Englander 25PAH sooty burn

[farmgirl1985]

3" pipe 24" from back of stove thru the wall to outside. An elbow and 24" up another elbow then the cap.

 

[farmgirl1985]

1st pic is inside. Phone is being picky I'll try to post the outside pics too

 

[farmgirl1985]

1st pic is inside. Phone is being picky I'll try to post the outside pics too

1st pic is inside. Phone is being picky I'll try to post the outside pics too

View attachment 145993

What is the length of your exhaust, how is it routed from the back of the stove to the outside of the house ? < Pictures would help

Is it 3" pipe or 4" pipe ?

These stoves need to have a good draft to burn properly.

 

[farmgirl1985]

Outside pic

 

[farmgirl1985]

This is also the same exact problem I have been heaving with my newly installed PAH. Well sort of, I think I had maybe 3 problems going on at once. Sometimes its hard to see one problem when you have two, or get to the root cause. But I had soot (black soot) coating the glass bad, and a very lazy dark red flame. I've posted it a few times, even made a thread labeled black soot or something like that just a few days ago. I'd come home in the morning to a stove that was barely going. I'd pop open the door to check it out and red flames would wick up around the door and several inches high outside of the stove! The door would be thick enough with soot that some of it would be burning - orange embers burning between the glass and the edge of the door. It would smell like an old pre-cat vehicle with the carb out of whack. I also couldn't hear the 'suction' through the oak like I had been, or at least it was muffled considerably. The burn pot was collecting crud. It was full of chunky stuff 3/4 the way up. Sometimes there would be smoldering pellets, sometimes spilled out over the edge of the burnpot. But I don't think it was because it was feeding too many pellets. More likely just from the crud filling up in the burnpot that the pellets simply didn't have a lot of space to go, and the lack of air from the clogged pot would cause them to smoulder instead of burn quickly. I'd clean it out a start it up again. Flame never seemed to have the intensity it used too, and often the glass would get black soot even on startup.

I tried switching back to Somerset pellets which have good reviews here, and results were the same. Though I can't beleive you couldn't find Somersets, your closer to the source (Kentucky) than I am and they are sold here by my local hardware store and also Menards. I saw AWF at Lowes but wasn't going to bother unless they ran out of Sets, as they weren't much cheaper.

I saw some improvement with a good 'monthly' cleaning, with also brushing the chimney (but not the duravent yet). I shop vac'd the stove and opened the exhaust chambers. It ran ok for a couple days then reverted.

Day before yesterday I tried the leaf blower trick. Cleaned out the stove normally, opened the exhaust chambers, left the door ajar, and ran the leaf blower on the top of the chimney. I also came across one reference to banging on the back of the firebox (like stillersnut mentioned) so I did that while the leaf blower was running.

After the LBT, it is noticeably better. I get the short quick blast-furnace type flames again and after the first day the burn pot had minimal buildup. Afterward I had the opposite problem too... I had my air turned up, like 1-6-1 (due to my previous efforts to increase air) and the stove actually went out a couple times with an empty burn pot (not sure if it has anything to do with it but it was windy that day and OAK is on windward side of house). Seemed like my pellets were burning too fast now. I reset it to 1-4-1 yesterday.

Have you tried the LBT yet, and banging on the back of the stove?

In my case trying to adjust LBA up was futile since the air problem was elsewhere and you can't 'shove' more air through the system if its already clogged. A clog anywhere in the system will cause airflow/draft issue. I doubt it was your screen on the oak and more than likely buildup in the exhaust path. Thing is, if its not free flowing then you start getting buildup in the burnpot and it clogs it up quick. Once the burnpot is also clogged then you have double the issue and for sure it won't burn right. I hope my theory of the LBT clearing out an unseen clog holds... time will tell. Its only been 2 days, I'll be satisfied when its been at least a week.

Good luck, hope you can figure it out. There is a lot of good info here but the problem is its not all together. It was a pain trying to diagnose mine and a lot of advice won't even work for my model stove. Would be nice to get a comprehensive guide going for just the PAH. If I can't get mine figured out its probably going to go on craigslist or to the dump. I just found out for the warranty to apply it has to be registered in 30 days wtf. I've never had to register anything before to get a warranty (or atleast in the short of time). I'm pretty sure I didn't even un pack the stove and the warranty card within 30 days, let alone now.

I did register it quick because when we did the dry run we found the exhaust blower wouldn't work, just hummed. They sent one out promptly and I do agree Pah needs their own threads or special place on the forum

 

[farmgirl1985]

I did register it quick because when we did the dry run we found the exhaust blower wouldn't work, just hummed. They sent one out promptly and I do agree Pah needs their own threads or special place on the forum

Ok, been burning since about 10:45 this morning, so about 8 hrs so far. Just a light white or light gray film on 85% of the glass. A huge improvement from the black soot. I'll see what morning brings. I think getting the outside pipe a bit more was the trick, I am going to try to get another piece to get it a little higher if I can find it, the double wall pipe is really scarce around here.

 

[OhioBurner©]

When I just recently put my venting together I found that Home Depot actually had good prices and ordered everything from their website. If you can fit a few more feet you might find adding a single 3-foot section is cheaper than a couple 1 foot sections($29): http://www.homedepot.com/p/DuraVent...ble-Wall-Chimney-Stove-Pipe-3PVL-36/202269781 if you can add a little more to the order its free shipping ($45 and up).

