New stove! (Crazy part II)

[pegdot]

After a totally fruitless search yesterday to find a 4" chimney liner anywhere within two hours drive of me I finally just got ticked, gave up, and went and bought the Englander stove that I spotted last week in a nearby Tractor Supply. It's a 25PDVE that's apparently been hiding in storage somewhere for two years. (Date says 9/05) I'm as happy as a hog in mud!

Got the stove and a Duravent install kit for less than what that model is now selling for at Home Depot but because it's been shuffled around for a whle the owners manual is missing and no one in the store knew a thing about it. I had to get the 800 number off the lid and call Englander myself just to verify that it was what I thought it was feature wise. They had it tagged with the wrong square footage rating and maybe the price was a mistake as well but I didn't question THAT part. ;-) Spoke to some nice guy in sales who apparently didn't find it at all unusual that the employees in the store couldn't answer even the most basic of questions. Oh, I take that back......I did find one female employee, I think she was 12, who said she'd seen a promotional tape about pellet stoves at some kind of TSC employee training deal and that pellet stoves were "Way cool!" I've decided, of course, to tuck that particular bit of wisdom away for future reference...I'm sure it will be invaluable at some point in time. te he

Anyway, planning to get cracking on the install as soon as hubby wakes up. (What's he doing still asleep? It's a quarter to 6 and I've got a new toy I want to play with!) I'm going to put it in our dining room since it's at the center of the house. A basic thru the wall installation. Went to Lowes last night and bought some rather interesting cobblestone pavers to use as a temporary, unless I really like the way it looks, floor protector. If we don't have to spend all day rearranging furniture to make room for it I should be free of hauling firewood by tonight. I'll let ya'll know how it goes.

Peggy

 

[pegdot]

Since it's now a quarter to 7, hubby is still asleep, I've caught up on reading posts, and I'm bored I'll have to say for the record, and hopefully for some enterprising stove shop owner out there, that someone sorely needs to move into this area to sell pellet stoves and the related products. The situation down here is laughable! Big box stores who sell stoves and maybe the basic vent kit, not all of them even stock the vent kits, but no employees who know the first thing about the stoves. Other stores who sell pellets but not stoves. And NO ONE who sells parts or does service.

I spent 5 hours yesterday calling every stove store I could find listed within a 150 mile radius of me looking for either a 4" flexible liner or the rigid pipe to install that insert and while a lot of people told me that they wished they had it in stock and almost everyone said they could order it for me not a single retailer I contacted stocks pellet vent as a matter of routine. A few told me straight up that mine wasn't the only call they'd received recently from someone hunting this stuff. (I'm thinking, to myself, "Then why don't you order some?")

That 150 mile radius covered parts of NC, SC, and GA. The folks I spoke to in NC, a mountain area, seemed a little more knowledgable about pellet burning but that's not saying much. When I got desperate enough to start calling all the Lowe's and Home Depots in the area I had employees from 5 different stores try their best to sell me B type gas vent pipe to use on a pellet stove! YIKES! What's really scary is that this was coming from stores who were actually selling pellet stoves! I knew better but how many unsuspecting people have bought a stove from them and been sold the wrong vent?

It's little wonder to me that pellet stoves have never caught on around here. With the lack of information and supply it's sort of amazing that anyone uses them here at all. I do think that there is a large potential market here. Loads of wood burners in the area would likely make the switch to pellets if they only knew about them and had a decent place to go buy one. I'm eyeballing my shop and thinking "Pellet stove store?"

Sorry for the rant but it's been a frustrating week.
Peggy

PS I did speak to a couple of chimney sweeps who actually had the liner I needed but not a single one of them would sell it to me unless they installed it. I've now received a free education in how difficult and dangerous it is to drop a pipe down a chimney. A poor little ole uneducated gal like myself just couldn't handle it without a degree in rocket science or a masters in quantum physics. SNORT! >:-(

 

[Xena]

It's 28F outside right now where I am.
Got a hot cup of fresh brew, kicked the
stove up to #2 and the house
is a comfy 72F. You're gonna love that stove!
Dont' forget to post pictures.

