Quad Mt Vernon AE autoclean design flawed in so many ways

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BIGISLANDHIKERS

Feeling the Heat
Sep 12, 2007
316
For those looking at buying this stove. This is my 4th winter with the stove. It looks great and put out alot of heat. The autoclean system was a nice idea but it basically S*%Ks.

Where do I start.

The autoclean works this way. Every now and then the floor of the pot slides out and everything dumps into the ash pan. It does this about every 2-4 hours depending on what you are burning. These are it's flaws:

1. the stove completely shuts down during autoclean. The whole process from intitial shutdown to autoclean back to full operation takes about 1/2 hour or more.

2. after each autoclean the stove depends on the ignitor to restart. They have an issue with them buring out. Bad combination. Remember this happens about 8 times per day.

3. about 1/2 of the pellets I have used create a clinker that sticks to the pot and it doesn't drop into the ash pan. Stove doesn't know this so it restarts dumping more pellets on
the clinker. this process continues until the pot over flows and creates a potential burn back into the fuel drop, or it just wont restart resulting in a min pot temp.

4. stove is suppose to be multifuel but all the corn I have burned creates hard clinkers that often don't drop. I cannot use corn if I am not at home becasue I have to be there for the autoclean and push the clinker down.

5. the burn pot is very hard to clean. it is very difficult to remove so it is hard to scrape out. Also ,there is fragile porcelin(sp) rod which covers the thermo that sticks into the burn pot which is very hard to clean around. I have cracked it once doing so.

Hope this helps

BIH
 
Is there a way to by-pass this auto clean feature? IMO That has to be hard on the igniter!
 
Wi Thundercat said:
Is there a way to by-pass this auto clean feature? IMO That has to be hard on the igniter!
Click to expand...

No there isn't.

Nobody from quad or the dealer could understand why they were buring out so much becuase the same ignitor was used in their other stove models and lasting much longer. Well the other models don't autoclean and don't restart mutiple times a day.

BIH
 
Auto clean is tied to vacuum (and start up) in the stove and you say your getting alot of clinkers. Clinkers are a result of the pellets, not the stove. What are you burning? Have you tried other brands? For the unit to cycle that many times per day something else is going on. There are a boat load of AE's out there that are doing just fine.
 
I agree that is a poor design... shutting down every 2-4 hours is just silly.

My stove hasn't been shut down in a month. I just do a quick scape of the BP every 2-3 days.
 
humpin iron said:
Auto clean is tied to vacuum (and start up) in the stove and you say your getting alot of clinkers. Clinkers are a result of the pellets, not the stove. What are you burning? Have you tried other brands? For the unit to cycle that many times per day something else is going on. There are a boat load of AE's out there that are doing just fine.
Click to expand...


The autoclean is preset and programmed by Quad. It varies according to what fuel and heat setting you have it set for. As far as a clinker, there are many times where just the ash bridges the bottom of the pot and will not drop. It might have helped if somehow when the floor slides out it cut the clinker or layer of ash so it would fall. Just a bad design.

BIH
 
It may be silly to most of the people on this forum, but I think to the vast majority of customers out there, it was a selling feature and works well. The whole stove is designed with this "hands off", simple to operate philosophy... the autoclean cycle makes it so the average user doesn't have to get dirty cleaning the burn pot of clinkers. The temperature module is very simplistic too with presets for various fuel types and not much tweaking available. I can see what they were trying to do and for most people, it works. I'm still happy with mine, but now that I've owned it for almost 2 years, I would think twice about it again. But, the "set it and forget it" design works well for my wife when I am not around.
 
Gweeper64 said:
It may be silly to most of the people on this forum, but I think to the vast majority of customers out there, it was a selling feature and works well. The whole stove is designed with this "hands off", simple to operate philosophy... the autoclean cycle makes it so the average user doesn't have to get dirty cleaning the burn pot of clinkers. The temperature module is very simplistic too with presets for various fuel types and not much tweaking available. I can see what they were trying to do and for most people, it works. I'm still happy with mine, but now that I've owned it for almost 2 years, I would think twice about it again. But, the "set it and forget it" design works well for my wife when I am not around.
Click to expand...

Yes I agree that was the motivation behind the design.

Something else that factors in is the AE burnpot was not designed to function well with a bed a ashes like other pots. So the 1st time it doesn't dump and restarts the flame is tall and lazy and is burning too rich. Granted it will operate for a few autocleans without dumping but not as well as it should. Eventually it just wont relight.
 
