Quadrafire santa fe howling noise - Help me please

[magdelman]

My husband and I bought a Quadrafire Santa Fe B-1, October 2009 to replace an old Whitfield that we inherited when buying our house.

It worked well for 1 month and then sporatically we hear a LOUD howling, airplane engine sound, that will shake and vibrate the whole house. (stove in finished basement)

We contacted our dealer, and of course when they showed up for service call - we could not replicate.
They told us to be aware of if it happen when the Chiminey is cold, if the firepot has been cleaned, how big/ small the pellets are...etc etc.
We have tried 3 differnt type of pellets, on hot and cold days, windy, and snowing, and it still happens sporatically.

This year the dealer came back and told us ..."yeah other people have been complaining about that too...its the bolt that holds the firepot in place. As it heats and the blowers blow, it vibrates and the bolt comes loose and the howling is the air seeping through. make sure whenever you clean the stove, you check and tighten those bolts"

Well we hear the howling everyday - which means we clean it everyday and tighten bolts everyday.
Yesterday the bolt snapped.

Luckily we were able to get it out with out further damage, but now we are beyond annoyed and going to glue/seal the new bolt in there.

Anyone have any thoughts/ comments/ experience on this situation and any recommendations?

I can not bring myself to pay the dealer $125.00 to come out and say - yep you need a new bolt.

Thanks

 

[begreen]

Curious, does it only do this when there's a full moon? :lol:

Just kidding. Actually that sounds pretty bad. Hopefully a Quad dealer will chime in on this one. It should be a warranty service item and not on your nickel.

 

[magdelman]

HAHA - we have taken the moon into consideration...and that is not a factor

 

[tjnamtiw]

You've had the stove for quite a while so I'm sure you have discovered that overfeeding the stove, especially at startup, can often create such noises. Have you recently changed brands of pellets or seen a decrease in pellet size? Smaller pellets will feed much more aggressively in the Sante Fe unless you close down the feed rate a lot. How long is your flame at the max? Does it often reach the angled top plate that is over the tubes? With it being in the basement, you may not notice such things on a regular basis.
With a high flame, there is nothing out of the ordinary to hear such sounds from time to time. Lower the feed rate.

 

[B-Mod]

You've had the stove for quite a while so I'm sure you have discovered that overfeeding the stove, especially at startup, can often create such noises. Have you recently changed brands of pellets or seen a decrease in pellet size? Smaller pellets will feed much more aggressively in the Sante Fe unless you close down the feed rate a lot. How long is your flame at the max? Does it often reach the angled top plate that is over the tubes? With it being in the basement, you may not notice such things on a regular basis.
With a high flame, there is nothing out of the ordinary to hear such sounds from time to time. Lower the feed rate.

Great advice! You nailed it spot on, as they say, lol............

 

[magdelman]

thanks for the feedback.
Our feed rate is as low as it can go, and have been using the same pellets once we found some the "right size"
Since it will make this noise during use (not only at start up) ...I'm not sure if the over feeding would have been related anyway.

We replaced the bolt, and added lock tight so it doesnt need to keep being adjusted.
We'll see how it goes this weekend and I will let ya'll know.

It seems the craftmansship is pretty shoddy on this model...and we are paying the price.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

thanks for the feedback.
Our feed rate is as low as it can go, ...

Maybe, maybe not https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewreply/765948/

 

[tjnamtiw]

thanks for the feedback.
Our feed rate is as low as it can go, ...

Maybe, maybe not https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewreply/765948/

Good point, Smokey! Maybe the control box isn't set to the right number.

You're right about the workmanship of the Sante Fe, but, hey, we got what we paid for....... The stove DOES work fine. I have nice short pellets now and it feeds IMHO almost too many pellets, because my flame gets quite high from time to time. I wish it would close off a little more. I am really tempted to let the hopper go down and remove the gate assembly and see if I can add an additional piece onto the gate. The only problem is I still have a ton of those crappy Carolina Wood pellets to use up and they need the gate all the way OPEN since the length can get over 3" long!! I just came home with my fourth ton of Greenway pellets, so I now have 5+ tons of pellets in my garage for this winter AND next! At $187 a ton.

I still wouldn't worry about the occasional 'roar' since it's the nature of the beast and is the topic of MANY posts on here for most of the brands. I think it is just harmonics that are set up in the exhaust pipe from time to time.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Nothing quite like building your very own pipe organ with tremolo.

 

[tjnamtiw]

:lol:
I wonder with 5-6 tons of pellets if I qualify for a 'Southern Pellet Pig'....???

 

[B-Mod]

thanks for the feedback.
Our feed rate is as low as it can go, ...

Maybe, maybe not https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewreply/765948/

Good point, Smokey! Maybe the control box isn't set to the right number.

You're right about the workmanship of the Sante Fe, but, hey, we got what we paid for....... The stove DOES work fine. I have nice short pellets now and it feeds IMHO almost too many pellets, because my flame gets quite high from time to time. I wish it would close off a little more. I am really tempted to let the hopper go down and remove the gate assembly and see if I can add an additional piece onto the gate. The only problem is I still have a ton of those crappy Carolina Wood pellets to use up and they need the gate all the way OPEN since the length can get over 3" long!! I just came home with my fourth ton of Greenway pellets, so I now have 5+ tons of pellets in my garage for this winter AND next! At $187 a ton.

I still wouldn't worry about the occasional 'roar' since it's the nature of the beast and is the topic of MANY posts on here for most of the brands. I think it is just harmonics that are set up in the exhaust pipe from time to time.

You can make the bolt slot a little longer, to close the feed off a little more. I took a little material off the clamp also to shut down the feed a little more. Works great for me feeding her corn...........

 

[tjnamtiw]

Now that you mention it, b-mod, I remember you saying that on an earlier post. One more project! You're keeping me busy! :cheese:

 

[B-Mod]

Hahaha, I either posted it here, or IBC, not sure. When I did this I bent the very end of the plate up a little to make sure the augur would not touch it, as it is very close. I wanted to do a OAK, but it got cold too quick here.........

 

[Vinelife]

That was happening to me at one time too. The howling. I fixed it by taking out the back and top baffels and cleaning the exhaust path really good with a shop vac. There wasn't enough exhaust power going on so the pellets were filling up and not discharging the fly ash. At a certain point the stove would make a vibrating humming noise. It was a cleaning issue. Make sure you clean and vacumn it out very very good ..

 

[Shortstuff]

We are on our 3rd season with our Castile free-standing and I think it is very similar in design to your Sante-Fe and here's a couple of things we always notice. When it has just been cleaned, there is an odd whistling sound for the first half-day or so during the first 5-10 minutes after startup. It almost sounds like a young childs first attempt at whistling. The other thing we hear is a deep almost drone-like sound, kinda like someone blowing over the top of a large glass bottle. This usually happens after a couple of days without any cleaning, sort of the stoves way of telling me it's time for a good cleaning.

If you haven't tried this, let your stove run for at least a day or maybe even 2 days without any cleaning and see if the sound goes away. Other than that, we accept these different sounds as just the nature of the beast and we're pretty used to them so they don't bother us really.