Englander 25 PDVC efficiency in High Consumption

I have noticed that anything over 5 just seams to consume more pellets without a proportional heat gain. How that is, I don't know. I had gotten a couple over burn error codes when i had it on 9/9 though back in early December. Since then I have gotten my impingement plate seated tightly against the back wall, and havn't needed to run it more than 6/9, even in the -10 windy weather we had a a month or so ago. This is on my very open plan and open loft 1400 sf Cape. Seating the plate tight against the back wall will get you the most heat output. And a god cleaning of the vent pipe will help you get optimum performance. Do you also scrape the underside of the top of the fire chamber? the ash and soot can insulate the stove and keep the heat from getting out to the area where the room air blows out. I scrape that weekly.

Ounds like you're ready for the leaf blower cleaning...How many tons have you burned?

My house is the same size as yours w/ R-13 walls and R-38 ceiling, and new energystar windows. I would burn about a bag per day if I left the stove on all day given your outdoor temperatures. I keep the house at 70ish. I have a thermostat so it automatically cycles from 9,9 to 1,9 on its own. I usually keep the fan at 9 (sometimes 7 if I'm watching TV). My thinking is the higher the fan setting the higher the efficiency (more air is getting heated)

My maintenance has been to dump the ashes from the burn pot to the side inside the stove every day. And vacuum everything out once per week. I've checked the cleanout once this season.

PunKid8888 said:

I have an Englander 25 PVDC with an OAK, and over 6ft of vertical (exterior) pipe. I have been burning Fire side ultra all year. I have never really needed anything over 5,5 for a burn setting. Usually I get home from work, clean and fire it up, 3,3. house is brought up 56F to 62F from furnace and the pellet stove will steadily increase to 65F or so (next room over) At night I bring it down to 2,2 or maybe even 1,1 to keep the house just above 60F (this is what the furnace is set at). This is with an outdoor 28F during daylight about maybe 18F at night. My house is a single level 1100sqft ranch, with fair insulation. aslo my low feed setting is 4,5,1 which I set for best burn.

I have noticed as of late that I need to bump up the setting a little more now, and anything above 5,5 just does not seam to really help. Last night it was 33F outside so I put the stove on 3,3 and it never even got above 62F in the next room over, in the beginning of the season I would have been up to 70F no prob.

I have burned a little over a ton and it probably needs a real good clean, blowers removed and the vent pipe cleaned. I was wondering if others use the higher settings with any good results, and if I really need to take the time to do a full tear down clean.

my cleaning routine is every other day vac and scrape burnpot and auger tube. Weekly, take off impingement baffle and vacuum behind that. Then maybe every two weeks vac/scoop all ash out of bottom section.

I have not pulled the exhaust blower, room blower, or cleaned the vent pipe.

I plan on getting a probe temp to give me a better idea of the heat output.

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I'm a first-winter user of my 25-PDVC, and I'd guess I've used up a little less than a ton so far of locally made pellets, which I'm told are mostly softwood. I just finished removing about 1 cup of ash/gummy deposit from the cleanout tee, directly behind the outlet. I've been running mostly on 2,2, sometimes 1,1 to conserve pellets. We've recently had a 2 week spell of cold, average -4F, so I did bump up to 5,5 some days. It's never been above this setting. This is fine on the main floor to keep things around 70F. The house is 1 1/2 stories, about 700ftsq.

I've routinely shut down at 11:30PM, and after about 15 minutes, the fire is out and the wear plate cold enough to remove, dump all ash, then I do a quick removal of all ash in the burnpot area and scrape down the plate/pot walls with a little scraper I made from an old stainless spatula. I sharpened up an old screwdriver to scrape the creosote off the auger tube lip, also daily. I get all the ash out of the storage areas about every 2 weeks, remove the baffle and vacuum behind, over the shelf above the opening, as the small shelf directly in front when you remove the plate never seems to have any accumulation on it.

I place a small handfull of pellets in the burnpot, in front of the ignitor, fill the hopper, and at about 5:30AM, press the 'on' button and let it run on 2,2 until 11:30PM, then repeat cleaning. Why all the cleaning? Well, I ran an airtight woodstove for 20 years, and there is absolutely no comparison with the Englander. I think I've taken out less than 3 grocery bags of ash all season so far, compared to that many weekly with wood, then you've got all the mess from kindling, hauling logs, and newspaper crumpled to start daily fires...you get my drift.