Want a " hands off " stove that could probably run an entire month or more without shutting down for anything ? Harman XXV.... I shut it down once a week, and that is only to clean the glass because I like to watch the fire, stove is as maintenace free as they come. Actually the " auto clean " feature of the Quad is what turned me off from it, when the dealer told me the stove automatically " DUMPS " the fire a few times per day to auto clean, I thought that was kinda stupid. Anybody that knows pellet stoves knows that clinkers, ash bridges and all kinds of things happen in a burn pot that a simple DUMP won't solve. I'm sure some problems are compounded by poor fuel quality but I agree, its a poorly executed concept, not to mention the toll on the ignitors, if my stove stopped and started 8 times in the last 2 months it would be a lot.
 
I have the same stove and have had the same problems as BIH. I find that, if I happen to be near the stove during the autoclean, I will sometimes open the door right afterwards, do a quick scraping of the burn pot and close the door. I have noticed that with higher quality pellets this is not as big a problem. I would love it if Quad would revise the software and allow more control over the autoclean feature. BIH, have you had any problems with the wall control yet?
 
I passed on the auto clean stove for the manual clean, no regrets.
 
I got rid of the manual clean, for the AE. No problems, no clinkers, and no regrets. I clean my ash pan and vac it out once a week. Try a better pellet.
 
gblaue said:
I got rid of the manual clean, for the AE. No problems, no clinkers, and no regrets. I clean my ash pan and vac it out once a week. Try a better pellet.
Click to expand...

That succinctly describes my stove as well. My family loves it.
 
I have burned well over 10 different brands of pellets from real bad to great pellets in my AE. Never once did I have clinkers sticking to the burn pot floor. In fact I hardly have to scrape the pot at all. Also you don't mention that it still puts out some heat for 10 or 15 during the auto clean while it cools down. You don't really loose that much heat in the process. You should try some quality pellets and maybe a different fuel setting. You shouldn't have clinkers blocking the pot floor. Pe?rhaps the auto clean mechanism is faulty and is not scraping properly?
 
pellet burner said:
I have burned well over 10 different brands of pellets from real bad to great pellets in my AE. Never once did I have clinkers sticking to the burn pot floor. In fact I hardly have to scrape the pot at all. Also you don't mention that it still puts out some heat for 10 or 15 during the auto clean while it cools down. You don't really loose that much heat in the process. You should try some quality pellets and maybe a different fuel setting. You shouldn't have clinkers blocking the pot floor. Pe?rhaps the auto clean mechanism is faulty and is not scraping properly?
Click to expand...

The pellets dont stick to the floor. They stick to the sides of the pot and when the floor moves they don't dump. Not all pellet brands do this. Some do some don't. I've just had to make sure I test with a bag or two before I buy a large qty.

Have you tried buring corn in your stove? That seems to cause the biggest problem.

Well yes the blower continues to spin for a while during shutdown/autoclean at a much lower speed to blow off the remaining heat. Most stoves do this when they shut down. The point is, by the time the stove is up and running again you have indeed lost alot of heat. In Michigan it makes a big difference when it does this 6-8 times a day. Besides, the most inefficient point for a pellet stove is during startup so thats an issue as well.

I'm glad your AE is working well for you. Every install is different. I just want to make sure anyone looking at buying this stove was aware and that it could be an issue for them. I still say it's a very flawed system.

BIH
 
This is the only stove I have owned so it is hard for me to compare.

I would like to try other stoves to see how they work, the auto-clean to me is a nice feature but as mentioned it is all I know.
 
