily cleaning. It shouldn't be several cleanings a day, which is what I need to do now to keep it working best. Again I think this is a matter of adjusting everything, and most likely a better quality pellet.

I wasn't aware there was any tech support from St. Croix! Their web site has no customer support links, they tell you to talk to your dealer. The owner's manual is contradictory. It says if you have black sooty build-up on the glass you don't have enough combustion air, and if you have shiny glazed build-up you have too much combustion air. I get both types of build-up on my glass! It isn't clear whether adjusting the combustion fan voltage affects anything beyond the stove running on heat level #1, but it tells you that is the correction for the shiny glaze. It seems there is a fine line for adjustments, and getting it just right takes time.

I am going to spend the next couple of weeks playing with things. I am also going to start a new thread of the control panel for the St. Croix. There is a lot of experience on this forum. If all else fails I will be asking for a congressional bailout!!

JB
 
Yes, the " Contact us" on the Even Temp / St. Croix site just refers us back to the dealer. I found more reliable information here than my dealer could provide.
If I had not found this forum, I'd be frustrated and cold.

Is the fresh or combustion air damper a 3 inch pipe with a damper/choke lever type control. 88 has addressed the issue on the settings.
I found information that says to slowly open the fresh air damper until you have an optimal flame pattern. When it does not change upon further movement,
or flame pattern stops improving it should be the correct fresh air setting.

When I had unburned pellets, poor flame pattern sooty glass, I was thinking control board or bad pellets or combustion fan. It ended up being an air flow problem caused by soot. Once corrected. Shazam !

It looks like the big 3 will not get the bail out. Hope I have work this year. SW Michigan has a lot of suppliers but other industry here too!!
The UAW won't take a concession until next contract. I think that's the deal breaker.
 
Kent,
It was with my 6 six point cleaning list. Whether coming in or going out. It's the second most important function next to the fuel feed.
I hope I did'nt cause any confusion by bringing up the fresh air damper.
BW
 
With a York Insert you always need to make sure that when you are adjusting your damper that you do not open it too much. If you open the damper too much then the stove will shut down and you will get a #2 diagnostic blinking light. Most of the time you will want your damper almost closed.

One thing that you might want to look at with the problems that you are having with your glass sooting over would be to make sure that the bottom glass clips are holding the glass in place. Sometimes in shipping the unit the glass can "jump" and will actually go in front of the glass and not behind it like it should be.

Hope this helps
 
I have been lurking in the shadows reading everything I could on the poor burn / lazy flame / black soot issues in this forum. I have a St Croix Prescott freestanding stove that is about 2-3 years old. I clean it religiously every 2 weeks and thought I knew it all. Suddenly I was getting HEAVY black soot buildup for no reason, just happened. Read info here and expanded my cleaning to include the areas that i lust learned about...chamber in back of rear wall, etc. No go, still black soot. THen we replaced the rope seal around the door, no go, etc. Then I read the leaf blower comments... sort of a shotgun ' clean out everything ' approach. It dawned on me that I could do the same thing with a shopvac in reverse. I am passing this on to you all as a thank you for all your lurking help!

Here is what really worked and made NO mess!

1. Vacuume / clean stove as normal.. ash pan, grate, etc.
2. Take your shop vac, put it on the 'blow mode' so that it shoots out air.
3. Shut front door, put ash pan back in, etc as if you were going to start the stove.
4. Place shop vac blower hose over the rear INTAKE damper and open damper all the way.
5. Turn on the sho vac for 2-3 minutes which will bow air INTO the stove and out the stack. The outside will be 'raining' soot and grime. I disconnected the vacuume sensor and pipe so that I did not clog it up.
6. I then took off the fan and sucked out the chamber below the fan.

Presto! WOW what a difference. The flame is a blast furnace again! It seems like new......

What this did is pressurize the stove and blew air along the air route and out the stack only in MEGA mode! I will probably do this every 2 weeks to keep things going.

My 2Cents worth...
 
JB said:
I am now experiencing the same kind of build-up on the glass with my York insert. First I had the lopsided flame, read earlier post: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/28977/P0/

Now I have a brand new replaced York insert and from the first day it was turned on, last Friday, after 12+ hours running it on heat level #3, with the damper knob closed except for about 1/8", I get a black ash build-up on the glass, so thick you cannot even see the flame behind. I also had black creosote on the glass that had to be scraped off. Pellets are Warm Front, made by New England Pellets. My flu is 35' tall, with a exhaust running directly all the way up. it cannot be a cleaning issue since the stove has less than 100 hours of use, and I have vacuumed it every day and cleaned the glass every day.

I did notice the fireplace clean out door in the basement is open. Anyone know if this could be providing too much air, even with the damper adjustment almost closed? If I understand the manual correctly, all of the feed and voltage adjustments only effect heat level #1, and I never run it on heat level #1.

As for heat output, I can measure a temp of around 170 on heat level #3, higher on level #5, but the York seems unable to heat my first floor of 1,100 sq. ft. It keep the room it's in, 240 sq. ft. comfortable, but the remaining first floor is about 64 or less. I keep my normal oil heat thermostat set at 64 so we don't freeze. No idea what the temp would be if I set it at 55!!

JB

Your window should have tan deposits... black means you need more air... brown sticky deposits indicate too much air. This comes from my dealer who has sold more tha 9,000 stoves since the early 90's...these guys have tons of experience... and they are a St. Croix dealer.
 
Update:

After the shop-vac pressure clean, it's been 6 hours. BLAST FURNACE on level #3. 450 at the stove surface! No sooty deposits and all is well! I will be incorporating the pressure cleaning as part of the every-other-week cleaning.

Take care,

Rick
 
Krooser

Now I'm really confused! "Black means you need more air"? I was told by my dealer just the opposite.
Oh well, I'll just keep fiddlin-and-diddlin with the damper.

Kent
 
I am sorry but don't know what PL vent means, but I have a 12 foot exhaust stack going up the wall then turning outside. I have only the standard opening in the back for the incoming air as I chose not to vent that to the outside.

As an update, i came down this morning after a 12 degree night, stove is clean! Glass is clean with the fire at level 4 out of 5. Still a blast furnace putting out 525 degree heat! Woo WOo.... problem solved.

Rick
 
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