 

[tinkabranc]

Hopefully finding reasonable priced pellets in your area to feed your stove
will not be such a struggle.

 

[eernest4]

Hi peggy,
sorry its so long a post, BUT,NO ONE TOLD ME THIS and it took me 2 years of agrevation to figure it out for myself. Though 2 save u some pain.

So, if you want to be agrevated for the next two years, just dont read this.

Experienced pellet heads, may be boring , you dont have to read it as you probably
already know, better than i do.

BUT, IF YOU DO READ THIS,YOU WILL KNOW JUST WHATS GOING ON AND HOW TO DEAL WITH IT WHEN IT HAPPENS.

peggy go to:
www.englanderstoves.com & download your owners manuel online right into a file on your computer.

2. Pellet stoves are notorious for not working properly when they get dirty with ashes. For me, this means I have to clean out my pellet stove about every 2 to 3 bags of pellets i burn.
If i dont,i could get a smoke smell in my living room where the stove is & the smell takes 2 or 3 hours to fade .

One sign that it is time to clean your pellet stove is a black window.
Black window often occurs when you dont have enough outside inlet air to the combustion chamber, so that you run a lazy sooty flame. Opening up the intake air more will give the flame more air & it will be less sooty & burn cleaner.

Some pellet stoves have preset factory intake air,mine is manually controled by a lever I set,
which opens & closes a choke plate in the air intake tube.

Fresh air intake often comes up from UNDER THE PELLET BURNING PAN, where there is also
AN ASH TRAP, THAT MUST BE CLEANED REGULARLY.

Sometimes,ashes pile up so that the ash accumulation chokes off the intake air so that the intake air control no longer affects fresh air intake,the intake is blocked by the ashes under the fire pot.

Learn how to remove the fire pot & clean out under it.

Also, keep the bottom of the pellet stove clean because often burning pellets are blown out of the fire pot( this is called "popcorning", refering to hot air popcorn machines) & many times even pellets that are unburned are blown out & end up on the floor of the pellet stove.

Popcorning can be stopped by reducing the intake air. Too much intake air blows the pellets out of the fire pot.

a live ,burning pellet can start these unburned pellets to smoldering & fill up the inside of a pellet stove with smoke after the shut down cycle is over. Then this smoke gets out into your room & stinks.

Many pellet stoves ,ie ,mine,has a 10 minute shut down cycle, where the fan keeps blowing fresh air through the combustion chamber in order to burn up & flush out the smoke from any smoldering pellets.

The length of the shut down cycle is directly proportional to the heat remaining in the heat exchanger.

That means, if you turn on the stove & let it burn for only 5 minutes, the heat exchanger will not get hot & you may only get a 4 minute shut down cycle, while a almost full fire pot of smoldering pellets is blown around the steel floor of the pellet stove.

on the other hand a good & hot heat exchanger can give you a 20 minute shut down cycle, with almost no chance of smoldering pellets remaining.

Other stuff 2 remember:

a lot of intake air will burn pellets fast & hot with little soot but too much intake air will just blow the pellets out of the fire pot & all over the floor of the stove & blow good heat out the exhaust vent.

Too little air will cause black window,soot & CLINKERS IN THE FIRE POT.

CLINKERS are a nasty resionus sticky half burned pile of gooey pellets that seem crazy glued
into one coner of your fire pot.

My best luck removing them is to let the stove cool & remove the fire pot & scrape them off
with a flat blade screwdriver or a small stainless steel brush. Sometimes it helps to use awesome spray cleaner or a automotive spray degreaser or even carburator cleaning spray.

Sometimes, if I open up my intake air about 4 or 5 minutes into the shut down cycle, after most of the unstuck pellets have burned out, the extra air burns up most of the clinker, so that i dont have much to scrape.

If you find your stove starting to make clinkers, open up your intake air, clinkers dont form when there is adiquate combustion air or when the stove has been freshly cleaned.

CLINKERS are a symptom of a dirty stove in need of cleaning & of opperating with insuficient intake air.

