Just had Napoleon NPI45 pellet insert put in yesterday. Not much operation training ,just got the manual handed to us. It was burning fine yesterday and last night. AT ABOUT 3AM 2ND OR 3RD LITE WAS FLASHING AND STOVE WAS OFF. I looked in hopper and appeared pellets were only on sides of hopper and nothing in middle, little ash was in bowl. I took the bowl out to see if clogged and emptyed it. Much brown ash was on firelogs. I unplugged it and replugged and restarted again. It is not burning to day like it did yesterday. Has only come up about 3 degrees this morning. Any tips will be greatly appreciated. Mrs. GMDur
new pellet stove owner need help
- Thread starter redhen
- Start date
-
Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.
We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.
We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
- Status
SmokeyTheBear
Minister of Fire
Welcome to the forum gmdur.
Sounds like you have the infamous pellets not falling onto the auger situation. It is a fairly common problem with new stoves, eventually enough pellets will have gone through the systems that they will not get stuck on the hopper walls. While waiting for that to occur some folks have found that using a light coat of pledge, car wax, dry spray graphite, or buffing the hopper with wax paper, or a car buffing pad will hasten the final honing of the surface.
How long it takes a stove to recover temperature depends upon the outside temperature, the volume of air in the house, and the rate at which the air can be moved through the stove.
It can take hours.
Sounds like you have the infamous pellets not falling onto the auger situation. It is a fairly common problem with new stoves, eventually enough pellets will have gone through the systems that they will not get stuck on the hopper walls. While waiting for that to occur some folks have found that using a light coat of pledge, car wax, dry spray graphite, or buffing the hopper with wax paper, or a car buffing pad will hasten the final honing of the surface.
How long it takes a stove to recover temperature depends upon the outside temperature, the volume of air in the house, and the rate at which the air can be moved through the stove.
It can take hours.
tjnamtiw
Minister of Fire
Welcome
First of all, get those PITA logs out of there! They make it twice as hard to clean, disturb the airflow and dirty the glass quicker. Sure they make the wife happy but ................ Both sets of mine are in a box in the attic. I put them in for the summer only.
Good advice of slicking up the hopper surfaces. How long are your pellets? The shorter the better for more consistent feed. If they are real long, you might have to open the feed gate, if your stove has one, to allow them to pass. They may be bridging across the intake. I'm not familiar with your stove but I see it is a top feeder so pellets could be also bridging at the top of the drop chute. A flashlight and mirror will let you look up there to see if there is any obstruction. I've had labels, plastic peanuts, cardboard, and extra long pellets block my stoves.
First of all, get those PITA logs out of there! They make it twice as hard to clean, disturb the airflow and dirty the glass quicker. Sure they make the wife happy but ................ Both sets of mine are in a box in the attic. I put them in for the summer only.
Good advice of slicking up the hopper surfaces. How long are your pellets? The shorter the better for more consistent feed. If they are real long, you might have to open the feed gate, if your stove has one, to allow them to pass. They may be bridging across the intake. I'm not familiar with your stove but I see it is a top feeder so pellets could be also bridging at the top of the drop chute. A flashlight and mirror will let you look up there to see if there is any obstruction. I've had labels, plastic peanuts, cardboard, and extra long pellets block my stoves.
SmokeyTheBear
Minister of Fire
tjnamtiw
Minister of Fire
SmokeyTheBear said:
Ha ha ha. Just one more time I stuck my foot in my mouth. Can't keep count of how many times I've done that
!! :red: :sick: :zip: Hey, she's from Texas so she probably knows more 'good' words than this old sailor! Sorry Maam...................
Sure wish there were icons for male and female posters. I see her signature now at the end of the message. Please don't beat me up, Mrs. GMDur...
Maybe we should have bought the wood insert...The I45 has been poor performance . Our Napoleon NPI45 was installed on wednesday. The 1 bag of pellets were from Tractor Supply furnised by installer. The product came from Perkinston Ms,( we moved from Gulfport Ms in 2008 to Tx. I know for a fact most trees in MS are pine,.although product said hardwood and softwood . )
We have been using the Tstat and could not get but about 3-4 degrees of heat. We installed a new Heat Pump(2008) and turned it way down. Stove used one bag of pellets up to last night about 10pm and was turned off until this morning. Soooo today we are using the Auto button. Yes I will take those ugly ceramic logs out, . What is the difference between auto and T-stat they are both controlled by the t-stat.
