Help Breckwell Big e

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slaughter1600

New Member
Feb 7, 2011
12
Maine
Hello I just purchased a breckwell big e second hand. I had the stove installed with a stright out the wall exhaust and a cap. My house is 900Sq feet downstairs and 400SQ feet upstairs. The stove is in the famly room. I have no halls and my stairs are center in the house its very open. In the room the stove is in on setting 4 its 73 and the next room over is 71 and the kitchen is 64. I purchased this in a hurry as our oil tank got a leak and needed to be replaced. It was cleaned good before the install behind the plates and everything. The previous owner only used 1 ton before replaceing it with a smaller one they said this was way to big. I have messed with the damper to no end. Am I missing something? This was suposed to heat our whole house and it barley heats 2 rooms on 4 to 70. Its 35 outside as I post this. My house in insulated good. Any help would be great. (I searched previos posts and I do not have baffle plates)
 
What brand of pellets are you using? Is your flame "lazy and sooty"? Or is it vibrant and alive? Are you letting the stove sit for at least 15-20 minutes before more adjustments? Takes awhile for the stove to settle in.
Thats a pretty big unit. I have read about the Baffle plates. Eric from Kinsman Stoves is experminting with one now, that does not have the plates in it.
Someone with more Breckwell exp will chime in soon. Good luck.
 
I'm up here in Maine and I have mine in the basement and I can keep the first floor at about 73 on a setting of 3, I've never actually had mine on 4. The a few things I would try are these.
1) When you take out the ash tray there are two little covers held in place on the back of the firewall held in place with screws. Just loosen the screws and slid the plates up and out. I have a good amount of ash there when I go the weekly cleaning behind there. I use my vac and a 1 inch wire brush to get the area in between the toe openings.
2) would be to remove one of the plates added at the top on each side of the fire area. I tried the left side for a week and then the right side and I get a better result with the right side removed.
3) Try cleaning the tubes that the air comes out. I use the built in scrapper daily but notice a good sized heat loss if I let a couple days go by.

Good luck
 
STallau said:
I'm up here in Maine and I have mine in the basement and I can keep the first floor at about 73 on a setting of 3, I've never actually had mine on 4. The a few things I would try are these.
1) When you take out the ash tray there are two little covers held in place on the back of the firewall held in place with screws. Just loosen the screws and slid the plates up and out. I have a good amount of ash there when I go the weekly cleaning behind there. I use my vac and a 1 inch wire brush to get the area in between the toe openings.
2) would be to remove one of the plates added at the top on each side of the fire area. I tried the left side for a week and then the right side and I get a better result with the right side removed.
3) Try cleaning the tubes that the air comes out. I use the built in scrapper daily but notice a good sized heat loss if I let a couple days go by.

Good luck

On your #2.. Are you taling about the baffle plates.. They should bekept in place at all times.. This stops the fire from touching and warping them. Unless the stove is buikt without them, they are ther for a reason.
 
Im useing curran Wood pellets. When I cleaned it I did remove them doors and cleaned out the back area good. The fire looks good to me(but i never had a pellet stove before) I know the pot is always near empty when new pellets feed in. and when they drop down I get alot of fly ash.
 
Have you tried a higher setting? Does it go higher than 4? Is there an Auger trim? Feed trim? Where yu can adjust it to feed more on a certain setting?
Are you running it 24/7. I have better luck running 24/7 on low, than running with the Thermostat and letting the temp come up and down, up and down. On Low my house stays around 75. 2,180 sq ft ranch, very open floor plan. Stove is situated right in the middle of the house.
From my understanding your combustion blower only has one setting, so burning on a lower setting is gonna burn the pellets much faster. The more you burn, the higher the BTU. Burn 3 lbs an hour-24,000 BTU's. Burn 4 lbs an hour 32,000 BTU's and so on.
Breckwell does have extra baffles that can be put in, to slow the exhaust gases from rushing out of the stove. The longer the air is in the stove, the more heat the exchangers can withdraw. Good luck.
 
DexterDay said:
STallau said:
I'm up here in Maine and I have mine in the basement and I can keep the first floor at about 73 on a setting of 3, I've never actually had mine on 4. The a few things I would try are these.
1) When you take out the ash tray there are two little covers held in place on the back of the firewall held in place with screws. Just loosen the screws and slid the plates up and out. I have a good amount of ash there when I go the weekly cleaning behind there. I use my vac and a 1 inch wire brush to get the area in between the toe openings.
2) would be to remove one of the plates added at the top on each side of the fire area. I tried the left side for a week and then the right side and I get a better result with the right side removed.
3) Try cleaning the tubes that the air comes out. I use the built in scrapper daily but notice a good sized heat loss if I let a couple days go by.

Good luck

On your #2.. Are you taling about the baffle plates.. They should bekept in place at all times.. This stops the fire from touching and warping them. Unless the stove is buikt without them, they are ther for a reason.

This depends upon weather or not the baffle plates are the ones that Breckwell has been playing with for awhile. They were an addition in an attempt to slow the exhaust gases from just exiting the stove without giving up a lot of the heat.

