Enviro M55 flashing code 4

[whlago]

Good morning and Merry Christmas everyone!

This is my first post so I'll give a brief background but first want to say that I appreciate all the info everyone has given me so far without even considering posting. I've been addicted to this forum for months now and have gleaned a lot of great info.

I had my new Enviro installed by dealer on November 28 this year and have been burning ever since only stopping to clean once per week. The vent is an approximate 4 foot rise inside the house then 90 degree out and termination. I have OAK installed as I never listened to the dealer about not needing it, it just masde sense to me.

I operate manually generally on 1, 2, or 3 during the day depending on different pellets, whose home and outside temp. Overnight I leave on 1 and wake up crank up to about 4 to burn out creosote/ warm up the house for about one hour prior to settling on to a desired temp.

Yesterday I started with Hardwood Heats (loved the heat in the short time I used them!) and this morning I woke up @ 7:00 to crank the stove to 3 to warm things up and, being very Christmas day groggy went back to bed for a bit. I did notice that the hopper seemed unusually low but didn't do anything about it because I figured it was on 1 all night and I filled before bed (1:00 am) and there should be plenty. Well, after one hour in bed I smelled some smoke (very slight) and figured it was time to get up anyway. The fire looked out so thinking I ran out of pellets went to fill the hopper. That didn't do anything and I realized the 4 code was flashing and the unit was going through shut down. I let this happen and tried to unplug and re-start but the auger didn't feed and the 4 code continued to flash.

The Owner's Manual states when the 4 code flashes this is a high limit safety switch based on high temp in the hopper and you need to call the dealer to re-set the switch and find reasons why the unit overheated.

I am asking if there is a way to re-set this switch without calling the dealer and just looking to find out if anyone has any ideas why this might have happened. Thanks for your help!

I may be off and on for a while and won't be able to do much troubleshooting for a couple of days as I will be traveling to family for a couple days but would appreciate any ideas. Oh...and I know I will post pictures once the pretty stove is up and running again

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Welcome to the forum, you can start here https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewreply/1052403/ for a fellow M55 owner with the same issue. He found the answer in a previous post.

 

[whlago]

Thanks Smokey....looks like another Christmas shutdown. Not home now but when I return I'll re-set the switch. Two things that I did the day before (Saturday) that I wonder might have something to do with the tripping of the switch: 1) I cleaned the unit but for the first time removed the baffle plates to clean behind them. Not sure if how I put them back may have had something to do with anything although doubtful. 2) Changed from Green Supreme pellets to Hardwood Heats (Higher BTU on the re-bagged hamers). One of the videos mentions that you can change the fuel setting from premium to multi-fuel as a way to adjust for the higher BTU fuel. Anyway it's strange because I thought the stove was running nicely with this new fuel....I guess too nicely!?

 

[jtakeman]

Welcome whlago, Nice to see another fellow NW CT person here! ;-)

I wouldn't go to multifuel, I would adjust the plate over the auger a bit lower to reduce the pellets feed into the burnpot. This isn't in the manual because it was an upgrade on the stoves. Seems they can produce as much as 70K BTU's with certain fuels. AFAIK Hamers and Hardwood Heat were one of the fuels that were mentioned. see this link for more info.

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/86826/#1052737

Keep us posted and post a picture of you beauty for us to see!

 

[whlago]

Thanks Jay, as soon as I get home Wednesday I'll start with switching to multi-fuel next adjust the auger plate. I assume I need to empty the hopper of pellets before accessing the auger plate. Once I get her running I'll get that photo up! Love burning pellets so far and can't wait to get back to it.

 

[flynfrfun]

For the stove to go into overtemp when set on heat level 3...he must have the old blower and some hot pellets. If he has the new blower, then he needs to investigate further because I don't think it's possible to overheat the stove with the new blower. I ran mine on heat level 5 for 2hrs and while the output air got up slightly above 300F, the stove never tripped the high limit switch. This was with the 2nd hottest pellets I've burned which are likely about as hot of a pellet as anyone can get here in the US.

 

[whlago]

A couple of questions that have been bugging me throughout this:
1) What exactly does using multi fuel setting over premium setting do? I thought it was a matter of how often the agitator runs...sounds like it is more than that though.
2) If you want to reduce the amount of pellets dumping into the burn pot can't you do that by adjusting the feed rate?

 

[flynfrfun]

Yes, you are right, multi-fuel just changes how often the agitator comes on. In anything other than premium it comes on with the auger which constantly keeps the burnpot clean. I'll have to disagree with J on this one. I don't think you need to go to multi-fuel (no offense J )

Feed rate can be adjusted somewhat by adjusting the feed trim. But that is a fine tuning adjustment. It won't stop the stove from overheating as it's not a big enough adjustment.

