Ugh, ok, just about out of options with Prescott EXL...

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M

mooney

New Member
Nov 27, 2007
29
Boston, MA
The quick backstory is that I took it apart, thorough cleaning, did the leaf blower trick.

Now, I can only run the stove on 2, which it does very well. If I run it on 3, then within about 4-6 hours the flame is dark orange, glass is sooty and in general it gets backed up.

At this point I assume I need to call an authorized St. Croix dealer and have them come out and clean it?

I thought maybe the door gasket was leaking so I replaced that as well. Didn't seem to make a difference.

Any other ideas???
 
Cleaned the entire exhaust pipe w/ a brush? Remove BOTH blowers from the stove, and clean the vanes on them and the blower housings too?

Do you have an OAK hooked up? If so, have you made sure that it's not blocked somewhere?
 
macman said:
Cleaned the entire exhaust pipe w/ a brush? Remove BOTH blowers from the stove, and clean the vanes on them and the blower housings too?
Click to expand...

Posted earlier, but yes... Removed both fans, scraped the vanes. Pulled the stove off the vent pipe and ran a nylon brush down the entire length of the 4 foot or so pipe.
 
Sounds like it just can't get enough air above 2, it could be a control board issue or if you are not using an OAK it can't get enough air from inside the house at the rate it needs it.

It is possible that your air intake has something in it or the area under the burn pot has something in it.

When running on 2 what is the color of the deposit above the fire pot on the back wall?


ETA: Have you cleaned out the ash traps?
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
Sounds like it just can't get enough air above 2, it could be a control board issue or if you are not using an OAK it can't get enough air from inside the house at the rate it needs it.

It is possible that your air intake has something in it or the area under the burn pot has something in it.

When running on 2 what is the color of the deposit above the fire pot on the back wall?
Click to expand...

I totally agree with that. I'm not using an OAK, haven't for the past 2 seasons with no problems.

On 2, the beige wall it's got a grey/black soot over it. If I run it on 3, and it gets progressively worse, I get a thin black layer on everything and black deposits on the glass.
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
There was a fellow on here that does service on those stoves and said there was a tech bulletin out for the area that was difficult to clean and was causing trouble.

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewreply/587179/
Click to expand...

Hmm... I'm almost positive I've seen those cleanouts behind the wall. I use a flexible brush to push up into the ash traps. Maybe I need to go buy some tubing and fashion an attachment to my shop vac to see if I've missed anything.
 
mooney said:
SmokeyTheBear said:
There was a fellow on here that does service on those stoves and said there was a tech bulletin out for the area that was difficult to clean and was causing trouble.

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewreply/587179/
Click to expand...

Hmm... I'm almost positive I've seen those cleanouts behind the wall. I use a flexible brush to push up into the ash traps. Maybe I need to go buy some tubing and fashion an attachment to my shop vac to see if I've missed anything.
Click to expand...

Yep, might be worth while. I use a leaf blower after cleaning things with the stove torturing devices and the weather is warm. It does a decent job of getting what might be left after loosening things up first.
 
I had a similar proplem with my Afton Bay this weekend. I cleaned everything, fans, traps, vent... Start it up, and lazy flame. Pulled it back apart, put back together, no luck. After about 5 hours working on the stove, I found the problem, I had accidently hit the damper lever taking the room fans out. I pushed the lever back to the stop, and the problem was solved. Might be worth a check.
 
dbjordan said:
I had a similar proplem with my Afton Bay this weekend. I cleaned everything, fans, traps, vent... Start it up, and lazy flame. Pulled it back apart, put back together, no luck. After about 5 hours working on the stove, I found the problem, I had accidently hit the damper lever taking the room fans out. I pushed the lever back to the stop, and the problem was solved. Might be worth a check.
Click to expand...

