Time to replace stove?

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pt0872

Member
Oct 8, 2006
43
Carver, Mass
My wife and I have had a Whitfield prodigy for probably 3 seasons.....just in the last few weeks the stove
has been causing the lights in my house to dim....seems like every time the auger kicks in. I had an electrician
come by today and he checked the house panel and the outlet, everything is fine.

The stove is getting old, the pellets are backing up the chamber all the time and we're cleaning it on a daily basis.

But with the lights dimming because of the auger, does that seem about right?
 
pt0872 said:
My wife and I have had a Whitfield prodigy for probably 3 seasons.....just in the last few weeks the stove
has been causing the lights in my house to dim....seems like every time the auger kicks in. I had an electrician
come by today and he checked the house panel and the outlet, everything is fine.

The stove is getting old, the pellets are backing up the chamber all the time and we're cleaning it on a daily basis.

But with the lights dimming because of the auger, does that seem about right?

That auger kicks in a lot are you saying your lights dim several times a minute?
 
No...maybe every 5-10 minutes but the lights go very very dim. Kindof like we're losing power.

The electrician didnt check the stove but said everything was fine up to the stove.

Lights dont dim with just the blower on, only when the auger is on.

And like I said, we clean this thing everyday.
 
Unless your lights are on the same circuit as the stove I doubt if there is any way that an auger motor starting up could cause them to dim.

On the other hand power fluctuations in a house can lead to all kinds of problems with a pellet stove.

There is a person here on hearth.com has the handle Snowy Rivers she has the same stove you do why don't you send her a PM via this link: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/cost/messages/pm/20023/ explaining what is going on. I'm sure she would be more than willing to help you figure out what is going on.
 
Thanks inferno....will do.

Didnt know there were traps behind the bricks.....K now I'm feeling stupid.

What's behind there that would cause me problems?
 
pt0872 said:
Thanks inferno....will do.

Didnt know there were traps behind the bricks.....K now I'm feeling stupid.

What's behind there that would cause me problems?

Ash lots of ash ....
 
SNOWY IS A SHE???????????????
 
It sure sounds like you have a dead short somewhere! Did your electrician witness the dimming of the lights? Do you have aluminum wiring? I would call back your electrician and have him check the current flow on your appliances and not just your stove. Since it doesn't happen every time the auger turns, it would be a coincidence that something else is cycling every 5 minutes. Perhaps your refrigerator or a freezer. They draw much more current than the tiny auger motor. Is your main heater still on and cycling. Could be that it is causing the brown out. Something is either drawing way too much current or it is causing a loose connection in your panel box to create extra resistance. Something is definitely wrong!!!!! I hope you have working smoke detectors. I worry for you.
 
pt0872 said:
But with the lights dimming because of the auger, does that seem about right?

I'm with what TJ says.

It sounds fishy to me that the auger motor would cause light to dim. I'm thinking it's more likely something else up with the house wiring. Like someone mentioned it's key to find out if the dimming lights are on the same circuit. Couple things you could do to isolate the problem:

1.) If you have a volt meter, stick it in the same outlet as the stove with the stove plugged into the other half of the outlet. Note the voltage with the stove off. Turn the stove on (not familiar with your particular model, but I presume it has auto-ignition.) The start up phase draws the most current b/c you've got a heater, auger, and combustion motor going. Compare the voltage now with the stove off reading. First reading should be somewhere between 115V and 120V. Second reading should only be a couple of volts lower, indicating that you've nice sound connections between your panel and that outlet, and the dimming of the lights may be unrelated. Any more than a couple of volts drop may be a sign of a poor connection somewhere.

2.) With the stove off, plug a portable hair dryer into the same outlet and turn it on briefly. That draws almost 3 times the current as the stove, and will cause the light to dim even more then the stove (still pointing to a wiring problem).

Please don't let this go to long without getting it resolved. A drastic dimming could mean arcing at a poor connection somewhere.
 
I'm keeping my 'lectricians hat in the closet these days. My knees got shot rewiring the house before this.

But dimming lights isn't good news.

Something is rotten in the electrical system somewhere.