I'd say your problem, if indeed there is one, may be the pellets you're burning, or perhaps not doing the burnpot daily, or maybe the soot on that baffle plate shelf, which I admit I only discoverd today! Also, I've read here that the baffle plate should rest snugly against the back wall. Mine was loose right from delivery new, so I hammered the tabs in a bit to make it a tighter fit. I think they might have designed this a bit better, but hey, for all the trouble of adjusting the hopper latches, and 1 minute with a hammer on the plate tabs, I'm not gonna complain.

After burning 3 tons of pellets I removed the cleanout from the outside tee. Quite a bit of ash fell out, I tapped on the on the vertical pipe and a lot more fell out. I had no symptom of a problem but all the ash that fell probably would have been enough to severely restrict or block the flow of gasses should a branch or something else strike the vent pipe. The horizontal pipe had perhaps 1/4 inch of ash, not enough to worry about. A week or two later I removed the combustion blower but there only light ash, hardly worth cleaning. I checked my cleanout after burning another ton and a half and found perhaps a cup full of ash. I think checking the cleanout may indicate if further cleaning is necessary.

Clean the squirrel cage on the room blower (stick straw through the slots on an angle into the squirrel cage and blow, or use a compressor with a small hose attached to fit through the slots but don't crank up the air to high. All kinds of dust will puff out the the front of the stove and even a big puff when the room blower starts up next time. (OR REMOVE THE ROOM BLOWER AND CLEAN IT UP)

Pull the exhaust blower off of its housing (watch the gasket) clean the fan blades they will be caked with soot and crud,

Remove the tee outside blow compressed air through the pipe form the inside out, (you can do this with the exhaust motor removed, just seal the blower tip with a rag so the dust does not blow back in the house) or do the leave blower thing at this point.

Orange Crush CJ-7 said:

I have noticed that anything over 5 just seams to consume more pellets without a proportional heat gain. How that is, I don't know.

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In my experience.... It depends on the pellets. With a high quality pellet, there's an obvious, linear increase up to / including 9,9. Get a lower quality pellet though, and the difference between 7 and 9 gets negligible. That's with a thermo at the left front corner of the stove.

ah is an insulator inside pellet stoves, i find that i get a much better radient out of my pdvc just after i sweep the walls and heat exchanger areas down to expose the bare steel to the fire, when i run longer sessions between doing this i find the overall temps do fall off a bit. if you have not been doing so try this , get an old paint brush ,and literally start with the top of the firebox and sweep ash off do the walls as well , pull the baffle plate , sweep it off , then clean out the area behind the baffle in sid ethe cleanout opening in the back wall. if you expose as much steel as possible to direct heat you will radiate much better.

actually im just headng off to do that to my stove now, i just heard it shut down(was waiting on that)

hope this helps ya

My 2 cents about some of your settings -

I never set the room air blower lower than 6. (1,6 - 2,8 - 3,9 - 4,9 - 5,9)
I want to squeeze as much hot air out of the stove as possible. Last year I did some unscientific testing with a thermometer set up a few feet in front of the stove. Increasing the blower did not reduce the temp of the air. I figure the more cf per minute the better. I am not sure if this increases efficiency or not, but I like it.

I have kept a meat thermometer set hanging off a pair of channel locks about 2" in front of the front left room air outlet all season. This has allowed me to see exactly how the different settings and different pellets react. The air is definitely less warm on the higher room air settings. It has to be. More air is moving thru so it dissapates the heat quicker.

Here is a cell phone pic of the thermometer.

stoveguy2esw said:

.... get an old paint brush ,and literally start with the top of the firebox and sweep ash off do the walls as well , pull the baffle plate , sweep it off , then clean out the area behind the baffle in sid ethe cleanout opening in the back wall. if you expose as much steel as possible to direct heat you will radiate much better.

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First, let me mention that my 25-PDVC came without the DVD, so I went back to the store and, surprise surprise, the nice lady gave one from a display stove, and this is 3 months later...so I get home, put it in the player, and there you are, 'in person'! Great narration too....but now that I've buttered you up a bit....

Could you elaborate on the air flow inside the 25-PDVC? When the baffle plate is out, I see a rectangular opening with a small 'shelf' about 1/2 way up along it's length, then there is another 'shelf' above this opening, with I think a number of dividers welded along it's length. I've never seen much soot inside the opening on the clearly visible 'shelf', but found lots on the top-most shelf with these dividers. The latter is very hard to access. Which of these is the 'clean-out' opening, or are they both important?