Thanks for the welcome and help to everybody up north where is is "reallly cold." I was out pulling weeds in the yard yesterday with no jacket or sweater down here. We were stationed in Iowa City Iowa and Dayton Ohio for a few years so I know what" really cold "is. Not being a native Texas girl, but a Missouri Show Me girl by birth , I love winter in Texas and our 7 grandkids.
We can only get pellets so far at Tracter Supply at $5.49 (20 or more is $5.22) at Lowes $5.97 but 10% discount for retired military
$5.38 and Home Depot does not sell them.
Maybe things will get better on auto??
You know what they say "If mama aint happy, nobody's happy....
We have been using the Tstat and could not get but about 3-4 degrees of heat. We installed a new Heat Pump(2008) and turned it way down. Stove used one bag of pellets up to last night about 10pm and was turned off until this morning. Soooo today we are using the Auto button. Yes I will take those ugly ceramic logs out, . What is the difference between auto and T-stat they are both controlled by the t-stat.
Thanks for the welcome and help to everybody up north where is is "reallly cold." I was out pulling weeds in the yard yesterday with no jacket or sweater down here. We were stationed in Iowa City Iowa and Dayton Ohio for a few years so I know what" really cold "is. Not being a native Texas girl, but a Missouri Show Me girl by birth , I love winter in Texas and our 7 grandkids.
We can only get pellets so far at Tracter Supply at $5.49 (20 or more is $5.22) at Lowes $5.97 but 10% discount for retired military
$5.38 and Home Depot does not sell them.
Maybe things will get better on auto??
You know what they say "If mama aint happy, nobody's happy....
tjnamtiw
Minister of Fire
So you changed your 'name'. That's good and will keep me straight! ha ha.
First thing to do is write to Lowes Corporate office and complain that your local Lowes is charging so much for the pellets when you know that stores further North are charging $3.74 for them. There are a lot of threads that are listing the prices being paid right now at Lowes. Find a few and reference their link addresses. There is even one that has a picture of the pellets with the new price on them. Maybe someone can post a recent picture for you. That's what I did and I got a call from my local Lowes telling me I could have as many pellets as I wanted for the next month at the $3.74/bag instead of their posted $5.99/bag. It pays to groan and if you don't, you won't get anywhere. They wouldn't give me my 10% military discount, though.
I'm reading the manual and I see that it says that 4" diameter piping must be used if the vertical height is over 15 feet. That's kind of surprising as my stoves work fine with 17' of 3" up the chimneys. If your installers were so much in a hurry that they couldn't take the time to do more than just hand you the manual, I wonder if they used 4" pipe! If they used 3" then, per the manual, they've restricted the combustion air flow, which would explain the lack of proper combustion and heat. If it's 3", tell them to get back out there and replace the pipe and next time read the manual before they give it to you.
OK, when you are using TSTAT mode, the stove will drop to the lowest setting when no heat is called for. It won't go out. In AUTO mode, if the thermostat doesn't call for heat within 60 minutes, the stove will shut down and then restart when heat is called for. That is good in the spring or fall when, even running on the lowest setting will heat the house too much. Right now, if I were you, I'd run on AUTO since we are having fairly warm days and you don't need the heater.
Why you aren't getting any heat is a mystery. Does your flame look nice and lively with a 'blow torch' effect in the pot? Is the flame coming out of the pot 4" or so? If it's not lively, you may have to adjust the Fan Trim to get more air coming through the burn pot. If the flames aren't high enough in max heat level, then you will have to adjust the Feed Trim. These are explained in the manual. It sounds like you need to do some adjusting. Have fun and give it time to adjust after each change in setting. At least 1/2 hour.
First thing to do is write to Lowes Corporate office and complain that your local Lowes is charging so much for the pellets when you know that stores further North are charging $3.74 for them. There are a lot of threads that are listing the prices being paid right now at Lowes. Find a few and reference their link addresses. There is even one that has a picture of the pellets with the new price on them. Maybe someone can post a recent picture for you. That's what I did and I got a call from my local Lowes telling me I could have as many pellets as I wanted for the next month at the $3.74/bag instead of their posted $5.99/bag. It pays to groan and if you don't, you won't get anywhere. They wouldn't give me my 10% military discount, though.
