MT VERNON AE problems

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patsfan73

New Member
Feb 8, 2011
12
central ME
I am currently in the middle of my 3rd heating season with a Quadra-fire Mt Vernon AE pellet stove and am wondering if anyone has any advice on what to do about a pellet stove that burns out ignitors way too often. My first season, the ignitor failed 3 times. Last year, at least 3 times and this year it just failed for the 3rd time and there is still lots of winter left up here. I cant even get through a ton of pellets without a failure. I clean the stove 2 or 3 times a week. I have the updated firepot, a new wall control, a new baffle.

I could tolerate the hassle of these failure until my warranty expired recently but, given the problems I have experienced with this stove, I dont really feel comfortable going through another heating season without warranty protection unless someone has some ideas on what could be going on with this stove that would cause these ignitors to fail so frequently. The dealer has, in general, been good to work with and seems willing to go to bat with Quadrafire on my behalf so we will see where that goes but I am wondering if anyone else has had ideas about what could be going on and how to fix??
 
patsfan The problem is that the ignitors are getting too hot that is what is causing the failure. Now to the cause cleaning is critical on these the big one that I see is the ash pan gets too full and does not let air to the ignitor chamber. Has your ash pan ever over filled? That will burn it out almost every time. have you cleaned out your air intake? behind your baffle? your venting? how is the stove vented? why did you have to replace your wall control?
 
patsfan The problem is that the ignitors are getting too hot that is what is causing the failure.

I think you are right on target here - the last time I changed one - it was all discolored and deformed....Must have gotten extremely hot to do that....

Now to the cause cleaning is critical on these the big one that I see is the ash pan gets too full and does not let air to the ignitor chamber. Has your ash pan ever over filled? That will burn it out almost every time

In general, I would say I do a good job emptying the ash pan although if I said it had never gotten overfilled - that would be a lie. After reading your comments - I will certainly focus more attention on keeping this clean. I would like to add however, that I still cant believe that this is a cleaning issue....You can almost set your calendar by that ignitor failing...Being an engineering myself, I would think that any reputable stove company would make sure their stove was engineered to handle the circumstance where a forgetful homeowner forgets to empty the ashpan and it overfills..

have you cleaned out your air intake?

I dont utilize the external air intake - I just pull from the room although I ususally take that blower apart and clean that area a couple times per year....As I am typing this - it makes me question whether the problem might be related to pulling air from the room rather than the outside....I think its safe to assume the outside air would be cooler and likely keep that heating element cooler???

behind your baffle?

I clean behind the baffle every couple weeks in the dead of winter and its really cold and the stove is cranking.....less frequently as spring approaches but still keep a close eye on the soot buildup and clean as necessary.

your venting? how is the stove vented?

When I was renovating my house, I decided the stove would work best in the center of the house so the stove is vented through the roof. Its quite a distance and travels through 1 ceiling and the roof. In hindsight, I would never have vented it this way - expensive and time consuming installation...Live and learn I guess...Could this contribute to problem also?? if venting arrangement prevents stove from getting rid of heat as quickly as it needs to then this could cause that element to get hot??

why did you have to replace your wall control?

The display just quit working...dealer said there was a recall from Quad anyway. Replaced under warranty.

Thanks a million for the advice...I think we might be close to finding a solution????
 
What fuel setting are you using? The corn setting will abuse the igniter's by keeping it on way too long.
Try backing the heat setting down one level or raise the thermostats room temp up a few degrees and set the temp differential at least 2 at degrees, this will keep the stove running longer and slow down the igniter usage. The utility pellet setting cleans too often and will cycle the igniter a lot. I use sunflower, hard or soft wood pellet settings in auto on the warmer days and on the cold ones manual 3 or 4. My stove is a 2006 model installed at the end of 2006 heating 2200 SQ FT and is on it's second igniter, replace the first one midway through last year, and I run the hell out of this stove. I am running a OAK on AE insert and it's vented straight up the 15 foot chimney. Keeping this stove clean is the key to longevity and efficiency.
The burn pot you replaced was it the upgraded one SRV 7034-072 to help with igniter burn out ?
 
there is an air intake shield directly behind the ash pan make sure that is not blocked with ash.
 
What fuel setting are you using? The corn setting will abuse the igniter’s by keeping it on way too long.
Try backing the heat setting down one level or raise the thermostats room temp up a few degrees and set the temp differential at least 2 at degrees, this will keep the stove running longer and slow down the igniter usage. The utility pellet setting cleans too often and will cycle the igniter a lot. I use sunflower, hard or soft wood pellet settings in auto on the warmer days and on the cold ones manual 3 or 4. My stove is a 2006 model installed at the end of 2006 heating 2200 SQ FT and is on it’s second igniter, replace the first one midway through last year, and I run the hell out of this stove. I am running a OAK on AE insert and it’s vented straight up the 15 foot chimney. Keeping this stove clean is the key to longevity and efficiency.
The burn pot you replaced was it the upgraded one SRV 7034-072 to help with igniter burn out ?

I usually burn on utility pellet because most pellets up here are a mix of hardwood and softwood. Have tried other settings but never noticed any major differences. Always run stove in manual - usually 3 or 4 in mild weather and 4 or 5 in cold weather. I have tried the automatic setting but dont like it - stove never seemed to react quick enough to changes in temp.. service tech told me that quad recommends using the manual setting also so I just stuck with his recommendation...

