Santa Fe overflowing with pellets

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bookpile

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Mar 27, 2010
90
Southeastern PA
My Santa Fe has been working pretty well all winter but the other day I noticed that it had filled the burn pot with so many pellets that they were overflowing to the sides of the stove. The fire was beginning to burn up the pellet chute. I shut it off at the thermostat, turned it back on and it seemed to clear itself out.

I cleaned the stove inside and out. Worked fine for a little bit, but then it did it again the other day. It almost emptied the entire hopper into the stove. I have not checked the exhaust pipe yet, but I was just curious if anyone else had this problem or heard of it.

Thanks
 
Hmmm...I've never had that problem. Are all the holes in your burn pot cleared ? You didn't mention at what rate the pellets were dropping into the pot. Maybe you need to close the feeder inside the hopper. Remember that wood requires air to burn. Is the combustion fans working properly ?
 
I know you said you cleaned the stove "inside and out", but it still sounds like dirty stove, dirty combustion blower, or dirty exhaust pipe.....not enough air to burn pellets.
 
have you actually seen the pellets dropping? Is it a continuous stream or is it every few seconds? Have you checked the door gasket for tightness? Have you cleaned out all 8 of the little holes at the bottom of the burn pot? What heat level are you set at? High, Med, or Lo? Emptied the whole hopper into the fireplace? I just can't think of a scenario short of the auger running continuously.
 
tjnamtiw said:
have you actually seen the pellets dropping? Is it a continuous stream or is it every few seconds? Have you checked the door gasket for tightness? Have you cleaned out all 8 of the little holes at the bottom of the burn pot? What heat level are you set at? High, Med, or Lo? Emptied the whole hopper into the fireplace? I just can't think of a scenario short of the auger running continuously.
Click to expand...

^ x2
 
Pellet pile up is normally a sign of a dirty stove and by stove that means from the air intake through to and including the termination on the venting.

Another common cause is bad door gaskets or ash pan door gaskets (depending on stove)
 
No ash pan gaskets on the Sante Fe (insert anyway), Smokey. Yea, anything that bypasses the air coming through the holes in the burn pot would sure kill the burn quality.
 
Yeah, most likely a dirty stove ..
 
What color is the control box? It could be a dirty stove or it could be the integrated auger feed triac on the way out. They usually fail open, but sometimes will fail closed/shorted. Does the auger stay full on or does it still run on/off like it should when the pellets overflow?
 
No mention about the setting for auger feed rate. If it does the over-feeding when it's set to the lowest feed rate, then best look at turbotech's reply about the feed triac. It sounds like it's burning really hot if the flame is burning up into the chute, but that wasn't stated as a fact, so one has to surmise that the flame is excellent and is burning the pellets well, though there are too many pellets. That certainly wouldn't be a problem of a dirty stove.
 
Yep turbotech, could be the uncommon failure mode of the triac, any failure of which is also unlikely, so I'll stick with dirty stove syndrome, especially since after some cleaning it ran for a bit.

tjnamtiw, yes, but note the parenthetical about ash door gaskets, in the case of some Quads you also have that burn pot gasket which has been known to cause this situation.

arnash, If the flame is proper then it is just about impossible to overfeed the stove, but in the absence of any flame description, I would assume once again based on the stove operating for a bit after the cleaning that the flame was likely not even close to being proper.
 
Yea, Smokey. That's another possibility but we don't know anything because the OP had not fed back ANYTHING to us! We all are posting possibilities but without feedback, we can't help him.
 
It seems that upon start-up of my stove (Cold start) It dumps the same amount of pellets every time. But its on Thermo, and the stove is still warm, there seem to be more pellets that drop in the pot before ignition. Flame is much larger. If he said the flames are going up the chute, then I would assume that the flame was fairly large. Again, maybe its just my mind playing tricks on me. But pellet cosumption on a "Hot" start is higher. Has been this way since it was brand new. Only once was my pot about 1/3 full. That was because I had a dumb moment and hit the reset button after it had already dumped pellets in the pot (just before ignition) So it started its starting cycle all over. Twice as many pellets as normal. That was when I first got the stove and didn't know any better. I know he didn't day anything about hitting reset. He found it that way. Just sharing my Large fire story I guess. Quads have a 1 minute feed timer at start up. Is it possible that the board is bad and causing the timer and/or Auger to function incorrectly? Lots of suggestions. But no OP?
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
Yep turbotech, could be the uncommon failure mode of the triac, any failure of which is also unlikely, so I'll stick with dirty stove syndrome, especially since after some cleaning it ran for a bit.

tjnamtiw, yes, but note the parenthetical about ash door gaskets, in the case of some Quads you also have that burn pot gasket which has been known to cause this situation.

arnash, If the flame is proper then it is just about impossible to overfeed the stove, but in the absence of any flame description, I would assume once again based on the stove operating for a bit after the cleaning that the flame was likely not even close to being proper.
Click to expand...

