Castle Serenity, Duravent kit. Window clearence +

[Polar Bear]

Mine did this my first year... essentially had to do a semi-annual clean on it a month in. It's been running great for three years now. Just really keep on top of cleaning...especially with that horizontal pipe.

 

[Cossy]

have you left it burn for a week with out cleaning it.

Te

Tech support advised returning it as it shouldn't be letting smoke into the room due to being a sealed unit......... now I am very weary and reluctant to install the second one I have....

 

[rich2500]

Plenty of folks on here that don't have problems with smoke,could have just got a lemon ,but I wouldn't hesitate to install the replacement,heck most any other company would not have even given a replacement they would have horsed you around for who knows how long and blammed the problem on you.

 

[Deezl Smoke]

With the exhaust horizontal only, there is no stack effect, or "chimney effect", so the stove relies completely on the exhaust fan. Those fans are really not all that powerful and the door seal is made for vacuum not pressure. So even with the exhaust fan running, if you have any air movement that could pressure the outside air pipe and the exhaust pipe, being so close to the ground, I wonder if you have a pressure situation going on rather than a vacuum?

My serenitys do not have the outside air pipe installed. I have instead a house vent system that I made and installed where the old stand alone gas furnace exited the wall. But I do have a vertical "chimney" outside the wall to get a chimney effect to aid exhaust in a power outage situation or the like. But I have found that they will on occasion, allow that "wiff" of smoke. I cant see the smoke, but just get a small, close tot ehs tove smell of the ignition smoke. I determined this on mine to be the exhaust fan setting not at the proper ratio to the combustion air gate setting. So when the box fills with smoke, the gate is open too far for the fan setting and not enough vacuum has been created. But that is only my opinion, and I am not a pellet stove expert by any means.

The over temp shut down is interesting. I cant help but wonder if the heat exchange fan is running too slow, or if it is not installed properly or something.

 

[Cossy]

Plenty of folks on here that don't have problems with smoke,could have just got a lemon ,but I wouldn't hesitate to install the replacement,heck most any other company would not have even given a replacement they would have horsed you around for who knows how long and blammed the problem on you.

They didn't give me a replacement, my wife ordered two . We had ordered them online through Ace and they were delivered to a local lumber yard/Ace hardware. Tech support kinda dicked around a bit but I wouldn't let them off with much. I had to call Ace to return the faulty unit. Customer service were great, took the ball and ran with it... very nice... I installed the second one a few days ago, it didn't light first try so I checked the positioning of the burn pot as someone mentioned here previously and it lit on the second go. its been running for a few days and its noticeably different from the other one.
As this is my first Pellet stove, how often should I be cleaning it? and how is it done right?
I've seen videos of people cleaning the chimney with leaf blower I wasn't expecting that.

Thanks for the help it is much appreciated.

 

[Marina1327]

They didn't give me a replacement, my wife ordered two . We had ordered them online through Ace and they were delivered to a local lumber yard/Ace hardware. Tech support kinda dicked around a bit but I wouldn't let them off with much. I had to call Ace to return the faulty unit. Customer service were great, took the ball and ran with it... very nice... I installed the second one a few days ago, it didn't light first try so I checked the positioning of the burn pot as someone mentioned here previously and it lit on the second go. its been running for a few days and its noticeably different from the other one.
As this is my first Pellet stove, how often should I be cleaning it? and how is it done right?
I've seen videos of people cleaning the chimney with leaf blower I wasn't expecting that.

Thanks for the help it is much appreciated.

I vacuum mine pretty much every two days. The burnpot I empty before every light. The main thing I do is vacuum under the burnpot and inside the ignition tube. Then vacuum the firebox and clean the glass. I recently emptied the hopper completely and vacuumed out the leftover fines/sawdust..there was a good bit in there. I have burned about a ton of pellets. I have yet to clean out the venting. This is my first season with it, so unless I see any issues I am going to wait on the venting cleanout until spring and let the pellet stove guy do that.

 

[rich2500]

Cossy glad to here you were taken care of,Marina covered the cleaning pretty well but one other area I vaccum weekly is the exhaust chamber on the bottom left hand side of the burnpot, I can get my shop vac hose in there all the way back to the fan. My exhaust vent I run a brush through before the season and again mid season.