englander heat output

[corkman]

my stove has been up and running now for almost 3 weeks.for the 1st 2 weeks i was burning oakies with settings at 4 feed and 6 blower.lower buttons were at 6-4-1 and my average temp was 257.
for the past week or so i tried barefoot and ligs after picking up a few bags just to see how the burned.loved them both.
now that i am out of those i am back to my oakies again.
with all the settings the same as before i am now only getting an average temp of 237.does anyone know what would cause this.
this stove only has about 25 bags burned in it so far.i clear the burnpot every 12hrs and and shut it down just this past weekend and gave it a good vac and cleaned out the T also.
when burning the oakies initially,the ash was greyish in color,fluffy and easy to clean with little deposit on glass.
now its darker in color and leaving dark deposit on glass

 

[HEMI]

my stove has been up and running now for almost 3 weeks.for the 1st 2 weeks i was burning oakies with settings at 4 feed and 6 blower.lower buttons were at 6-4-1 and my average temp was 257.
for the past week or so i tried barefoot and ligs after picking up a few bags just to see how the burned.loved them both.
now that i am out of those i am back to my oakies again.
with all the settings the same as before i am now only getting an average temp of 237.does anyone know what would cause this.
this stove only has about 25 bags burned in it so far.i clear the burnpot every 12hrs and and shut it down just this past weekend and gave it a good vac and cleaned out the T also.
when burning the oakies initially,the ash was greyish in color,fluffy and easy to clean with little deposit on glass.
now its darker in color and leaving dark deposit on glass

turn the air up a little, and maybe back the feed down a #, black means ur running to rich.

 

[imacman]

my stove has been up and running now for almost 3 weeks......

Am I wrong, or do I remember you posting about this stove back in the beginning of December, and the stove is actually 3-4 years old?

How could it only have 25 bags run through it since December, and you live up in Boston?

Sounds like a dirty stove. Is your cleaning involve just vacuuming the firebox, and what do you clean the pipe with?

 

[corkman]

negative.i had a hopper fire in the previous stove which was three years old.this is a new stove ,shipped direct from englander.i've only been burning in this stove since Feb 1st.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Sounds like your heat exchanger has ash in it, it acts as an insulator and will slowly lower the stoves heat output.

This is the second major reason to keep the stove clean.

 

[corkman]

i gave the stove a good cleaning this past saturday,including all vent work.i removed the baffle plate and brushed everything down and then a good vac.behind the baffle plate there are 2 openings ,one upper and one a little below that.when you talk of the heat exchanger,is this the whole area behind the baffle plate.i have to problems cleaning the upper opening.howwever the lower opening has two sections to it. i can clean and vac the upper section of it but how are you supposed to get at the other area.
would ash build up like that after only 25 bags or so?

 

[86 toy]

i gave the stove a good cleaning this past saturday,including all vent work.i removed the baffle plate and brushed everything down and then a good vac.behind the baffle plate there are 2 openings ,one upper and one a little below that.when you talk of the heat exchanger,is this the whole area behind the baffle plate.i have to problems cleaning the upper opening.howwever the lower opening has two sections to it. i can clean and vac the upper section of it but how are you supposed to get at the other area.
would ash build up like that after only 25 bags or so?

i use a small putty knife to scrape back there and a piece of garden hose wrapped in duct tape on one end to adapt it to your vac. hose (got that idea from Mike Holton) to suck out the ash in those hard to reach places.. you would be suprised how much ash i get out of those back corners where you can't reach your hand. i do this once a week and get a good bit of ash out of there so after 25 bags yes the ash is built up

 

[corkman]

i use flexable pipe cleaning brush to get back there and have an adapter on the vac to get behind the wall.this was all done again this past weekend which is what has me confused.with the flexible hose you use,are you able to clean the lower opening which visually, appears to almost drop down towards the back of the firewall.is this area considered part of the heat exchanger too or is it just the upper portion

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Ash on the exchanger can quickly get to the point where 17% of your pellets heat output disappears.

You are part of the way there. I don't know how that stove of yours heat exchanger is set up.

When ever I do my weekly push the ash back into the ash pan and clean out under the burn pot routine, I scrape and brush my heat exchanger, and clean out the ash traps. It takes very little time and maintains the heat level coming out of the stove.

Also if your house is dusty or you have a lot of fur from pets the air flow through your convection system can also be reduced.

Cleaning is based upon the amount and type of ash the pellets that you are burning produces and where it precipitates out of the exhaust gases.