I'm reading the manual and I see that it says that 4" diameter piping must be used if the vertical height is over 15 feet. That's kind of surprising as my stoves work fine with 17' of 3" up the chimneys. If your installers were so much in a hurry that they couldn't take the time to do more than just hand you the manual, I wonder if they used 4" pipe! If they used 3" then, per the manual, they've restricted the combustion air flow, which would explain the lack of proper combustion and heat. If it's 3", tell them to get back out there and replace the pipe and next time read the manual before they give it to you.
OK, when you are using TSTAT mode, the stove will drop to the lowest setting when no heat is called for. It won't go out. In AUTO mode, if the thermostat doesn't call for heat within 60 minutes, the stove will shut down and then restart when heat is called for. That is good in the spring or fall when, even running on the lowest setting will heat the house too much. Right now, if I were you, I'd run on AUTO since we are having fairly warm days and you don't need the heater.
Why you aren't getting any heat is a mystery. Does your flame look nice and lively with a 'blow torch' effect in the pot? Is the flame coming out of the pot 4" or so? If it's not lively, you may have to adjust the Fan Trim to get more air coming through the burn pot. If the flames aren't high enough in max heat level, then you will have to adjust the Feed Trim. These are explained in the manual. It sounds like you need to do some adjusting. Have fun and give it time to adjust after each change in setting. At least 1/2 hour.
The pipe is 4 inch,and the installer/dealer gave us such a good price, we knew there would not be much customer service. Our fire this morning on manual (not auto as I thought) was light and dancing as you stated. We turned it off later since it was warming up outdoors.
Since there are 2 vents,on this I45, one going up the chimmeny and one in back of stove, does the one in back of stove get enough air, or is it supposed to. Our stove is and insert. This is how he installed it, he left the Heatilater unit in place, but cut the floor part and front bottom surround out. Our Heatilator was new construction as far as we know ,in a brick fireplace. He then ran the pipe, replaced the chimmney cap up top. This guy buys 50 Napoleon units a year and installs both wood and pellet for $2300. He did a good job we think. Did we get a good deal?
Our fireplace opening is 1 1/2 inches is above the surround, so we have a gap. We need to get that covered ,welcome tips from all you pros out there. Thanks for the info on Lowes, we will do it. We will get to test this stove good next tuesday. 73 tomorrow. Thanks for help
Since there are 2 vents,on this I45, one going up the chimmeny and one in back of stove, does the one in back of stove get enough air, or is it supposed to. Our stove is and insert. This is how he installed it, he left the Heatilater unit in place, but cut the floor part and front bottom surround out. Our Heatilator was new construction as far as we know ,in a brick fireplace. He then ran the pipe, replaced the chimmney cap up top. This guy buys 50 Napoleon units a year and installs both wood and pellet for $2300. He did a good job we think. Did we get a good deal?
Our fireplace opening is 1 1/2 inches is above the surround, so we have a gap. We need to get that covered ,welcome tips from all you pros out there. Thanks for the info on Lowes, we will do it. We will get to test this stove good next tuesday. 73 tomorrow. Thanks for help
SmokeyTheBear
Minister of Fire
The "second vent " is the air intake and that must be kept clear. That is where the stove gets its combustion air.
I can't help on the surround gap and have no idea of the going price of that insert.
I can't help on the surround gap and have no idea of the going price of that insert.
tjnamtiw
Minister of Fire
redhen said:
Sounds like they know what they are doing. That's a pretty stove. When you get it back on, play with the feed trim on HIGH to get a good sized flame. Sounds like the air is OK if you have a good lively flame, but if you add more pellets, you can adjust that too.
Good luck. 65 here tomorrow so my stoves get a break too.
Nicholas440
Feeling the Heat
Its not uncommon for the pellets to sort of "hang up " along both sides of the hopper on many stoves. My Quadrafire insert has done this a couple of times. I've used a silicone spray (make sure stove is OFF when using flammable spray) then I buffed it real good with a cloth to make the hopper sides real smooth and slippery. Most of my pellet jams were on one side only, the right side. Once it was smooth and slippery the pellets all slid down and I didnt have that problem anymore. As mentioned above you can also use wax paper, or anything that will polish the hopper and allow the pellets to slide down, even pledge, or auto polish an work.
- Status
Similar threads
