Can cold weather impact how the stove runs?

[buggs_moran]

My Breckwell P4000 Classic Cast is vented straight through the wall. About 2.5 feet of 3" with a 45 down angle at the end. Is it possible for temperatures under a certain amount to influence how the stove functions? When is was below 20 the other day we had all kinds of issues with the stove not running properly. Its above 20 now and everything seems fine. The stove has run well for over a day... Would it be a good idea to run some vertical pipe?

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

My Breckwell P4000 Classic Cast is vented straight through the wall. About 2.5 feet of 3" with a 45 down angle at the end. Is it possible for temperatures under a certain amount to influence how the stove functions? When is was below 20 the other day we had all kinds of issues with the stove not running properly. Its above 20 now and everything seems fine. The stove has run well for over a day... Would it be a good idea to run some vertical pipe?

Did you change the firing rate on that stove when it was colder?

While contemplating that question tell us all about how the combustion blower on that unit operates and the need if any to adjust your draft when you change the firing rate, a lot of Breckwells run their combustion blowers full speed and thus need to have a different draft setting for each firing rate.

 

[buggs_moran]

I tried putting the stove on the second setting (there are four, but the fourth burns WAY too hot). The stove did stay on the longest at this setting. I have what might be a related post (quoted below) describing how the convection blower oscillates (and this all seems to have started during a windy, cold (15 deg F) night...

I can start the stove and it runs fine for a while, anywhere from a 1/2 hour to 6 hours. The convection blower seems to have an inconsistent flow of power to it. It wavers in how fast it’s going. Sometimes it sounds fine though… During the 15 min startup I sometimes notice the dropoffs or cycling (very minute most of the time) in power to the convection blower. Once in a while during the startup, it will stop completely and then start back up seconds later. When the stove finally decides to shut down I’ve noticed the panel becomes unresponsive.

I’ve cleaned everything, including the blowers. The only thing I haven’t tried is testing the limit switches. I’m not 100% positive how to do this. I’ve read that I just need to pull the leads off the switches one by one and put a jumper wire between the leads, is this correct?

This fluctuation has disappeared entirely. I'm not positive if its because the outside temp went up or not. Rather baffling...

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

The only thing that colder temperature would impact is the need to up the firing rate, on some stoves you also have to change the draft otherwise you get an incomplete burn with all of its attendant problems, now if your convection blower starts acting strange when you increase the firing rate chances are that it is loaded with dust and crud, hasn't been lubricated according to instructions (if it has oil ports), the air inside the stove shell is hotter than the thermal protection on the blower allows, the stove is overheating (some stoves just stop the pellet flow and resume it when the temperature falls), your controller is wonky, or the pof is wonky (this usually also results in the combustion blower also acting strange, but really depends upon the stove).