Yup, that too, we will see what mooney finds in his quest for a decent fire after several hours at feed rate 3.
 
dbjordan said:
I had a similar proplem with my Afton Bay this weekend. I cleaned everything, fans, traps, vent... Start it up, and lazy flame. Pulled it back apart, put back together, no luck. After about 5 hours working on the stove, I found the problem, I had accidently hit the damper lever taking the room fans out. I pushed the lever back to the stop, and the problem was solved. Might be worth a check.
Click to expand...

ugh, I wish it was that easy! The damper is right on the back of the stove, it's the first thing I checked. I'm wondering if a spider or something has crawled up there and made a web?
 
mooney said:
The quick backstory is that I took it apart, thorough cleaning, did the leaf blower trick.

Now, I can only run the stove on 2, which it does very well. If I run it on 3, then within about 4-6 hours the flame is dark orange, glass is sooty and in general it gets backed up.

At this point I assume I need to call an authorized St. Croix dealer and have them come out and clean it?

I thought maybe the door gasket was leaking so I replaced that as well. Didn't seem to make a difference.

Any other ideas???
Click to expand...

Mooney, your post suggests it was not doing this prior to the cleaning. If true, retrace your steps. It's unlikely to be anything serious if it was working before you cleaned it.
Mike -
 
mooney said:
I use a flexible brush to push up into the ash traps.
Click to expand...

Just a heads up for you. The brush up into the ash traps does not
reach everywhere in those passages. Take a ballpeen hammer
and bang on the back wall of the stove. I've found that depending
on the pellets, sometimes heavy clumps will drop down.
Sometimes if I have been using pellets with high ash, I have
tapped 30-60 times total on the left/right sides of the back wall
and still had more crap falling down in there.
Also I know you said you pulled/cleaned the blowers but did
you scrape/clean down in the recessed area where the exhaust
blower sits? I used a paint scraper tool in there and again there
was some heavy stuff caked down in there.

When you say it "backs up" do you mean pellets piling up in the burnpot? Is the versagrate working?
Is the plate below the burnpot pushed in all the way?
Have you tried another bag or two of a different brand of pellets?
 
Xena said:
mooney said:
I use a flexible brush to push up into the ash traps.
Click to expand...

.....
Sometimes if I have been using pellets with high ash, I have
tapped 30-60 times total on the left/right sides of the back wall
and still had more crap falling down in there.
Also I know you said you pulled/cleaned the blowers but did
you scrape/clean down in the recessed area where the exhaust
blower sits? I used a paint scraper tool in there and again there
was some heavy stuff caked down in there.

When you say it "backs up" do you mean pellets piling up in the burnpot? Is the versagrate working?
Is the plate below the burnpot pushed in all the way?
Have you tried another bag or two of a different brand of pellets?
Click to expand...

Hmm, I have banged on the back wall, not with a hammer though, and certainly not 30-60 times. I did clean out the area beneath the exhaust fan, that was pretty damn dirty.

I haven't tried a different bag/brand of pellets yet.
 
Too follow up on Mikes post, it is possible while cleaning one area of the stove to actually plug up an area you have already cleaned.

An example of this is if you took off the tee's cap and pushed a brush through and got it all clean and then removed the exhaust blower and pushed some soot back into the venting while using a brush. The same thing can happen on the other side.

But since we are chasing the lack of air have you checked your door seal lately or the ash pan door seal?
 
I'd pull the stove take it outside and use an airhose and blow the crap out of it using an air nozzle and mayb a 3/8 piece of hose.. just a thought. But i am leaning towrds the versa-grate not working..... re check it. and the afton bay guy, there is a lock nut for the air damper tighten it so it does not happen again.
 
Seems that almost every brand has an achilles heel somewhere.

Ash clogs are a problem with almost every stove if they are not cleaned/vacuumed and otherwise messed with regularly.

My Prodigy will fill the ash pan in two days using nut shells and the vent pipe will be 1/3 full of fly ash in a month or so of 24-7 fires

I use the shop vac with an extension on the suck pipe thats marked so I dont get into the exhaust fan.