I agree it is a less common failure, but his description of it emptying the hopper sure sounds like a stuck driver. It is easy to test if it is the later control box with diagnostic features. Just put it on test and let it do its thing and wait for the auger to stick full on.
 
My stove is pretty clean, the dealer just did a free cleaning a few weeks back when they were doing a repair and I noticed mine does the same things once in awhile also. Luckily it only does when I am looking ( I hope ) and I have to stop the stove open the door and take the excess pellets out by hand and put the stove on again it is fine. I would say it happened to me about 4 or 5 times so far.
 
Most control box designs are lacking in this area. Instead of sending power to the auger feed triac via a relay, they just feed it direct. If the triac fails short then it over fills the burn pot and the only thing that stops a run away fire is a thermal snap switch on the firebox.

Is the fire burning normal before the overflow, or is it just about burned out and then pellets come in and overflow?
 
pelletqueen77 said:
My stove is pretty clean, the dealer just did a free cleaning a few weeks back when they were doing a repair and I noticed mine does the same things once in awhile also. Luckily it only does when I am looking ( I hope ) and I have to stop the stove open the door and take the excess pellets out by hand and put the stove on again it is fine. I would say it happened to me about 4 or 5 times so far.
Click to expand...

Since the OP never came back, maybe you can answer some of the questions. :) And you've witnessed it when it happens, so that is a plus. Is it a continuous feed or just bunches of pellets at the normal intervals for starters?
 
Sorry for the long delay. I kind of stopped following the thread when I started getting the typical hearth.com response that my stove must be dirty. Also for some reason the auto notification for a thread response doesn't seem to be working. (No they're not in my junk mail).

The blower was set on high, with the hopper chute closed as far as possible when this was happening. All 8 holes were cleaned. The flames were so high and intense that they were hitting the top of the burn area and then rolling down the glass and sides so the entire inside area of the stove was engulfed. You couldn't even make out the burn pot. It was one of those situations where I was standing off to the side with a fire extinguisher.

Since I knew my door gasket was in pretty bad shape anyway, I ordered one from Eric at Brookfield stoves. He gave me a great price and was nice to deal with. I put the new gasket on this morning and the exact same thing happened right away. The auger was feeding almost continuously.

When I bought the stove, the PO had included a 2nd control box. I'm not sure what the story is on that. It was made two days after the one that was installed in the stove and had a higher serial number. He had the receipt and paid $180 for it. The model number is the same but the one has a red and the other has a blue plastic terminal on the side. Anyway I swapped it in for the old one and so far the stove is running great all day. One day I may try putting the old one back in to see if I can replicate the problem.

Thanks for the suggestion turbotech.
 
Well, too bad that you took the comments about dirty stoves harshly. If you had taken the time instead to have answered my question >> 'have you actually seen the pellets dropping? Is it a continuous stream or is it every few seconds? Have you checked the door gasket for tightness? Have you cleaned out all 8 of the little holes at the bottom of the burn pot? What heat level are you set at? High, Med, or Lo? Emptied the whole hopper into the fireplace? I just can’t think of a scenario short of the auger running continuously." by telling us that you had continuous feed, then we would have quickly told you that your control box was bad. AND Turbotech could have offered to fix your old one.

When you have 18 posts after your initial one and you don't take the time to reply or even check in, then don't blame us. We sure as heck tried to help you but without feedback, it's only guesswork and, of course, on suspect is always dirty stoves.
 
The comment wasn't necessarily directed at you. You actually suggested other things to take a look at. I should have posted back sooner but all I was saying is that it is slightly frustrating when the first thing you do is a clean your stove after you have a problem, the problem continues, you tell people that you cleaned your stove as the first remedy and all they can offer is that the stove is probably dirty.

No harm either way and I appreciate the help.
 
Glad you are running, in any event! If you are electrically inclined, there have been some good threads on repairing the Quad control boxes right down to what parts to replace.
 
Oh, as for those insisting on 'it's gotta be a dirty system', many stoves have some hidden passages that can't be accessed easily and later on the OP admits he never knew about them. In our case, though, the air path is pretty darn basic and almost idiot proof to get all the spots clean. That's probably why the efficiency sucks. :cheese:
 
It wouldn't be the first time I've done some soldering on a circuit board and I don't have anything to lose.

There are 10 heat exchanger tubes with an inside diameter of ~ 1 1/4". I'll take a picture of the control box and post it later.
 
bookpile said:
It wouldn't be the first time I've done some soldering on a circuit board and I don't have anything to lose.

There are 10 heat exchanger tubes with an inside diameter of ~ 1 1/4". I'll take a picture of the control box and post it later.
Click to expand...

I have the insert version and I also have 10 tubes. I was fooled by the ID when I was experimenting. They are about 1 1/4" at the end but they flare out. The actual ID 'should' be 1" or so. I did a bunch of experimenting along a bunch of other guys on ways to get some more heat out of the tubes and documented it all.

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/70161/
 
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