First I'd check to see which convection blower you have. I'm guessing it's the old one (square motor instead of round motor). If so, that's why the stove tripped the overtemp switch. It doesn't put out enough air to keep the stove from overheating. If you have the old blower and an adjustable auger plate, then a temporary fix would be to slide the plate down and restrict the amount of pellets it feeds. The new blower allows enough heat to be dissipated so that no adjustable auger plate is needed.

 

[jtakeman]

Yes, you are right, multi-fuel just changes how often the agitator comes on. In anything other than premium it comes on with the auger which constantly keeps the burnpot clean. I'll have to disagree with J on this one. I don't think you need to go to multi-fuel (no offense J )Feed rate can be adjusted somewhat by adjusting the feed trim. But that is a fine tuning adjustment. It won't stop the stove from overheating as it's not a big enough adjustment.

First I'd check to see which convection blower you have. I'm guessing it's the old one (square motor instead of round motor). If so, that's why the stove tripped the overtemp switch. It doesn't put out enough air to keep the stove from overheating. If you have the old blower and an adjustable auger plate, then a temporary fix would be to slide the plate down and restrict the amount of pellets it feeds. The new blower allows enough heat to be dissipated so that no adjustable auger plate is needed.

Was a tired mistake on my part. I should have wrote wouldn't go to multifuel. Chance the auger cover instead. But if you look at the chart the feed in mutifuel is less than in pellet. So you could decrease the BTU's. But you will also get the 1 minute clean cycle every half hour.

whlago, see the attached feed chart. for more details

 

[flynfrfun]

J,
I've never noticed the increased "off" times in the chart below for multi-fuel. Thanks for pointing that out. So you are right, it would reduce the feed rate slightly for the higher settings.

 

[whlago]

Yeah I think I could do without the extra spinning time on the auger. Plan is to check the auger plate and lower if able to. Meanwhile check the type of combustion blower in the unit. If the old blower I guess I'll give Jerry a call to see if he can do something for me on warranty (not sure how successful I'll be on that one). Thank you for all your help on this..I can't wait to get home to get at it...but I'm very conflicted as I sure am enjoying the company of family and good cooking at Ma's house!

 

[jrogers999]

I just got my enviro m55c installed in October and tripped the high limit a couple times at first. I never bothered to figure out if I have the new blower but I know the installer put the new adjustment plate in per the dealers recommendation at time of installation Anyways a quick way to press the reset switch is to open the front hopper lid and you'll see a small circle tab just to the left of the control panel. You can pop that off with a flathead. The just stick the flathead in there and press the small red tab. It's some much easier than taking off the whole lid. Also being a newb I learned how to compensate with the feed trim. Usually when I'm on heat setting 4 or 5 I put the feed down to 1 or sometimes 2. On the lower heat settings I put it on 3. Hope this helps.

 

[jtakeman]

Yeah I think I could do without the extra spinning time on the auger. Plan is to check the auger plate and lower if able to. Meanwhile check the type of combustion blower in the unit. If the old blower I guess I'll give Jerry a call to see if he can do something for me on warranty (not sure how successful I'll be on that one). Thank you for all your help on this..I can't wait to get home to get at it...but I'm very conflicted as I sure am enjoying the company of family and good cooking at Ma's house!

Jerry? From Green Mountain. Didn't think he sold Enviro.

J,
I've never noticed the increased "off" times in the chart below for multi-fuel. Thanks for pointing that out. So you are right, it would reduce the feed rate slightly for the higher settings.

Multifuels burn slower than wood fiber. Plus they usually are smaller in overall size so the auger feeds more volume to the pot as well! So you don't need as much feed. Also why you see the 1 minute clean cycle added to allow them to burn up and not overflow the burnpot. Corn with all the starch and sugars need extra burn time.

 

[whlago]

Yeah I think I could do without the extra spinning time on the auger. Plan is to check the auger plate and lower if able to. Meanwhile check the type of combustion blower in the unit. If the old blower I guess I'll give Jerry a call to see if he can do something for me on warranty (not sure how successful I'll be on that one). Thank you for all your help on this..I can't wait to get home to get at it...but I'm very conflicted as I sure am enjoying the company of family and good cooking at Ma's house!

Jerry? From Green Mountain. Didn't think he sold Enviro.

Yes Jerry from Green Mountain sells Enviro and Breckwell pellet stoves.