I dont know the part number on the burn pot but I do know it was the one that was supposed to help with ignitor burn out. Thanks
 
fluemasterjr said:
there is an air intake shield directly behind the ash pan make sure that is not blocked with ash.

when you say behind the ash pan, do you mean towards the front of the stove or the back of the stove??
 
There is a new burn pot that deals with the ignitor issue. It should be covered under warranty. Another solution that they tried that sort of worked was to use washers to move the ignitor away from the metal housing and giving more room for airflow. If you are on your 9th ignitor in 3 years you need some dealer support to correct this.

BIH
 
I have the updated burn pot already....they installed that this fall and we hoped that it would fix the problem but I just lost the second ignitor since new burnpot. I took out the ignitor at lunch and am going to go see the dealer this afternoon. I plan to push them on finding a solution because I agree that there is something else going on here
 
patsfan73 said:
I have the updated burn pot already....they installed that this fall and we hoped that it would fix the problem but I just lost the second ignitor since new burnpot. I took out the ignitor at lunch and am going to go see the dealer this afternoon. I plan to push them on finding a solution because I agree that there is something else going on here


I see that now in your above post. I have not burned out any since they put in the new pot. Now that I said that....

So you have burned out two ignitors with the new burn pot installed? Ya...something else is going on. I wonder how you could confirm it was the updated pot?

BIH
 
yeh - this will be my second ignitor since the new burn pot. When I am at the dealer this afternoon - I can ask then to take a look at the serial number and confirm that its is the updated fire-pot. I was there when the service tech replaced the fire-pot though....I remember that it was different than the one they took out.
 
1) Util pellets mode makes the stove shut down and restart more often, more stress on the ignitor

2) Who is installing the ignitors? Need to make sure it is centered nice in the housing and not touching any part of the firepot. There should be a spacer washer to help it center better. It should go like this on the screw post. Ignitor -> washer -> firepot -> washer -> wingnut. I think we have one customer who is on their 3rd ignitor (total, not this year), and that is the highest count I know of.
 
Thats interesting...I believe the new ignitors only come with one washer and it sounds like there should be two. I have been doing the installing and I usually have the washer on the outside of the bracket right underneath the wingnut....To my knowledge, there is nothing on the other side of the firepot bracket...I will have to make sure to change this....

Went to see the dealer yesterday.....I explained my situation and they quickly remembered who I was and the problems I was having with stove. Pulled up my account and found that new firepot was installed shortly before Christmas (with new ignitor), installed a second ignitor on the 17th of January, and then a third on the 8th of FEB (yesterday)....They called Quad while I was there and quad said their was an update for fuel tables.....they were quite pissed cause they had never heard anything about that but appeared optimistic it would fix the problem....Im not sure what to think about this repair...I have always felt that the problem had to do with the ignitor staying on too long and this is the first repair that could have an effect on this but seems like the dealer would have seen issues like this before???wait and see i guess
 
patsfan73 said:
Thats interesting...I believe the new ignitors only come with one washer and it sounds like there should be two. I have been doing the installing and I usually have the washer on the outside of the bracket right underneath the wingnut....To my knowledge, there is nothing on the other side of the firepot bracket...I will have to make sure to change this....

Went to see the dealer yesterday.....I explained my situation and they quickly remembered who I was and the problems I was having with stove. Pulled up my account and found that new firepot was installed shortly before Christmas (with new ignitor), installed a second ignitor on the 17th of January, and then a third on the 8th of FEB (yesterday)....They called Quad while I was there and quad said their was an update for fuel tables.....they were quite pissed cause they had never heard anything about that but appeared optimistic it would fix the problem....Im not sure what to think about this repair...I have always felt that the problem had to do with the ignitor staying on too long and this is the first repair that could have an effect on this but seems like the dealer would have seen issues like this before???wait and see i guess


only 1 washer came with my new ignitor. Washer is installed inside bracket to maintain equal space on sides of ignitior and walls of bracket.
 
Make sure it is centered in the housing perfectly and not touching anything. I think the second washer was just me adding an extra one (from the old ignitor).

Last time I knew about new fuel tables was a long time ago, but we dot not get very many AE service calls. I will have to check it out on my service netbook and see if there are any updates. Does your dealer have the netbook they can plug right into the wall control to run diagnostics?

Curious also, how many ton a year do you burn?
 
I think so...They said they couldnt get out to my house for about a week and a half because the netbook was at another store and they had to wait for the owner to bring it up.

I burn between 4 and 5 tons a year... it heats the entire downstairs in my house ( about 1500 square ft).....I also have a rinnai gas heater but try not to run it much cause its expensive....
 
Do you have the matching updated wall unit and board? An easy way to know is if you have the choice and usage of quiet and normal fan operation? If not, and with that many issues your warranty should have replaced them both.

BIH
 
You need both. Warranty should have covered and still should, even though it has expired.
 
Quad has a 90 day warranty on all service parts. If you would like you can look use up and give me a call I don't service your area but I can help you out over the phone. I am terrible at typing but i do know the AE's pretty well.
 
for the field update on the pot you put two washers on the wingnut and put them both inside the housing may want to try it that way. do you have a long horizontal vent by chance?
 
pats fan I sent you a pm
 
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