Power Outage

[Darren111]

Stupid question alert.

When the power goes out I'm assuming you just leave the stove alone and let it burn itself out providing there is no smoke coming into the house?

Believe it or not, this is not covered in the installation/operation manual. I've read the whole dam thing probably 4 times now.

And, if I was to hook it up to a generator during a power outage, do I need to wait for it to burn itself out or can I just plug it in and restart it right away?

Sorry for the basic questions but I can't seem to find the answers, probably not searching the right thing. Being a total newbie to pellet stoves I'm hoping you folks will understand. The manual tells you how to install/clean and completely tear down rebuild and rewire but not what to do if the power fails.

 

[Bioburner]

Harman recommends a UPS and the stove senses inverted power and goes into shutdown. Now electronics on the newer stoves seem to be more sensitive to power issues and a good inverted power source will probably run your stove without issue.
If you can fill in your signature others with like stove can chime in with more stove manufacture info.

 

[Darren111]

Thanks Bioburner, hopefully signature updated. I'll look into a ups but the budget is real tight right now...

 

[Bioburner]

At least get a good surge suppressor to help save the board. Most manufactures recommend that.

 

[Peterfield]

FWIW, I have had my stove on for two power outages and in both cases, no trouble with smoke in the house. I have a center chimney installation and I am sure the flue stays warm enough for a while to keep the chimney drafting until the pellets die out.

 

[BrotherBart]

If you have sufficient vertical chimney height the draft can pull the smoke out in a power failure. If you are just going straight out the wall the smoke is gonna come visit you you in the house.

 

[bogieb]

If you have sufficient vertical chimney height the draft can pull the smoke out in a power failure. If you are just going straight out the wall the smoke is gonna come visit you you in the house.

Yeah, pretty much this.

The downstairs stove has a nice rise so it doesn't have any issues during power outages. The main floor stove has almost no vertical and will belch smoke out the door gaskets (least resistance). The main portion of smoke does still go outside but it can smolder for quite some time. If you are home when it happens, try to knock any burning pellets into the ash drawer which should help extinguish them.

An inexpensive UPS / surge protector can be had: Google "APC UPS BE750G" and you can get it for $70-80 (do it now, the prices will go up again, but they do go on sale regularely). I will admit that this will last only about 15 minutes, but that gives you time to get the stove shut down. And, if your Drolet is like a Harman, it will sense the difference and shut itself down gracefully without you even being around.

 

[rona]

I learned with burning pellets they can produce smoke a long time so if I am home a couple of glasses of water into the burn pot and empty the ash bucket will solve the problem.
Corn seemed to go out fast and didn't produce the smoldering smoke like pellets do.

 

[TimfromMA]

I did this:

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/homemade-battery-backup.125698/

 

[bmccue]

I have a Harman P43 with through the wall venting. I use an APC BE350 UPS with it and I have experienced a few power failures where the UPS kicks in to shut the stove down. The stove senses the modified sine-wave from the unit and goes into a mode that pulses the combustion fan every few seconds. At the same time the feed auger and distribution blower are shut down. So basically the stove is letting the fire die out and exhausting the smoke on every pulse of the combustion fan. I have found this takes about 15 to 20 minutes. Unfortunately the UPS beeps and drives you nuts, but it is doing its job. The UPS cost me about $40 on Amazon.

I do have a generator backup with transfer for several circuits (the stove's circuit is one of them). However I usually don't start that for an hour or so just to make certain the power loss is "significant". Before starting the generator though, I would shut off the stove and turn on my regular forced hot air propane furnace. This is because the UPS battery would be depleted if I were to shut the generator down with the stove running before the UPS battery was replenished (except if the regular power was back).

I have given some thought to using a deep cycle battery with a pure sine-wave UPS connected to a group 27 deep cycle battery I have for my ham radio gear. The battery is charged via a 100 watt solar panel. The solar panel may only extend the run time of the stove a bit, but connecting a battery charger from my generator to the deep cycle battery may provide enough of a recharge so that I would not need to run the generator so often (hybrid). The only thing that would really suck was if the battery voltage dropped below the inverter's low voltage cut-out and the stove were still on. The stove could possibly back smoke up into the house. I wonder if I could plug my APC 350 modified sinewave into a sinewave inverter and then plug the stove into the APC 350. This would gracefully shut the stove down if the pure sinewave inverter shut down.

 

[Pelleting In NJ]

CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD PFC Sinewave UPS 1500VA 900W PFC Compatible Mini-Tower $139.95 & FREE Shipping

I have this UPS on my Ecoteck elena, which draws about 265 watts when it is running (fans and auger motor, ignitor not on). I hooked up the coil of a self-latching relay to the utility power (before the UPS), and the Normally Open relay contacts are wired in series with my auger motor. If the utility power drops out, the relay stops the auger, and the UPS provides enough power, long enough, to keep the combustion blower running till the burn-pot is out. This is my automatic way to prevent any smoke back-up, since I have horizontal vent-pipe configuration (no natural draft). Once utility power returns, I must push a momentary push-button switch that energizes the relay back-on, so that I can restart the stove.

 

[Pelleting In NJ]

Correction...I just looked at my UPS display...my Ecoteck draws about 70W, and peaks at 100W for 2 or 3 seconds when the auger turns on.

 

[Wooden Head]

I learned with burning pellets they can produce smoke a long time so if I am home a couple of glasses of water into the burn pot and empty the ash bucket will solve the problem.
Corn seemed to go out fast and didn't produce the smoldering smoke like pellets do.

I would worry about the thermal shock on my cast burn pot.

 

[Tonyray]

If you have sufficient vertical chimney height the draft can pull the smoke out in a power failure. If you are just going straight out the wall the smoke is gonna come visit you you in the house.

 

[Deezl Smoke]

Convection current. Stack effect, or chimney effect.