If only there existed a cut-away drawing of the stove, showing the exhaust air flow, which would easily identify where to concentrate the vacuum nozzle for best effect. Surely the factory has such a drawing(s) for reference in assembly?

quote]First, let me mention that my 25-PDVC came without the DVD, so I went back to the store and, surprise surprise, the nice lady gave one from a display stove, and this is 3 months later...so I get home, put it in the player, and there you are, 'in person'! Great narration too....but now that I've buttered you up a bit....quote]

Oh SH^% that is Mike on the DVD Oh I am am a bit embarrassed here I made fun of Mikes bashed thumb! Sorry Mike.

Orange Crush CJ-7 said:

I have kept a meat thermometer set hanging off a pair of channel locks about 2" in front of the front left room air outlet all season. This has allowed me to see exactly how the different settings and different pellets react. The air is definitely less warm on the higher room air settings. It has to be. More air is moving thru so it dissapates the heat quicker.

Here is a cell phone pic of the thermometer.

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ballpark, about what temps. are you seeing?

currently I have the stove on 3/6. It is hooked up to a thermostat, and the 'stat is currently not calling for heat, so it is in "low burn" setting right now (2-6-1) and pushing 160 degrees. The temperature probe on the thermometer is about 1.5" in front of the front lip. The temperatures are pretty much only useful to myself to know how to tweak the most heat out of it and tune in and compare different brands of pellets. You need to be consistant with where you place the thermometer, because the left side is way hotter than the right. Who knows if my thermometer is even calibrated correctly. When it is more cold outside (10 degrees or so) the stove I set the stove on 4-9, and when the thermostat calls for heat, I get 225-240 degrees. These temps are consistant with both Lignetics and Barefoot. When I burned my 1/2 ton of Northern Lights Softwood, I barely got 180 on 9/9. Pellet brands make a huge difference.

PunKid8888 said:

Yea I really like the thermometer deal, I will have to pick one of those up. I too am interesting in the temps your seeing.

I have done a good clean to expose as much metal as possible for better conduction. I just did it again today and its currently 27F and its 64F in the house. Its ever so slowly coming up to temp. I have the stove on a 3,5 trying to see if moving more air helps.

I have also noticed that the more lights and electric appliances I have on the easy it is to bring the house up to temp which is something I never thought would add that much

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When it is supper time and the wife is cooking, the stove usually gets a break and can idle for a few hours, because we gain 3-4 degrees above what the 'Stat is set at. So normal household activity generates big time heat gain.

I also do my weekly shut down and vac-out on Sundays, which is laundry day. I vent the electric dryer directly into the house, so we recoop alot of humidity that the stove dries out during the week. The dryer also heats the house for the few hours the stove is shutdown.

If only there existed a cut-away drawing of the stove, showing the exhaust air flow, which would easily identify where to concentrate the vacuum nozzle for best effect. Surely the factory has such a drawing(s) for reference in assembly?[/quote]

Mike? Are you listening? I'd pay US dollars for a copy. Make mine the PDV, though.

Just a bump to get Mike's attention...and to add that maybe he could take a few pictures of the stoves in various stages of construction at the factory? Even a shot or two of the ready-to-assemble body parts would help to understand the airflow behind that baffle plate. On closer examination, and from reading a bit, I believe the exhaust gasses in the 25-PDVC enter the pathway through the heat exchanger from the large upper slot behind the baffle plate. The lower slot seems to be part of this pathway, but is it fresh heated air going through there, or exhaust?

From what I understand, The hot exhaust flue gases enter the top wide slot, and snake their way thru the heat exchangers, down to the exhaust blower and out the vent pipes. This is to slow the rate that the flue gas exits the stove, and expose it to more surface area so the room blower can blow it into the room. I also gather that the baffle plate's sole purpose is to provide access for cleaning out the heat exchange path. Therefore, the tighter it sits against the back wall, the better efficiency the stove will have.

I have bent the tabs on my baffle plate to creat a tighter seal against the back wall, I have changed my factory settings from 6-4-1 to 5-3-1 and usually run board settings at 1-3 2-4 3-5 and can get 230 out of the stove easy. I was at a friends house and he actaully had a fan on top of his stove aimed out and downward to move more air off the top of stove. the most I have run my stove was at 5-7 or maybe 6-7 when we were at -15 to -20