I also have a 2006 MT Vernon AE Insert heating a 2200 sq ft colonial running 24-7 and the auto clean times don't seem to be a issue with my stove or usage. I don't use the lower burn time before auto clean fuel settings, mainly use soft wood, hard wood, corn and sunflower seeds. I am on my second igniter, original lasted 3+ years and I was burning corn too. I have noticed this year some light fluffy ash sticking to the sides of the burn pot but it doesn't effect the lighting and operation of the stove. I clean the stove heat exchanger every 2 to 3 weeks or when heat output is down and use a leaf blower, brush from the top down and compressed air blown in the floors exhaust ports when the leaf blower is running every ton or so depending if there is snow on the roof. Last year I noticed some large sometimes not wanting to drop clinkers starting to form and some small unburnt pellets in the ash pan. the clinkers looked like hockey pucks, the stoves operation was just off. The burn pot floor was not sealing tight against the burn pot and found the springs on the burn pot floor rails were weak. I had some slightly stiffer better quality looking springs laying around and installed them but what a PITA that was to get the clips back into the rails. I also noticed that since new the the fly ash on the bottom of the fire box in a few areas was always blowing away from the sides where the floor meets the sides of the stove. This year I sealed this up with some 2100 degree black stove cement and the stoves operation is now completely different. I always had to run it in -5 flame height and the flames were still burning into the openings of the baffle, maybe explains the 3 cracked baffles I have replaced. I now run it in the 0 or -1 flame height settings, sunflower seeds or soft wood, high elevation and just recently have been monkeying around with the auto temp and room temp settings set slightly higher so it runs longer, before I always used manual 3 or 4 and will probably continue when the temps get to the single digits or below. The burn pot and insides of the stove stay a lot cleaner and no more hockey pucks are produced. even when using the crap Lake Region pellets I had left over from last year. I like soft wood pellets but lately have been running the cheaper Stove Chow with great results. Check the springs, the fire box floor seams, play with the fuel types and elevation settings .
 
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FordMastertech said:
I also have a 2006 MT Vernon AE Insert heating a 2200 sq ft colonial running 24-7 and the auto clean times don't seem to be a issue with my stove or usage. I don't use the lower burn time before auto clean fuel settings, mainly use soft wood, hard wood, corn and sunflower seeds. I am on my second igniter, original lasted 3+ years and I was burning corn too. I have noticed this year some light fluffy ash sticking to the sides of the burn pot but it doesn't effect the lighting and operation of the stove. I clean the stove heat exchanger every 2 to 3 weeks or when heat output is down and use a leaf blower, brush from the top down and compressed air blown in the floors exhaust ports when the leaf blower is running every ton or so depending if there is snow on the roof. Last year I noticed some large sometimes not wanting to drop clinkers starting to form and some small unburnt pellets in the ash pan. the clinkers looked like hockey pucks, the stoves operation was just off. The burn pot floor was not sealing tight against the burn pot and found the springs on the burn pot floor rails were weak. I had some slightly stiffer better quality looking springs laying around and installed them but what a PITA that was to get the clips back into the rails. I also noticed that since new the the fly ash on the bottom of the fire box in a few areas was always blowing away from the sides where the floor meets the sides of the stove. This year I sealed this up with some 2100 degree black stove cement and the stoves operation is now completely different. I always had to run it in -5 flame height and the flames were still burning into the openings of the baffle, maybe explains the 3 cracked baffles I have replaced. I now run it in the 0 or -1 flame height settings, sunflower seeds or soft wood, high elevation and just recently have been monkeying around with the auto temp and room temp settings set slightly higher so it runs longer, before I always used manual 3 or 4 and will probably continue when the temps get to the single digits or below. The burn pot and insides of the stove stay a lot cleaner and no more hockey pucks are produced. even when using the crap Lake Region pellets I had left over from last year. I like soft wood pellets but lately have been running the cheaper Stove Chow with great results. Check the springs, the fire box floor seams, play with the fuel types and elevation settings .
Click to expand...


Some good advice...thanks.

I too noticed the areas of ash blown away. I sealed them as you did but I see I have new areas this year. I didn't know if these areas mattered because they are small compared to the airwash. I get the "hockey pucks" also. Would loose springs contribute to these?? Buring pellets I have to operate at -5, corn at -2. I am on my 4th igniter and second baffle.
 
I too noticed the areas of ash blown away. I sealed them as you did but I see I have new areas this year. I didn’t know if these areas mattered because they are small compared to the airwash.
Click to expand...
It helped me to get my flame height settings to around 0, high elevation also helped and cleaned up the burn.

I get the “hockey pucks†also. Would loose springs contribute to these??
Click to expand...
The big hockey pucks pretty much went away when I replaced my loose/weak springs.

Buring pellets I have to operate at -5, corn at -2.
Click to expand...
Try running sunflower and high elevation settings.
 
You got my attention with the springs. Though , I'm trying to figure how loose ones would create the hockey pucks. I have to imagine mine are getting worn out.

