Englander 25PDVC Issue

[notbobvilla]

Hello everyone, Back story first than to my problem. 4 years ago I swapped my old smoke dragon for a 25PDVC from Lowes...figured for $1000 I wouldn't be out much if I didn't like it. I love it, been a great pellet stove with proper maintenance. End of last heating season the lower auger motor dies, decided to wait until this fall to replace along with yearly maintenance, replaced auger motor with one from the factory and all went well. Bought same brand of pellets as I did last year as they have worked well the last two seasons, fired up this last weekend and noticed the performance was off. Good fire but lots of ash and black soot, when I crank the blower speed up it doesn't blow as hard as before and it's noisier than I remember. I have a few bags of last seasons pellets left (same brand) and they burn funky as well. Fast forward to today and I am giving it a complete cleaning and when I get out to the chimney I notice there is an electrical charge on the chimney, a real light tingle when you make contact. I unplug the stove to make sure that is what I am feeling and it goes away. What the heck could I have done while changing the motor to cause this? I went with factory replacement just so I would not have to splice any wires. Nothing like this over the last 4 seasons has changed except replacing the motor, any ideas? Could this be causing all the other issues as well (blower motor, black soot buildup)?

 

[jackman]

What you describe is commonly referred to as a hot skin. I would first check the house wiring using a simple 3 prong tester to make sure it has proper hot, neutral, and ground connections. A loose wire nut in a box somewhere on the line could cause the problem you're having and cause the stove to misbehave.