A Few Quadrafire Questions Please

[Wilbur Feral]

Hello Everyone,

I just changed out my Quad MVAE ignitor after waking up to a cold house. It fixed the problem, hopefully for another couple of years. But before I order another spare, I thought of a few somewhat related questions, please:

1) How often does a thermocouple go bad? Considering that the whole stove is kaput without it I could see ordering a spare, but then again I could get one in a couple of days if push came to shove. At $80 + it's not something I want to just have sitting around for years, but this is season # 6 on the stove, and probably ignitor 3 or 4, so... Anyone have some experience with that? Kap? DMKNLD? Others?

2) I switched to the 300 watt ignitor for the MVAE years ago and it works great (I burn only pellets). I also hace a Santa Fe insert and was hoping the Santa Fe used the same ignitor, but it looks like that may not be the case. All I see online is reference to a 380 watt ignitor with a different part number. Anyone know if there's a 300 watt ignitor for the Santa Fe, if so how well it works, and - may as well hope - whether the one I keep around for the MVAE will work on the Santa Fe?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[kappel15]

Hey WF. If you look on Amazon, you can get igniters for under 30.00. I would not use a 300 watt igniter in the Santa Fe. It is not on long enough as with the AE. I am on my original thermocouple. Main thing is to keep a cover on them, and they will last a while. It is a question all of us have to ask ourselves, on how many spare parts we want to keep on hand. Isn't just a thermocouple on the AE that will take it down. Control board, power supply, fans, etc. kap

 

[DMKNLD]

Hey WF,

RE igniter compatibility: as far as I know the newest generation SRV7000-462, 812-3811 igniter will work in any Quad stove with the updated EZ clean burn pot. As far as T-C's go, it seems anecdotally that they last longer than igniters do, but not as long as the blower and auger motors typically. Though with more after-market Quad knock-off parts available now bets are off on parts longevity it seems in general.

For folks who run two pellet stoves, when it comes to keeping spare parts in stock, it makes sense to have them be compatible models, ie Santa Fe and Castile, so one replacement part can be swapped into either stove model.

Advantage of having a T-C on hand as a spare vs say an igniter, is that you can still manually start the stove while you wait for a new igniter, where-as a crapped out T-C will shut you down, once it's done. Even trying to be careful cleaning the fire pot I still bang the T-C around, which has got to be tough on the wire filaments and the solder blob over time, together with the # of heating cycles it goes through. Keeping it fully inserted in the ceramic cover and clear of ash build-up no doubt prolongs the T-C life span. Just my .02, FWIIW.

Cheers, DK

 

[Wilbur Feral]

Thanks gents!