question about Castile pellet stove.

[ozone159]

Hi everyone,
I have had a Quadrafire Castile free standing pellet stove for two seasons now. I am pretty dilligent with my cleaning and am overall very happy with the stove. I have a question about something the stove does, and I don't know if I have a problem or if I am doing something wrong...Here's what happens - occasionally (and I stress "occasionally") the stove will feed pellets into the firepot until it is full to the top with pellets. To this point it has only happened after I shut the stove down to clean it and then start it back up. The stove has not lit on these occasions, and I simply scoop the pellets out of the firepot, hit the reset and then the stove works fine. To clean out the pot I just shut the thermostat down and let the stove cool. I then raise and lower the thermostat rapidly to start the exhaust fan while cleaning. Then i set the thermostat back to where I want it to run the stove. I am a little worried about what could happen if this feed problem happens while the stove is already burning and nobody is home.
Like I said earlier, to this point it has only happened a few times.
Thank You

 

[Former Farmer]

It may happen because you raise and lower your thermostat to start the fan. By pressing the reset button, you are clearing any problems that the controller may have incurred from the frequent changes on the thermostat. By changing the thermostat so quickly and not allowing the unit to "follow its normal sequence", you may have problems with the controller not being quite sure as what to do. I believe that if you don't try to start your fan via the thermostat, your problem will go away.

If you turn the power off, let it set a minute, and turn the power back on, I believe the fan will start when you turn it back on. You can just unplug the unit when you are starting to do your cleaning and plug it in when you are done.

 

[ozone159]

thanks, i will try simply unplugging the unit to clean and see if the overfeed goes away. i was doing the raising/lowering thing because that's what the owners manual said to do, but what you say makes perfect sense to me.

 

[fatotto48]

My castile was made around fall 2008. To clean it I let it cool down and then just pull plug for a couple seconds and it goes into clean mode. The fan then runs for about 8 to 10 minutes. I do not clean out the hopper area very often but when I do then I need to hit reset a few times. I never touch T-stat until start up. Did you read manual?

 

[ozone159]

Of course I have read my owners manual!! It is always an arms length from the stove. Page 27, Section 10, Paragraph 4.b...."turn the thermostat on and immediately shut it off to start the exhaust blower"...

 

[fatotto48]

Sorry, you are correct the manual does say to move T-stat to start fan.

 

[fatotto48]

Try calling qaudra-fire maybe a bad circuit board.

 

[tjnamtiw]

I do the same as you to get the fan going and never have a problem like that. I usually have the opposite. Many times after cleaning, it doesn't seem to drop ENOUGH pellets to start back up. Maybe I'm a little too round in cleaning around the chute and knock some of the pellets out of the auger. I usually throw a few pellets in the pot when I'm done cleaning.
You definitely have something wrong going on if you drop enough pellets to fill the pot. That's a LOT of pellets to drop in one minute. That's how long the auger turns for startup. I would definitely call the dealer.

 

[stalepizza]

When this has happened to me, I found there were at least 3 reasons why:

1 - A layer of solidified ash had accumulated in the bottom of the burn pot, in a situation I would describe as "bridging", meaning that eventhough I engaged the pot cleaner rod several times, the "bridge" of ash remained lodged above the trap door. This bridge of ash blocks the heat from the igniter when attempting to light the incoming pellets, and they just fill up and sit there until the stove shuts down. The solution is to pull and hold the cleaning rod out, while knocking the bridge down into the ash pan with a metal putty knife. another tool I found awsome to scrape the inside of the burn pot is a metal carpet knife, which is curved.

2 - Bad igniter contact. the igniter won't work unless it is tightly fastened to the bottom of the burn pot (loss of ground or something, I don't know the details). When I replaced my igniter for the first time, I did so loosely because I stripped the mounting screws. When I realized what happened, I tapped out the holes and tightly fastened it to the burn pot with stainless steel machine screws. I haven't had this problem since.

3 - Thermocouple cover not touching end of thermocouple wire. This can get bumped ocasionally while cleaning the stove.