CLEANING THE STOVE. Depending one the room you have to get your hand in , once you open the door; I like to use a hard pack cigarette box that I have cut the front off of & stapled
the sides,top & bottom from comming apart. It makes a handy little cardboard box that I can use to scoop out the ashes & fits just right into my stove. Anything larger wont fit at all.

YOU STOVE MAY BE DIFFERENT, I HAVE A PEL PRO, YOU A ENGLANDER, BUT THEY ALSO COULD BE SIMILAR ,BUT all pellet stoves need to be cleaned,sooner or later.

VACUUMING OUT YOUR STOVE.

MAKE SURE ALL EMBERS ARE DEAD OUT FIRST. That way, you wont turn your vac into a flamethrower.
DONT USE YOUR HOUSEHOLD VAC,IT CANT FILTER OUT THE SOOT. Using a household vac will ruin the vac motor in under 3 minutes,if it ever lasts that long.

USE ONLY A WET /DRY SHOP VAC WITH THIS FILTER SETUP.
The ordinary shop vac may have either a foam or corrigated paper filter element . Buy the plain paper bag filter that goes around the outside of the regular filter. The extra paper bag filter will keep your regular filter clean enough so that you can blow it off later, by plugging in the hose to the discharge vent of the vac outside in the yard.

Fill the canister about 1/4 to 1/3 full of water, the space under the filter will determine how much water you can put in without wetting the filter.
The water is the primary ash catcher, the paper bag filter is the secondary catcher and your
regular filter the third ash catcher.

This way,you dont need to buy a 300.oo ash vacuum, a 39.99 wet/dry shop vac is good enough & on some models, you can take off the motor and use it as a electric leaf blower.
Buy only low ash content pellets, its hard enough to keep the dammed stove clean without
buying dirty burning pellets.
store your pellets on a pallet, up off the ground in a dry location & cover then with a waterproof tarp.
Pellets will keep for years if kept dry & away from humidity.
Dont trust the plastic bags the pellets come in to keep the pellets dry because the bags have
micro holes from the factory,so small you cant see them, whose purpose is to let moisture evaporate from the pellets; thats the reason 4 tarp.

 

[drizler]

Actually your experience is about normal for someone who installs their own. Ah well, money or time, the age old question. Be thankful its not 3 years ago when you couldn't get a pellet stove or worse yet ordered one for top dollar then found out that the suppliers were lying to the retailers about lag time. Your next week stove usually turned into a couple months and everything was in short supply including pellets. What you need now is pellets. They are easily available but pretty pricey about everywhere. If you can find some at discount buy enough to get you through the winter, they do keep well. Keep your eye on Wallyworld and Sams Club ect. They get em lots cheaper but not regularly so if you find em buy all you can. I just got done running my rear end off because Sams got a truck load in and I saved 60 bucks a ton. What I didn't know till recently is that you can place an order when Sams has em, pay for them and have them put a hold on them for you.. How long they will hold them I don;t know but even a few days is good enough. All the critters around here have trucks so when they come in they go fast hence doing it like I said. (No affiliation with sams here, I just know a deal when I see one.) Best solution for next year space allowing is to buy next seasons in APRIL.

 

[Kenny1]

PS I did speak to a couple of chimney sweeps who actually had the liner I needed but not a single one of them would sell it to me unless they installed it. I've now received a free education in how difficult and dangerous it is to drop a pipe down a chimney. A poor little ole uneducated gal like myself just couldn't handle it without a degree in rocket science or a masters in quantum physics. SNORT! >:-(

Heh heh - I love your attitude - go get em!

Be sure to post some pics of you new toy, err stove, when its installed and fired up!

 

[pegdot]

Wow Ernest! Thanks for all the tips!