 

[jtakeman]

Yeah I think I could do without the extra spinning time on the auger. Plan is to check the auger plate and lower if able to. Meanwhile check the type of combustion blower in the unit. If the old blower I guess I'll give Jerry a call to see if he can do something for me on warranty (not sure how successful I'll be on that one). Thank you for all your help on this..I can't wait to get home to get at it...but I'm very conflicted as I sure am enjoying the company of family and good cooking at Ma's house!

Jerry? From Green Mountain. Didn't think he sold Enviro.

Yes Jerry from Green Mountain sells Enviro and Breckwell pellet stoves.

Funny, He wouldn't even give me a price on an Omega. I don't have much faith in his BS(I could say alot more but I'll bite my tongue)! Wish you luck with him. Contact Enviro if he tries to bail on you. Enviro should step in.

Keep us posted!

 

[whlago]

Yeah I think I could do without the extra spinning time on the auger. Plan is to check the auger plate and lower if able to. Meanwhile check the type of combustion blower in the unit. If the old blower I guess I'll give Jerry a call to see if he can do something for me on warranty (not sure how successful I'll be on that one). Thank you for all your help on this..I can't wait to get home to get at it...but I'm very conflicted as I sure am enjoying the company of family and good cooking at Ma's house!

Jerry? From Green Mountain. Didn't think he sold Enviro.

Yes Jerry from Green Mountain sells Enviro and Breckwell pellet stoves.

Funny, He wouldn't even give me a price on an Omega. I don't have much faith in his BS(I could say alot more but I'll bite my tongue)! Wish you luck with him. Contact Enviro if he tries to bail on you. Enviro should step in.

Keep us posted!

Will do...he is a character for sure. Gave me a good price on the M55. I know people who he has done right by relative to wood stove sale follow-up. My expectations are not that great but we'll see. I'll see if I can get something out of the combustion blower trim and feed rate trim, and adjust the auger plate for starters. Thanks for your help!

 

[flynfrfun]

I just got my enviro m55c installed in October and tripped the high limit a couple times at first. I never bothered to figure out if I have the new blower but I know the installer put the new adjustment plate in per the dealers recommendation at time of installation Anyways a quick way to press the reset switch is to open the front hopper lid and you'll see a small circle tab just to the left of the control panel. You can pop that off with a flathead. The just stick the flathead in there and press the small red tab. It's some much easier than taking off the whole lid. Also being a newb I learned how to compensate with the feed trim. Usually when I'm on heat setting 4 or 5 I put the feed down to 1 or sometimes 2. On the lower heat settings I put it on 3. Hope this helps.

Jrogers,
What pellets are you burning? I've read where guys never had any problems until they switched to a hot pellet like Okies or whatever else is considered hot out there. You sound like you are just barely flying "under the radar" if you can stop it from tripping the switch merely by lowering the feed trim. But, hey...whatever works!

 

[jrogers999]

I'm burning green supremes from lowes. I'm on my last pallet. I haven't tripped it since my first 50 bags.

 

[whlago]

I'm burning green supremes from lowes. I'm on my last pallet. I haven't tripped it since my first 50 bags.

I probably burned about 30 bags of Green Supremes without an issue. It wasn't until I started with the Hardwood Heats (re-bagged Hamers) that I really noticed the difference in heat produced and the limit switch tripped on heat setting 3. Man that heat was nice while it lasted though!

 

[whlago]

UPDATE:

Spoke with my dealer a few days ago and his proposed fix was to provide the reducer auger plate. Claimed he did this on another stove and hasn't heard anything since. At the time I figured ok...don't want to deal with the discussion of the blower so figured I'd get back to him on it. Today I gave him a call and discussed the fact that Enviro has a new convection blower that supposedly produces more cfm and that would be the true fix to the problem, as opposed to merely reducing the amount of fuel allowed in the burnpot. It happens that he was on his way to the distributer and indicated he would discuss with the distributer and to call him back in the afternoon. Spoke with him about an hour ago and he indicated that the new Enviro Cast FI's will be coming out with the new Convection Blower (February?) and he put an order in for me for the blower under warranty.

In the meantime I'm running the stove with the feed trim on 1 when on Heat Setting 3, but mostly running on Heat Setting 2. Made it through the 9 degree overnight and cold evening leading up to it without a shut down so I think I'll be fine until the fix comes in. It will be nice to have that freedom to crank the thing up to it's full potential with some of the better pellets, though.

I'm pleased with my dealers follow-up and I want to thank all on this forum for your help for, after all, knowledge is power!

I promise I'll get those pictures up as soon as I figure out how to extract them from my wife's camera.

 

[flynfrfun]

That's great! He's a little off though...they've been putting the new blower in all new stoves for a few months now. Maybe he meant they are backordered till Feb. With the new blower, you won't need the auger plate, you will be able to crank the stove as much as you want!