bad pellets or rotten stove?

[katecurry]

I am sitting on 12 tons of Clean fire Pellets from American Bio Mass. Ordered them from pelletsales.com. I beleive they are their own brand. Since I started burning them I have had three hopper fires from burn pot build up. Stove and vent are both clean. The stove is a Vulcan F-22, which I think is a Breckwell 22....I call Dansons for support tech. It was manufactured by Canadian Comfort Industries. I am thinking of buying a new stove but before I shell out 3500 for a Harmon I was wondering if it is the fuel and not the stove. Anyone out there have any issues with this fuel. Any other advice about the stove would be great too!
KC
South Jersey

 

[jtakeman]

katecurry,

See if you have a nabor or friend nearby that has a pellet stove. Trade them a few bags for theres.

They can try yours-you can try theres. I do it with me friends all the time. This way we can see what is better for our stoves.

I have had issues with ashy pellets and my Breckwell bigE. If there is a lot of ash in the firepot your asking for trouble. Try cleaning the pot more often. Couple times a day. might help! Also try to use as much damper air as posiable.

Jay

 

[dave1966]

HI KATECURRY I'M IN SOUTH JERSEY ALSO CUMBERLAND COUNTY IF YOUR NEAR I WOULD TRADE YOU A COUPLE BAGS TO TRY

 

[investor7952]

I am sitting on 12 tons of Clean fire Pellets from American Bio Mass. Ordered them from pelletsales.com. I beleive they are their own brand. Since I started burning them I have had three hopper fires from burn pot build up. Stove and vent are both clean. The stove is a Vulcan F-22, which I think is a Breckwell 22....I call Dansons for support tech. It was manufactured by Canadian Comfort Industries. I am thinking of buying a new stove but before I shell out 3500 for a Harmon I was wondering if it is the fuel and not the stove. Anyone out there have any issues with this fuel. Any other advice about the stove would be great too!
KC
South Jersey

I am not an expert but if I had 1 hopper fire let alone 3 I would put that stove in the nearest GARBAGE ! Its not the pellets I dont care what pellets you are burning you should NEVER HAVE A HOPPER FIRE !

 

[JBlank912]

3 hopper fires would be spooky. If the stove is clean, I don't think you should ever have a hopper fire.

I just started using the cleanfire. I was using mostly Penningtons before. What I noticed is the Cleanfire burn much hotter. I have an IR thermometer. I measure the glass since it seems to mimic the output pretty closely and is easier to measure. The Penningtons burned at about 450 on average with the range being 420 to 510. The clean fire burn in the low 500's and up. I've measured over 600 already many times. I started lowering the heat setting/feed rate to make up for it. The Lopi Yankee has 6 heat settings. On cold days/nights I was setting it to 5(2green/2Yellow/1Red light). With the Clean fire I'm using 3 (2green/1Yellow light) with a 4 occassionally. It seems to heat up the room much faster regardless. I wonder if this is part of your problem? Do they seem to be burning too hot?

 

[stoveguy2esw]

having 3 hopper fires , its time to look at the stove not the pellets, you should not have them like that , somthing is happening to the stove which is triggering this. even bad pellets should not cause hopper fires.

granted bad pellets can cause problems, but you have somthing else which needs to be corrected that has to do with the stove itself , or the install. not beating on ya, i dont mean to sound like i am , but bad pellets dont cause hopper fires by themselves

 

[stoveguy2esw]

3 hopper fires would be spooky. If the stove is clean, I don't think you should ever have a hopper fire.

I just started using the cleanfire. I was using mostly Penningtons before. What I noticed is the Cleanfire burn much hotter. I have an IR thermometer. I measure the glass since it seems to mimic the output pretty closely and is easier to measure. The Penningtons burned at about 450 on average with the range being 420 to 510. The clean fire burn in the low 500's and up. I've measured over 600 already many times. I started lowering the heat setting/feed rate to make up for it. The Lopi Yankee has 6 heat settings. On cold days/nights I was setting it to 5(2green/2Yellow/1Red light). With the Clean fire I'm using 3 (2green/1Yellow light) with a 4 occassionally. It seems to heat up the room much faster regardless. I wonder if this is part of your problem? Do they seem to be burning too hot?

600F is too hot , by standards , pellet exhaust should never top 500F plus ambient temp(or inlet air temp) pellet vent pipe is usually not rated to 600F, if you are hitting temps like that coming out the front of the stove you will want to see what the exhaust temps are

 

[TomPajak]

I am sitting on 12 tons of Clean fire Pellets from American Bio Mass. Ordered them from pelletsales.com. I beleive they are their own brand. Since I started burning them I have had three hopper fires from burn pot build up. Stove and vent are both clean. The stove is a Vulcan F-22, which I think is a Breckwell 22....I call Dansons for support tech. It was manufactured by Canadian Comfort Industries. I am thinking of buying a new stove but before I shell out 3500 for a Harmon I was wondering if it is the fuel and not the stove. Anyone out there have any issues with this fuel. Any other advice about the stove would be great too!
KC
South Jersey

I am not an expert but if I had 1 hopper fire let alone 3 I would put that stove in the nearest GARBAGE ! Its not the pellets I dont care what pellets you are burning you should NEVER HAVE A HOPPER FIRE !

AMEN

 

[investor7952]

3 hopper fires would be spooky. If the stove is clean, I don't think you should ever have a hopper fire.

I just started using the cleanfire. I was using mostly Penningtons before. What I noticed is the Cleanfire burn much hotter. I have an IR thermometer. I measure the glass since it seems to mimic the output pretty closely and is easier to measure. The Penningtons burned at about 450 on average with the range being 420 to 510. The clean fire burn in the low 500's and up. I've measured over 600 already many times. I started lowering the heat setting/feed rate to make up for it. The Lopi Yankee has 6 heat settings. On cold days/nights I was setting it to 5(2green/2Yellow/1Red light). With the Clean fire I'm using 3 (2green/1Yellow light) with a 4 occassionally. It seems to heat up the room much faster regardless. I wonder if this is part of your problem? Do they seem to be burning too hot?

I would like some info on that thermometer.What is it called? How hot does it read and how do u mount it? I know I have pellets that dont burn as hot as others .The only way I can tell is to just see the room temp.I know that isnt as accurant as reading heat directly from the stove.I have tryed hold a hand held where the hot air blows out but that isnt too accuraant either.Please give a little info .
Where abouts in nj are you. I am in sussex county
Thanks

 

[TomPajak]

hey guys... would this work well for getting temperature of stove?
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=96451

 

[investor7952]

I use those temp guns at work to read a heat drum we use in our printing process.It reads surface temp just fine.The lazer is just a gimick.It just shows where you are reading it has nothing to do with reading temp. You can shoot the beam across a room but you still need to be about 2-3 ft from surface you want to read. My employees at work think just because the lazer is on the heat drum it is reading accuratly. You get a different reading if you stand 3 ft or 6 ft,but most are fooled because they think the red lazer dot is reading the temp.
But they do work well and they do need to be sent out from time-time to be recalibrated.
I am interested in reading the temp of the hot air being blown out of the blower vents.I just ordered a magnetic temp gauge I will stick over one of the vents.It was only 16 bucks.