Well, it was a LONG day but after rearranging what seemed like the entire house we finally got the stove setting on the pavers around 7 PM. Went to do the dry run and got an error code after only a few seconds. Popped the back cover off and there lay the problem...one of two wires to the vacuum switch was completely disconnected. Easy fix. :coolsmile: Dry run went smooth from there so we hooked it up to the flue & OAK, loaded it with what pellets we had, only 30 lbs. since I burned up 10lbs. playing with the Breckwell, and started the 3 hour cure burn. It lit and ran just fine but since we had to sit here with the doors and a couple of windows open to air the smell and the wood insert was still going as well we ended up going to bed with no idea of how well it was heating. I closed up the house, dropped it down to 3 1, told hubby to let the woodburner go out and crawled under the covers. Woke a few minutes ago to find the house warm and the stove running just fine. Sure was nice not to have to stumble to the living room and stoke a fire!

Looks like I'll still have to do some experimenting with fans to get the heat a little more even through out the house but I'm well pleased with it! We'll be at TSC when they open today to get pellets.

Opps! While I was writing this, and had my back turned to it, it went out. Looks like we're out of pellets already. lol

Got a quick question for ya'll...is it okay to keep my computer in the same room as the stove or is it going to generate enough dust, etc. to cause a potential problem? Still have furniture re-arraning to do...sigh.

Thanks,
Peggy

 

[pegdot]

We got pellets and the stove has been doing a really good job of heating the house although we really haven't had any bad cold weather yet so I've been running it on 1 1, it's lowest settings. I guess it's doing the job because our house cat has abandoned our bed in favor of a chair near the stove. :lol:

I have a couple of newbie questions for you guys. Yesterday when I cleaned the burn pot it was full of ash that was sort of clumped together well enough to hold the shape of the pot. When I poked at it it broke into pieces. Is this normal? I was sort of expecting just fine, loose ash.

Also, the flame is higher on one side of the pot, the side where the ignitor is, and has a tendency to blow forward towards the glass sooting it up in one spot. Too much air? Not enough? Although I ran the OAK hose thru the wall I haven't cut it off yet or installed the exterior cover plate. Do I need to make some adjustments to the hose before I do?

Sorry for the poor quality of the photo. I just got a new computer and I haven't figured out how to use my old digital with it yet so I'm reduced to using my cell phone. Tried to get some photos of the flame so ya'll could tell me if it looks about right but they didn't come out. The flame seems a little too high to me.

Peggy

 

[Philip]

I really like your setup, Peggy. My wife and I almost bought the same patio stones for our hearth. We would have if the ones they had for sale at Lowe's had been as dark a shade of gray as the ones on display. I almost picked up their display stones but there weren't enought to make a decent hearth pad. We ended up going to Home Depot (across the street from Lowe's) and got some ceramic tiles and Wonderboard so I have another project before the stove can be installed.

Eernest4, thank you so much for all of the information. If I had known some of that before I bought the stove, I might not have, but I'm still looking forward to getting it going soon and your information will help me understand how it all works and hopefully I won't have to learn so much the hard way.

 

[pegdot]

hmmm...wrote a reply to this, hit submit, but it seems to have disappeared into cyberspace.... :-S

Philip, we had exactly the same experience at Lowes. Display stones looked so much better than those for sale that I was going to take the display ones and just add a few to them, under the stove where they wouldn't show, but hubby wouldn't let me. He's such a kill joy sometimes! lol

I still have a bit of finishing to do on the install. Need to color wash the cobbles so that they look more like the display ones, and put a wood edge on the hearth. So far, I've been amazed that there just isn't any heat in the cobbles from the stove but then the bottom of the stove is cool to the touch too so this whole heat pad thing seems like it's more to protect the floor from ash and embers that might drop out during cleaning than from heat. I was thinking that I'd have to take down the curtain on the window next to the stove but it just doesn't throw out any heat on the sides....that's a good thing! :coolsmile:

Can't wait to see your hearth pad when it's done.

 

[Don2222]

Hello

Nice stove setup!

 

[hossthehermit]

Hello

Nice stove setup!

Bored and browsing the archives, Don??????????????

 

[Harman Lover 007]

Hello

Nice stove setup!

Bored and browsing the archives, Don??????????????

There must be something better to do...like look for house fires caused by pellet stoves.... ;-) ;-)

 

[Don2222]

Hello

Nice stove setup!

Bored and browsing the archives, Don??????????????

You never know but you may get an answer from the poster that posted this in 2006!!
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/2288/#893551