The last time I cleaned the pipe, I did it with the stove running. Two quicks passes with the wand and clean as a whistle..

Caution_____ Dont use the shop vac on a hot stove if the bucket is full of sawdust or other burnables.

Tends to smoke a lot, ask me how I know this..

Its a bad day in River city when the vacuum starts belching flames and smoke. :ahhh:

Snowy
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
Too follow up on Mikes post, it is possible while cleaning one area of the stove to actually plug up an area you have already cleaned.

An example of this is if you took off the tee's cap and pushed a brush through and got it all clean and then removed the exhaust blower and pushed some soot back into the venting while using a brush. The same thing can happen on the other side.

But since we are chasing the lack of air have you checked your door seal lately or the ash pan door seal?
Click to expand...

I just replaced the door seal as I was concerned that it was leaking. The ash pan seal looks ok. I just bought some 1/2" clear tubing that I'm going to put on my shop vac and give it a shot.
 
Snowy Rivers said:
Seems that almost every brand has an achilles heel somewhere.


Caution_____ Dont use the shop vac on a hot stove if the bucket is full of sawdust or other burnables.

Tends to smoke a lot, ask me how I know this..

Its a bad day in River city when the vacuum starts belching flames and smoke. :ahhh:

Snowy
Click to expand...

LOL... I know the smell of smoldering shop vac filter all too well.
 
Just found something very interesting... I went online and was looking at a copy of the Owner's Manual, and it shows 3 ash trap clean outs. 1 on either side of the burn pot, AND it shows a clean out behind the ash pan. I thought I had missed something, but I just checked and there's no ash trap clean out.

Anyone else have a clean out there?
 
mooney said:
Just found something very interesting... I went online and was looking at a copy of the Owner's Manual, and it shows 3 ash trap clean outs. 1 on either side of the burn pot, AND it shows a clean out behind the ash pan. I thought I had missed something, but I just checked and there's no ash trap clean out.

Anyone else have a clean out there?
Click to expand...

No clean out behind the ash pan of my EXL.

Set up your leaf blower and turn it on. Pull your firebox apart as you normally would. Pull your ash trap covers. Pull your baffle out. Pull your heat exchanger scraper rod all the way out. Run that brush all the way up the ash trap as far as you can. With your free hand, reach up into the plenum located at the top of the back wall of the firebox and feel for the tip of the brush with your fingers. Grap the tip of the brush with your fingers and pull it left and right as far as you can... do this on the other side. Run that brush "between" the ash traps from both sides. You should also have two holes located on the back wall of the firebox above the burn pot (right and left side at the bottom of the pellet chute), run a smaller brush up/down/side to side (or use a shot of compressed air if you have a compressor and an air gun). Whack the back wall of the fire wall with a mallet or a hammer... Remember, do this with the leaf blower running...

I am assuming you have already pulled your combustion fan and cleaned out the cavity and have run a brush back up into the exhaust plenum and back toward the tee and cleaned your entire vent pipe including the cap.

Put the stove back together and set your heat advance to 5. Monitor if both fans and the feed rate increase every two minutes. Watch your burn pot. If the fans and the feed rate increase every two minutes, your board and components are communicating properly. If the burn pot fills faster than it can burn off and you get a lazy flame, then you still have combustion air problems. If the fans and feed rates do not increase in unison, then I would suspect you have a combustion fan problem or a board problem... I am not a electronics whiz so this is just a hunch on my part, others please chime in if you can assist.

One other thing to check is your ash pot slider... if it does not shut all the way, then combustion air is being diverted into the ash pan and not up into the burn pot... It may be broken or it may have something preventing it from shutting all the way... If the slider is not completely closed you will have a lazy flame.
 
Just my two cents, the operators manual does not give that average user enough information to properly clean this stove.
 
tchdngrnby said:
Just my two cents, the operators manual does not give that average user enough information to properly clean this stove.
Click to expand...

That is true for most of the manuals I've seen.

