Special burn pot for optimal continuous burn at lowest setting? Whitfield Quest Plus

[Stovensen]

Hi there,

New in this forum, but I’ve been reading a lot in here with great interest and benefit ever since I bought a used Whitfield Quest Plus in november 2008. To be honest, I could’nt have made it without all the knowledge, tips and tricks in this forum…Hearth.com is the best of its kind on the internet!

So far I've only seen users here from USA and Canada, so I hope you will welcome and answer a question from a user in far away Europe (Denmark, Scandinavia).

Spring is here and it's getting warmer, thank God, but now I only need to run my stove at the very lowest setting. My impression is that the stove was never designed to run continuously at this "idling" setting... the burn pot is simply too wide to maintain a stable burn of this small quantity of pellets.
Perhaps a more narrow burn pot would do the trick?
Does anybody here know if it's possible to purchase such a non OEM burn pot anywhere?

Thanks in advance for your answer

Bo

 

[Snowy Rivers]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

I have two Whitfields here at my house.

I would say to get a piece of 1/8th inch ( about 2-3mm) stainless steel and make a burn
pot insert that will fit into your regular burn tray that will basically make the pot smaller.

My ADVANTAGE II T has little bars that run across the pot. I burn nut shells and they fall right through the grate.

I cut a piece of stainless steel and drilled rows of 1/8th inch holes that line up with the slots.
The holes allow the air to pass through but the shell pieces stay in the pot.

If you make the little pot insert you can just make it so the actual burn area is smaller.

This wont cost a lot and wont change the burn grate permanently.

Hope this helps.

Snowy

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Welcome Stovensen, my wife's father's family was from Norway.

I have thought about doing something similar for my stove, however besides the metal work my stove does the auto ignition thing and exits start up after going through all burn modes and dropping back to the previous burn setting.

If you have a manual start stove what Snowy suggests should work fine.

 

[lmjr]

Stovensen,

If it's the 13 bar pot you have,,,so you know there is a 10 bar conversion.

It is not low cost though.





Perhaps,
If you're not in to custom fabrication,
you might search out and find some kind of stainless steel or cast iron cup, bowl, box,
that would be an off the shelf item.

Maybe something from housewares or even outdoor grilling.

Then as already stated previously above , drill appropriate holes to suit.

 

[Stovensen]

Thanks a lot for welcome and answers,

Snowy, what you suggest sounds like a great idea. In fact I have some steel plate of that thickness in my work shop. It's not stainless, but I guess it should be fine for some test runs.
You've inspired me to a solution that should work and be easy to make. Once it's made and tested I'll return with a testreport and pics.
By the way, I'm very impressed by the hearth you're making yourself. I absolutely enjoyed the pics you posted in that thread.

Smokey, well then perhaps you know some norwegian words from your wife and her family?
You know, the Norwegian and danish languages are so closely related that we can understand each other directly, no translation needed. That goes for swedish as well.

As for the auto igniter, I've unplugged it. In stead I use firestarters (kerosene gel). Much quicker and some electricity is saved. So the idea suggested by Snowy should work.

Master of Smoke, I just checked the partslist at :

http://www.hearthtools.com/parts/replacement_parts_for__advantage.htm

They have this retrofit kit part no.-#12151264 ( 152 Dollars ) , but unfortunately it's only for the Advantage series. The base plate looks very different from that of a Quest Plus.
Besides, 152 Dollars + shipping + tax and we have a total price of at least 200 Dollars :wow:

I'm convinced that Snowy's idea will work. I have the material and tools ( electric jig saw, powergrinder, CO2-welder etc ) and I have a lot of experience from CO2-welding my cars through many years. I'll work something out and will post you the test-results in the nearest future.

Thanks a lot for your help
Bo

 

[Snowy Rivers]

Stovensen

Thanks

The regular steel will work fine, just won't last quite as long as stainless will.

Just fool around with the size and shape of your pot "insert" until you get what you need.


As I mentioned I added the plate to my pot and also added a center divider to the pot to scatter the nut shells out over the fire so they dont pile up in a heap right in the center.

Its all about just a little tweek here and there to get things just right.

best


Snowy