Mines been running good now since Tuesday with minimal black soot so I'm pretty confident a thorough cleaning fixed mine. Just not sure what caused the plugging, whether its normal accumulation or bad bag of pellets, or combination of things, maybe my venting isn't ideal either.

 

[CladMaster]

You need to make sure you are 1 foot above a window that opens with the exhaust end cap, also, it needs to be 1 foot below any roof overhang as shown in the picture below.

 

[farmgirl1985]

When I just recently put my venting together I found that Home Depot actually had good prices and ordered everything from their website. If you can fit a few more feet you might find adding a single 3-foot section is cheaper than a couple 1 foot sections($29): http://www.homedepot.com/p/DuraVent...ble-Wall-Chimney-Stove-Pipe-3PVL-36/202269781 if you can add a little more to the order its free shipping ($45 and up).

Mines been running good now since Tuesday with minimal black soot so I'm pretty confident a thorough cleaning fixed mine. Just not sure what caused the plugging, whether its normal accumulation or bad bag of pellets, or combination of things, maybe my venting isn't ideal either.

Wow what a difference. Got up this morning and minimal black soot, the stove is still putting heat out and the burn pot is only half full with ash. Not unburned pellets! I think we r finally getting somewhere. Like ohioburner said if it's still good in a week we'll be tickled to death! Got it shut down now for my morning clean out. Keeping our fingers crossed but will add more height to the outside stovepipe. Thanks so much for all your help.

 

[panolo]

Mine is a little finicky also. I am limited on pellets I can run and if I get some saw dusty pellets it tends to hate that. It keeps 1500 sq ft about 68 set on 3 down to 0 degrees. Any higher and the main area gets above 75. If I start to get sooty I clean the burn area well and that suck it with the leaf blower. I end up emptying my burn pot every other day. I also make sure to vacuum the auger really well when I do my weekly ash drawer dump.

I really like the stove. I hope yours turns out for you.

 

[OhioBurner©]

Panolo, what happens when you get 'saw dusty pellets' (I think most here refer to those as fines). The brand I'm burning now (got about a half ton to go) seems to buildup a lot of fines in the hopper. I can't really tell if its doing anything though, but could be contributing to my issues.

My burn is starting to diminish, so time for an intesne cleaning. I plan on cleaning it out tomorrow, doing the full leaf blower clean out, and I'll run the hopper out and suck up all the fines as well. Might just set aside the rest of the half ton for spring and go back to Sommersets for the rest of winter.

However I did find out my gaskets are not good. I did the dollar bill test and found the ash pan is pretty much not sealed at all, the center of the door is questionable, and the hopper lid is basically not sealing at all. This might be contributing greatly to my problem. I haven't figured out what is the best way to handle the situation though. The gaskets should be new, so I'm doubting getting the replacement ones is going to make a difference. Think I need thicker ones but I've never shopped around for gaskets before, not sure if its something that I can get just a little thicker or not. The hopper lid and maybe ash drawer could probably almost be doubled up.

 

[panolo]

It tends to clog the auger and pellets are slow to load. Got an error code even once. Also seems to create more ash or rather clogging in my exhaust. I had much more soot when I leaf blowered my exhaust after a 10 bags of the pellets with more fines. After a good clean I have a nice flame. I can burn them in my 1500 sq ft Englander with no issues besides the extra ash.

I don't believe the air wash system in this stove is that efficient from what Mike at Englander said. It seems to be common to have some grey ash buildup on the glass. I run mine at 1-3-1 and last night I got home and it was 76 in my main area with it set to 3 & 7. I bumped it up to 1-5-1 with the bad pellets and it helped some but the hassle of cleaning more often is not worth it to me.

I had a slight smokey smell to mine for a bit and found that I need to pay good attention to the door gasket. I make sure to go through that also with my vacuum. Mine has some adjustments to make on the tightening devices for the hopper and ash pan. I did tighten them and have a very good seal.

 

[apandori]

My hopper latches were very loose. I tightened them up and now the lid stays super tight to the gasket. You should be able to do that too.

 

[OhioBurner©]

The adjustment only will help towards the front where the latches are. The rear area has a non adjustable metal hinge which is more or less fixed, and its loose even around that.

But I don't think the hopper leaks in as much air as the ash pan - I am more concerned with it.

And yeah the air wash doesn't seem very effective but I'm not too worried about that. Not as pretty to look at as a regular wood stove, and doesn't even have the brick background or fake logs so I'm cool with the ashy door. What I don't like though is a black sooty door - that means something isn't right.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

View attachment 145993

You might want to change that plastic pipe you have that OAK attached to for two reasons:

1. It isn't to code nor is it allowed by the manual.

2. It is has a relatively thick wall which means it acts as an air flow restriction which leads to a poor burn.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Outside pic

And the reason why your increasing the height of the vertical section helps is because it stops the stove from sucking oxygen deficient air due to the placement of the stoves exhaust too close to the air intake.

From page 10 of the manual.

F) MIN. 3-FT CLEARANCE FROM A FORCED AIR INTAKE OF ANY APPLIANCE

 

[EviLScotsMaN]

Was the fresh air inlet ever checked for a blockage, ie...rag, or mouse nest...just sayin'.