Besides even if in the least likely scenario of the auger motor causing it, a simple replacement of that motor would make more sense than replacing the stove.
 
? to ask your electrician
did put amprobe on the circuit to the pellet stove while stove was running
is it a dedicated circuit to stove
did he check neutrals at panel including main
let me know what he tells you i am a electrician for 32 year now i will try to help you .
 
Did I hear my name mentioned ??????? Whoa

Yup Missy snowy is a SHEEEEEEEEEEEEE

OK the Prodigy is a good little stove.

Having the lights dim that badly should blow a fuse long before the lights dim.

These little stoves are a really simple little devil. Now is your stove the one with the exhaust fan in the upper housing ??

The later models (mine) have the exhaust fan and also the combination room air fan/combustion booster combination.

The lower fan is tied in to supply room air as well as having a shunt tube that feeds a small amount of air into the fire pot.

The fan is controled by the fuel feed rate knob.

The auger motor only draws about 1.5 amps max.

I am inclined to believe that a good cleaning and servicing and possibly a fresh auger motor will get the little Prodigy up and going again.

Make sure the auger is not jammed.

You may also want to try and connect the stove to another outlet using a heavy duty extension cord and see what happens.

Having lights dim way down is not right.

Keep us posted

Ms Snowy
 
kinglew said:
loose neutral will cause lights to dim

I was kind of surprised he didn't check for tightness on all the connections in the main box. When he heard 'dimming lights', he should have really started digging. I also wondered if they had aluminum wiring for that same reason.
 
Thanks for the advise all.....

Yes it's the stove with the fan on top.

The electrician went into the panel and checked all the wires with his meter.

Just noticing now and we're watching it, we usually have the stove set on 2 when we're home and that's when we
notice the lights dim.

Since the electrician left we've had the stove running on 1 and havent noticed the lights dim yet.

House was built in 1958 so I can't be sure if it's a direct line.

Probably going to trace out an outlet and see if i can find one that's direct.
 
OK, aluminum wiring wasn't used until the mid 60's so that's good news. He checked the wires with his meter but did he tighten all the connections???? I just can't believe a tiny motor like that is dimming all your lights unless it's a direct short. I'm not familiar with your stove but I would assume the auger runs the same speed on all settings but for just different intervals like it does on mine so I can't see how running it on a lower setting would make a difference.
Do you have a volt meter or a Kill a Watt? Google the last one to see what that is. http://www.amazon.com/P3-Internatio...F29Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296179874&sr=8-1 Very handy.

I would get the electrician back in and have him do like Smokey and Kinglew said.
 
really doesnt sound like the pellet stove to me. i've had that happen to me in the past, various things have caused it. heres my list of culprits.

1. sump pump (was faulty)
2. forgot i left air compressor on in the garage. yes it leaks
3. basement dehumidifier frozen.
4. 2 air conditioners cycled on at the same time every now and then.
5. faulty external well pump
6. 1 air conditioner frozen

could be something you forgot is on somewhere that cycles itself every so often. i doubt its the pellet stove, it doesnt draw enough juice to dim lights even if it were on the way out.
you could try checking it with a kill a watt tho, if you cant isolate anything else as the cause.

my fridge never broke but that could easily be it as someone else has suggested.
 
I agree totally with the good Doctor!
 
the electrician just check voltage at main panel that's all he did ?
i hope he did not charge much .
plug stove into another outlet run at higher setting post results
do you have access to a amp meter ?
 
I think you should forget the auger motor. We all know that that if it is drawing enough amps to dim lights that motor would be smoked long ago! it would have to draw 10-15 amps to do that and those little motors will not take that. The kill-a-watt meter would trouble shoot that it one cycle of lights dimming and most likely rule the stove out. It would be cheaper to buy one and do this test than pay the initial service call to sparky. When you rule stove out then have him or someone else dig deeper. Almost sounds like a chest freezer with a bad compresser trying to start.
 
rickwa said:
Almost sounds like a chest freezer with a bad compresser trying to start.

That was one of my guesses too. I just wouldn't wait too long to get 'sparky' back out there.
 
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