In two words, they stink.

When my stove was installed they showed me how to clean the stove according to the manual.

I laughed and said Ok, where are the ash traps hidden?

Meanwhile mooney is getting an education in all of the places to look for his problem.

mooney, when you replaced your door gasket did you do the dollar bill test in several places around the door. I hate to say this but more than one person has replaced their gaskets only to discover that:

1: They stretched it so that it can't seal correctly.

2: It really wasn't the gasket that was the problem, but the door hinges loosening up or the latch no longer engaging.

3: They bought an incorrect replacement size.

With gaskets, looks can be deceiving.
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
tchdngrnby said:
Just my two cents, the operators manual does not give that average user enough information to properly clean this stove.
Click to expand...

That is true for most of the manuals I've seen.

In two words, they stink.

When my stove was installed they showed me how to clean the stove according to the manual.

I laughed and said Ok, where are the ash traps hidden?

Meanwhile mooney is getting an education in all of the places to look for his problem.

mooney, when you replaced your door gasket did you do the dollar bill test in several places around the door. I hate to say this but more than one person has replaced their gaskets only to discover that:

1: They stretched it so that it can't seal correctly.

2: It really wasn't the gasket that was the problem, but the door hinges loosening up or the latch no longer engaging.

3: They bought an incorrect replacement size.

With gaskets, looks can be deceiving.
Click to expand...

I totally agree... I didn't do the dollar bill test, please explain. I did replace the gasket with a 5/8" rope that I was careful not to stretch. I'm pretty sure it needed replacing anyways as where the two ends of the rope came together was fraying and if it wasn't already leaking air, it would have been shortly.

And yes, I think the manual sucks. ;-)
 
tchdngrnby said:
mooney said:
Just found something very interesting... I went online and was looking at a copy of the Owner's Manual, and it shows 3 ash trap clean outs. 1 on either side of the burn pot, AND it shows a clean out behind the ash pan. I thought I had missed something, but I just checked and there's no ash trap clean out.

Anyone else have a clean out there?
Click to expand...

No clean out behind the ash pan of my EXL.

Set up your leaf blower and turn it on. Pull your firebox apart as you normally would. Pull your ash trap covers. Pull your baffle out. Pull your heat exchanger scraper rod all the way out. Run that brush all the way up the ash trap as far as you can. With your free hand, reach up into the plenum located at the top of the back wall of the firebox and feel for the tip of the brush with your fingers. Grap the tip of the brush with your fingers and pull it left and right as far as you can... do this on the other side. Run that brush "between" the ash traps from both sides. You should also have two holes located on the back wall of the firebox above the burn pot (right and left side at the bottom of the pellet chute), run a smaller brush up/down/side to side (or use a shot of compressed air if you have a compressor and an air gun). Whack the back wall of the fire wall with a mallet or a hammer... Remember, do this with the leaf blower running...

I am assuming you have already pulled your combustion fan and cleaned out the cavity and have run a brush back up into the exhaust plenum and back toward the tee and cleaned your entire vent pipe including the cap.

Put the stove back together and set your heat advance to 5. Monitor if both fans and the feed rate increase every two minutes. Watch your burn pot. If the fans and the feed rate increase every two minutes, your board and components are communicating properly. If the burn pot fills faster than it can burn off and you get a lazy flame, then you still have combustion air problems. If the fans and feed rates do not increase in unison, then I would suspect you have a combustion fan problem or a board problem... I am not a electronics whiz so this is just a hunch on my part, others please chime in if you can assist.

One other thing to check is your ash pot slider... if it does not shut all the way, then combustion air is being diverted into the ash pan and not up into the burn pot... It may be broken or it may have something preventing it from shutting all the way... If the slider is not completely closed you will have a lazy flame.
Click to expand...

Bizarre, I wonder if the 3rd cleanout is on newer models. BTW, I just spent the past 2 weeks or so learning everything you just wrote the hard way. Great timing!!! LOL
 
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