Raising Air intake shield--Mt. Vernon AE

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pelletkrzd

New Member
Jan 2, 2010
75
northwest NJ
Any thoughts, pros or cons to raising the air intake shield in the back of the ash pan on an AE, I do not have an OAK. I just did thorough cleaning and while vacuuming area decided to raise it a 1/4 inch to see if burn is affected @ all. Too early for me to tell stove is just coming to temp. HAs anyone tried this before for those hard to burn dense pellets. I have burned Barefoots on corn this season (due to clinker issues for 1st time) and was happy with results but did not care for extended time ignitor was on. Will this allow more air to flow into fire pot. Cant see it doing any harm to stove. Your thoughts, ideas, suggestions, would be appreciated. I Will update later with findings.
 
I am interested in your findings, I too am burning my hamer pellets on corn setting, for max air and to help with clinkers. Is the air intake shield mounting holes slotted to allow you to raise it? I havn't looked at it that close, I am at work right now. Let us know what you find. After work tonight, I am going to dealer to pick up autoclean springs, i am going to replace them tonight. I have a small gap on my pot floor and I was thinking this may be letting air get in around the floor, helping to cause the clinkers and sticking to the pot sides and not dropping out. I have also found some unburnt pellets in my ashpan which is suppossed to be because of these springs. My stove is an '09, so maybe your springs are weak too. I know they came out with stiffer springs because they had problems with them. when I called dealer to see if he had some I gave him the part number from my manual and he told me the number changed so this tells me they changed the springs since my stove was made.
 
tsmith said:
I am interested in your findings, I too am burning my hamer pellets on corn setting, for max air and to help with clinkers. Is the air intake shield mounting holes slotted to allow you to raise it? I havn't looked at it that close, I am at work right now. Let us know what you find.


Yes shield is slotted to allow for some movement, or removed completely it appears. Someone made mention of vacuuming this area well to assist somebody that was having ignitor failure issues (thought maybe enough air was not being drawn to prevent igintor from becoming too hot). That got me thinking. So when doing a good cleaning today thought I would check it out. My screws were loose (unknown if set this way from factory or not) so I decided to raise it some and tighten in place. After a good vacuuming back there of course. I will keep you posted.

Let me know please if new springs fix the issue, perhaps time for new ones here as well!!!
 
This shield was an update on my stove. It was added by my dealer the 2nd season. I think he said it was to eliminate the growling noise that happened once in a while. I took mine off about a week ago and didn't put it back on as a test. I have not noticed any dif in the clinkers or burn.

BIH
 
I don't think raising the shield will make any difference in air flow, the shield is very much open on the top. You can try opening the ash pan slightly to allow more air flow to see if it burns any different. Enviably the stoves fire pot can only take in a limited amount of combustion air through it's holes.
 
It was an update to stop the rumbling that the stove had at the start
 
pelletkrzd said:
tsmith said:
I am interested in your findings, I too am burning my hamer pellets on corn setting, for max air and to help with clinkers. Is the air intake shield mounting holes slotted to allow you to raise it? I havn't looked at it that close, I am at work right now. Let us know what you find.


Yes shield is slotted to allow for some movement, or removed completely it appears. Someone made mention of vacuuming this area well to assist somebody that was having ignitor failure issues (thought maybe enough air was not being drawn to prevent igintor from becoming too hot). That got me thinking. So when doing a good cleaning today thought I would check it out. My screws were loose (unknown if set this way from factory or not) so I decided to raise it some and tighten in place. After a good vacuuming back there of course. I will keep you posted.

Let me know please if new springs fix the issue, perhaps time for new ones here as well!!!
I installed the springs tonight, they are much stiffer than the old ones and a pain in the ass to install. However, I was able to put the stove on hardwood setting normal elevation -5 flame height and I have a very hot active flame. So far it is burning much better, I will let ya know if it solves the clinker problem tomorrow after I empty ashes.
 
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