A couple of MT Vernon AE Questions......

As of now it only changes fuel feed settings and not auto clean.

If you set the flame height to a higher number it will handle the cold days better because it can burn more BTU's per hour. I does a clean based on the amount of pellets burned so, of course it will do more cleans if it is burning more pellets and they will be more often because the burn rate is higher. With the flame height turned up (I have run at +5 without any problems, scary but no problems) recovery after an auto clean will be faster. Remember that on auto the flame height setting is the max flame height setting. When the need for heat is less the stove will throttle back by itself.
My take on this is that you are starving your stove and complaining that it doesn't put out enough BTU'S.

I would love to see some pics of your stove running on +5 also a pic of what it looks like just before you do a cleaning
What fuel setting do you run on?
im gonna set it to +5 and try it out

Okay so here are some pics.I couldn't upload a video so I clipped some images from it. I am running on Greene Teams, the flame height +5 (max) and the stove has been running just long enough to get the convection blower up to max.






The pictures of ash are two or three days accumulation. I cleaned the window so that you could see, but it wasn't all that dirty. Mostly ash on the right upper side. Ash is light and fluffy.

Thanks for the pics Harv, so far on +5 the flame is no where as high as i thought it would be. So far i got an extra degree out of it. My only concern is to get a dirty burn. i cant really judge since i am due for a cleaning. Will try this again after a clean.
what setting you on? hardwood?

Yes, I started with utility and move to hardwood when I got the Lignetics. I continued with the hardwood setting when I got the Greene Teams.
Just some comments; I sometimes see flames nearly as large on the +3 setting, just not as consistently. On the +5 setting some of the flames disappear into the down draft section behind the plate.

Holy HOT +5 is insane Harv my pot has never had so much fire instead of a torch like fire, this fire was full solid thru out the pot.Blazing like an infero ( not the pellet ) I usually hold my hand 12 inches away from the heat output and count to 5 before i have to move it. At that setting i count to 1 ! OUCH ! i turned it down to +2 im fearing overfiring the stove right now. Definatley will play with this more next week when the cold is due to set back in. i didnt like the noise it was making either im sure its the metal dinking from the heat

Cast iron makes weird noises when it is expanding or contracting. First time I heard it was from a cast iron boiler that the tech drained quickly, while it was still hot. Loud and scary but it didn't do any harm to the boiler. I have since learned to ignore it.
I have measured (thermocouple) convection air temperatures as high as 230 on flame height +3. More typical though is around 200.

Okay, I showed you mine, now you show me yours.

HEY! I'm not into that kind of stuff!

here is a video set it to +5 and started recording gets blazing at the end. Like i said earlier i am due for a cleaning today so it is dirty, and i been mixing pellets that dont help
View My Video

Flame size looks similar but somehow more solid. That could be an illusion, your camera was closer to the stove than mine. Ash consistency looks similar.
It's good to do a comparison every now and then to see that the stove is performing as it should. It's easy for the slow subtle changes to go unnoticed.
Thanks.

Smaller pellet? more in the pot? Thats what i noticed the whole pot was flamed

Ok, I can buy into this. I am not feeding as many pellets at -4 thus it is not producing the heat. The only reason I did this what I was scared of the flame height but if that is not an issue I will give it try. Little concerned about the amount of increased pellets I would be burning. But if I only do this when it is real cold out should not be an issue. Do you run +3 to +5 all the time? Can you quantify the increase amount of pellets you burn? Why not do this on softwood and get a longer run time? My understanding is the time between auto cleans is longer in softwood than hardwood.

softwood you get less air i was told. I know one thing if i run on softwood i get stove cake formations i'll call them,in the ashbox. not hard they fall apart
on Hardwood i get mostly ash and a few small clumps here and there
I know i get less time on hardwood but considering the ash in the box it has to be running better
as far as pellet consumption i guess thats a decision for you to make.

Thanks I will give it try. If it keeps the house hotter then that will mean a happier wife and we all know that is what is important
Also, Harvey appreciate the help, just want to be clear, I am not complaining at all just trying to learn how to get the most out of the stove and make the wife happier.....which what I devote my life too

The stove has a thermostat and it will burn pellets proportional to the demand for heat, just like your boiler or furnace. There's no magic here, wood pellets are somewhere in the 8300 BTU per pound range and the stoves are somewhere around 78% efficient if they are burning properly. If your house needs 50K BTU per hour to stay warm you can't get it from two bags a day. Those two bags can only give you about 22K BTU per hour.
Why do pellet stove owners think there is a free ride. They want massive amounts of heat out and they only want to burn one bag of pellets a day.
I'm sorry this rant is not aimed at anybody. I've just been through this discussion too many times in the past few days.

Edit: I feel much better now. Sorry and thanks.

Glad you feel better and thank Harvey. To answer your question I think its because most of us got into this because we wanted to save money over oil thus we all try to keep the pellet consumption as low as possible to save $$. At least that is my story. Although, in this case I was not doing it on purpose when I was keeping the stove a -4, was adjusting that based on the flame height not pellet consumption. Guess the light bulb should have went off for me that this meant lower heat output also but well I have never been accused of being that quick......but that's a story for another forum.

Did you guys ever try running your hardwoods on the high elevation settings? I have found that when burning dense pellets like Turman, Hamer etc. it runs much better with the high elevation setting because it introduces more combustion air to the burn pot, thus a hotter fire. Also you would probably be able to lower your flame height as well, saving pellets.

I have no idea what that does to burn efficiency. Hotter fire, more hot air up the vent....?
I have to assume that the Engineers that designed the stove and its burn algorithms know more about stove combustion than I do.

Well, a denser pellet requires more combustion air, the AE has no way to adjust airflow other than the individual fuel settings and how they are pre- programmed. The high elevation does provide more airflow, I also found this useful when I burned corn as well.

Yes I have done this. Problem one the consumption does go up very high but it does produce high heat. The second problem is when you do this it makes the unit change the original fuel tables and loses the updates. Thus it goes back to more frequent auto cleaning. The new fuel tables have extended the run time between auto cleans. Thus, I will not be doing this again.

How much longer have the run times been extended for each fuel type?

I am not sure Eric may know.

I was aware of the new tables being erased, which I personally think is a dumb set up, but for me it was worth it to get the extra air I needed, especially when burning corn.