BIH
 
BIGISLANDHIKERS said:
FordMastertech said:
I also have a 2006 MT Vernon AE Insert heating a 2200 sq ft colonial running 24-7 and the auto clean times don't seem to be a issue with my stove or usage. I don't use the lower burn time before auto clean fuel settings, mainly use soft wood, hard wood, corn and sunflower seeds. I am on my second igniter, original lasted 3+ years and I was burning corn too. I have noticed this year some light fluffy ash sticking to the sides of the burn pot but it doesn't effect the lighting and operation of the stove. I clean the stove heat exchanger every 2 to 3 weeks or when heat output is down and use a leaf blower, brush from the top down and compressed air blown in the floors exhaust ports when the leaf blower is running every ton or so depending if there is snow on the roof. Last year I noticed some large sometimes not wanting to drop clinkers starting to form and some small unburnt pellets in the ash pan. the clinkers looked like hockey pucks, the stoves operation was just off. The burn pot floor was not sealing tight against the burn pot and found the springs on the burn pot floor rails were weak. I had some slightly stiffer better quality looking springs laying around and installed them but what a PITA that was to get the clips back into the rails. I also noticed that since new the the fly ash on the bottom of the fire box in a few areas was always blowing away from the sides where the floor meets the sides of the stove. This year I sealed this up with some 2100 degree black stove cement and the stoves operation is now completely different. I always had to run it in -5 flame height and the flames were still burning into the openings of the baffle, maybe explains the 3 cracked baffles I have replaced. I now run it in the 0 or -1 flame height settings, sunflower seeds or soft wood, high elevation and just recently have been monkeying around with the auto temp and room temp settings set slightly higher so it runs longer, before I always used manual 3 or 4 and will probably continue when the temps get to the single digits or below. The burn pot and insides of the stove stay a lot cleaner and no more hockey pucks are produced. even when using the crap Lake Region pellets I had left over from last year. I like soft wood pellets but lately have been running the cheaper Stove Chow with great results. Check the springs, the fire box floor seams, play with the fuel types and elevation settings .
Click to expand...


Some good advice...thanks.

I too noticed the areas of ash blown away. I sealed them as you did but I see I have new areas this year. I didn't know if these areas mattered because they are small compared to the airwash. I get the "hockey pucks" also. Would loose springs contribute to these?? Buring pellets I have to operate at -5, corn at -2. I am on my 4th igniter and second baffle.
Click to expand...
I just cleaned my stove today and installed the new burn pot I just got when my ignitor burned out. While I had this out, I removed the pot floor and cleaned it with the wire wheel on my grinder, it is now really smooth. I too have been having trouble this year with bridging of the pot. I understand what you are saying about the pot springs and I will try replacing them, however I'm not sure what you are referring to when you say about sealing up the sides where the floor meets the side of the stove, could you maybe explain this to me a little better? Thanks.
 
I’m not sure what you are referring to when you say about sealing up the sides where the floor meets the side of the stove, could you maybe explain this to me a little better? Thanks.
Click to expand...
On the fire boxes floor where the fire pot attaches directly to the left and right of the fire pot where the 1/4 inch bolts, 7/16 head, are there is a 6 or so inch seam where the stoves side walls meet. I always had fly ash that was blowing from a couple of areas at these seams. I just cleaned up the stove real clean and used a Scotch Britte pad to remove the grime, wet the area with water and applied a bead of high temp 2100 degree black Rutland stove cement I got from Home Depot from the front of the baffle plate to the front of the floor where the door is. I let it set up for several hours and started with a slow burn. Just follow directions on the caulking tube the stuff comes in. How long this lasts is to be determined but so far so good. I could try to take a picture but the stove is running right now. I would have to clean the fly ash off the floor to get a picture, maybe over the weekend when it warms up. Also make sure the burn pot holes are clean, I use a drill bit to clean mine out.
 

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FordMastertech said:
I’m not sure what you are referring to when you say about sealing up the sides where the floor meets the side of the stove, could you maybe explain this to me a little better? Thanks.
Click to expand...
On the fire boxes floor where the fire pot attaches directly to the left and right of the fire pot where the 1/4 inch bolts, 7/16 head, are there is a 6 or so inch seam where the stoves side walls meet. I always had fly ash that was blowing from a couple of areas at these seams. I just cleaned up the stove real clean and used a Scotch Britte pad to remove the grime, wet the area with water and applied a bead of high temp 2100 degree black Rutland stove cement I got from Home Depot from the front of the baffle plate to the front of the floor where the door is. I let it set up for several hours and started with a slow burn. Just follow directions on the caulking tube the stuff comes in. How long this lasts is to be determined but so far so good. I could try to take a picture but the stove is running right now. I would have to clean the fly ash off the floor to get a picture, maybe over the weekend when it warms up. Also make sure the burn pot holes are clean, I use a drill bit to clean mine out.
Click to expand...


wow shiney....was that taken while still new?
 
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