I believe that reducing the draft a bit may help the OP. The combustion blower on that unit always runs wide open after the fire is started. Air control is strictly via damper.
 
well I filled it up friday night at 8PM 120lbs and I added more Monday morning I figured there was 20lbs left in the hopper. It runs 24/7 so im burning 1.67lbs per hour on 4. 5 is only designed to run for 2 hours at the most than your suposed to turn it down. its suposed to be a 55k btu stove dosnt seem like its feeding pellets fastenough.
 
Have you checked to see if the auger or drop chute has a bridge in it somewhere that is restricting the pellet feed.
 
Didn't know exactly how many settings there were. Don't burn on 5 like you said. (At least not for extended periods of time) Have you tried what Smokey said? Slow the air coming in. Close your Damper. You either need to get less air, or more pellets. And judging what you said, you can't give it more pellets. Try the air, making sure to wait about 15-20 minutes between adjustments. Give the stove time to settle in.
 
Time the auger and match it to the timings if any provided by Breckwell, also make certain that the auger is firmly attached to the auger motor shaft.
 
my dad thinks i need to remove the auger and make shure the tube is cleaned and the drop is cleaned, He is thinking the pellets are getting stuck in the drop tube. Does that sound like something that would happen?
 
slaughter1600 said:
my dad thinks i need to remove the auger and make shure the tube is cleaned and the drop is cleaned, He is thinking the pellets are getting stuck in the drop tube. Does that sound like something that would happen?

I already suggested looking at that here: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewreply/813825/

I'm not interested in the weight (which is actually meaningless) but the timings, which would tell us if the controller was at fault.
 
That's about what Smokey said earlier. Take a mirror and look up your chute to see if there is a bridge of pellets or a clog.
If the stove is "Rated" at 55,000 BTU's. Then on its highest setting (#5), with an 8200 BTU pellet. You would be burning a little over 6.5 lbs an hour. So on setting 4, you are prob burning between 4-5 lbs an hour.
I burn about 3 lbs an hour on low or 24,000 BTU's. Almost 80 lbs a day. All stoves are different, some can extract more than others. I would definitely look into the auger. Is it spinning for the amount of time it should be? Is there a clog (bridge)? Or is the motor spinning and the auger is loose? Not allowing it feed as much as it should be? Have a buddy that had that happen. Motor would spin, but auger would only catch every once in awhile.
 
Smokey.. I'm gonna start waiting to type.. We have to be typing at the same time. LOL. Giving the OP sensory overload. LOL
 
Not a problem at this end Dexter.

The poor OP may feel a bit shell shocked however.

To the OP,

I am going right down the line for all things than can cause a feeding issue. The controller is the primary clock, it tells the auger motor to turn on for a specific amount of time and to be off for a specific amount of time. If the timing is correct, then we have mechanical linkages that can slip interfering with the amount of fuel that is delivered, that was why I asked to verify that the auger and its motor were properly connected to each other. If the mechanical stuff is fine then we look for blockages in the auger flight and chute. If there are none, we need to make certain that the controller and the auger motor are proper for use together. A controller thinking it is controlling a 2 RPM motor will be off by a factor of two when connecting to a 1 RPM motor.
 
ok on setting 4/5 the auger is running 8 seconds on 5 seconds off. The auger is attached to the motor by a pin going through the center of the shaft, so no slippage there. I looked up the tube and put a wire up there and moved it all around and it diddnt feel like anything was bridged. Im going to contac the lady again and make shure no one changed the board,motor, or anything else. This is frustrating.
 
The timing appears to be close enough to what the manual I just read is saying.

Did you check the auger flight?

You should be able to read the numbers on that auger motor and from there verify things.
 
Something is absolutley wrong here... I've been burning mine for 4 years now... keeps our 2 story 1900sf. home toasty warm on setting 3 on the coldest of days. I have never run it on 4 or 5.

I don't think your problem is your auger btw. I would more suspect, poor burning related to inexperience. Mine does best when the flame looks more like a blow torch rather than a lazy flame. This can be accomplished by adjusting the dampner in and out.

Also you could have gotten a batch of pellets that are not the best of quality.
 
If he is running that stove at 4 and is only burning what he is burning for 60 hours there is certainly something wrong.

Even with piddle poor pellets he should have put more than 100 pound through that hopper.
 
Agreed... but last time we had a similar problem, it was the board... not the auger. Sorry...I'll stay out...I just own and burn one
 
perchin said:
Agreed... but last time we had a similar problem, it was the board... not the auger. Sorry...I'll stay out...I just own and burn one

I haven't heard back from the OP but the auger timing is close enough to what I've seen in the book so until I find out what is on the box for an auger motor I'm going to continue down the entire chain.
 
Ok took it all apart and the motor was a c-e-017 which is what breckwell says it comes with. Everything looked good and turned freely. I got ahould of a dealer in my area and they want 100 just to drive out and look at it. He agreed that it should have burned more that 100lbs on setting 4 for 60 hours. Im to the pont where i might just pay them to come out.
 
I have a Big E and run mine on High/Low on a stat, high is #3 low is #1, if you are only burning 1.67 lbs per hour, it sounds like it is only on #2 maunal. #1 =1 LBS, #2 = 1.75 lbs ,#3= 2.5 LBS , #4 = 3.25 lbs per hour. Those are rough numbers, but in cold weather {20 and below}I'll use 120 lbs in 48-60 hours, I heat 600 sq ft , with a ceiling fan in the room with the stove, to about 72 through out , a pretty open floor plan.
 
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