Fine tuning.. problems finding the right mix of damper/combustion etc..

Smitty you didn't mention what pellet brand? Also is there a way to reduce the pellet feed?

The pellets your using could be 2 dense and sounds like they need to be trimmed down or reduced somehow. Sometimes it can't be done with air adjustment alone it has to have the feed tweaked to cope.

Perhaps starting at the beginning will help locate the problem.

How long have you had the stove?

Was it new or used when you got it?

Please describe the venting starting at the stove and going towards and including the termination cap.

Have you verified all of the gaskets on the stove as being good?

Describe how you clean the stove.

Let me see if I have your venting correctly figured out.

You have 4" venting with three 90 degree bends in it? The bends are the Tee, the 90 degree elbow then inside the chimney there is a 90 degree bend in the flex in order to meet the small section of horizontal?

You might want to see if the stoves combustion blower can handle the 3 90 degree bends.

Now how long is that flexible vent?

If there is a combustion blower trim adjustment on the control board I'd set the damper to the point that the pellets are just dancing around (wiggling) in the pot and fine tune using the trim control. If there is a feed trim control on the board I'd also adjust that to slightly lower the feed rate. The goal here is to match the fuel and air ratio for the best burn. Between the various controls you should be able to get the stove dialed in.

Remember each adjustment must be followed by enough time for the new state to stabilize. If you have a service manual that has the proper draft settings and a gage you can do this a lot faster.

Do not do any adjustments until the stove has been firing for at least a half hour.

The goal is an active yellow/orange tending towards yellow flame, with blue just above the burning pellets. At this point the pellets tend to wiggle in the burn pot and new pellets will eject ash when they hit the pot.

Smitty090 said:

.....I have only had the stove for approx 3 weeks.
Brand new

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OK, I'm confused....how can this be a "brand new" stove, when Whitfield hasn't made one, at the latest, since 2002?

You should do your adjustments at least midpoint (or wherever the manual suggests, some may say on high).

Use the damper as a rough tuning tool, then use the boards trim controls.

Pete ,

I wasn't going to go there.

If that truly is a Advantage II, according to the Wood Heat Stoves website, that stove was last made in 1990. $1000 for a stove that may be 20 yrs old???

No offense, but....I wouldn't care how "new" it is, after sitting around rusting/corroding all those years.

http://woodheatstoves.com/advantage-ii-c-292_90_99_95_254.html

Also, I don't care what the owners manual says about it being OK to have (3) 90 degree bends in the pipe.....your EVL right now is at least 28.....not good even with 4" pipe. I think that old combustion blower is struggling to exhaust the stove.

Now that we have established that the stove is not new, I'll ask one of the questions that old stoves need asked of them.

Did you torture it to within an inch of its life using compressed air, shop vacuums, various brushes, and after finding all of its ash traps?

Ok, I'll continue this tomorrow.

Smitty090 said:

When I woke up in the morning the fire was similar to before, changing the brand of pellets to Eastern Embers did not have any effect.
I further inspected the stove today and I can see my door gasket is not making an air tight seal in many places. I had some challenges getting it on and I believe after a little research it is because I stretched the gasket slightly while installing which I understand is improper.
Everything I read says to just lay the gasket in the groove without pull or stretching in any way. I can see light through several locations.
I will replace the gasket tomorrow doing it properly. Then with a proper seal, will resume testing and tweaking.

I dont know (about to read up on it more) but I dont know how much effect a non airtight gasket has on the performance but I have seen enough posts to assume it can definitely be a factor.

Although blurry from low light, you can see the corner is obviously open and another several spots along that one side. The bottom has an opening as well in it.

Cheers and Happy New Year to ALL!
Smitty

Click to expand...

I can make adjusting a stove impossible.

Now here is a challenge. All you high techers have a plain old analog stove, not compromised (never fired, right out of the box) no need to blow it's unused parts apart to clean (see above, paren) that will need for it's life more than one set and forget adjustment. There are more than three ways to adjust. The factory setting are recommendations, not rules. You can get it close by the pre-sets, but tweak you must. It is likely that there are "pots" on the control panel that will allow you some up and down adjustment. Don't use them until you are close. My stove have a center spot that took months to find, but now I can use the manual controls to get the stove to do my bidding. The feed rate went down a bit and the combustion setting went up a little. You are going to have to find those spots.

Now, Dance Of The Pellets, I seriously doubt that half the readers of this thread or forum have their stoves dialed in as close as you. What the factory says to them is good enough. The movement is intended as an indicator of sufficient movement of air through the burn-pot. Based on pot design and feed rate, some never dance and are only wall flowers, others only work in the mash-pit (sp?). Your stove is a little fuddy-duddy for the scrum, so doing the waltz or fox trot is very fine. The idea is enough air to keep the pellets burning and kit the ash out. A little hotter burn and the ash will be "lighter" too much junk in the pellets and not enough air will teach you the meaning of Clinker, the misfit of the pellet world. Make peace with your fox trot and carry on.

Build up of ash is a problem, it sounds like. Remember the pellets of your fathers day are not the pellets of today. However, your stove is like a '52 duce and a half. If it can be ignited it will burn. The tolerance of an older stove are lost on the new stoves with the pentium chips installed. Work on consistence in burn for starters and move to consistence in fuel later. Your ash build may well be a slightly low burn rate and the pellets you are using. I have burned the super premiums and find the ash as much as the generics, but I tend to tweak my stove every time I walk past it. Pick a "setting" pellet that is high quality, consistent in size and low/average in ash. Stick with it until you are satisfied with the working of the stove. Then tinker with the fuel. I burn a local softwood pellet from a commercial lumber mill. Same basic product, same process, same good old boys smashing wood fiber. My setting was done with "top of the line" pellets, that I won't touch for price now.

My last bad comparison is to the carburated vs fuel injected auto engines. You can infinitely adjust the carb, but the manufacturer limits the injectors. You have a nice Buick full size family car that will do you well. New to you and to the road, but it's still a very nice car. Personally, I'd take an out of the box, new old stock, classic over most of the new ones. What you paid for what you got is a bargain. Those who gripe about shelf wear and damage from rust and corrosion would likely complain that the zero mileage '66 Mustang tucked in the dealers warehouse was not worth anything except scrap. I have a "crated" duel port 1600cc Volks engine I won't sell for less than twice a rebuild, even though the engine was done in 2001, get the same hack about it you are getting about the stove.