During our recent visit to our pellet stove, we spoke with the sales reps about optimizing our stove settings.
I had been keeping the damper closed as much as possible while maintaining a clean burn. My thought had been not to dump heat out of the exhaust vent.
The sales rep told us to open the damper as much as we can without popping pellets out of the pot. Purging spent pellets as sparks out of the pot is OK and normal. So much air flow that active, heat producing pellet embers are pushed or popped out of the burn pot signals that the damper is open too much.
She told us to open the damper as much as we can without purging active embers from the pot, as above, because more air in the burn pot will cause the fire to burn hotter. She said not to worry about dumping heat out of the exhaust vent; pellet stoves work in the opposite way from woodstoves in this regard. Room air is pulled in and through the heat exchange tubes, then pushed out, by the convection fan. Fresh air is pulled into the burn pot through the open damper by the combustion fan, and exhaust gases are pushed out of the exhaust vent by the combustion fan. The heated air pushed through the heat exhange tubes and into the living space by the covection fan and the exhaust gases pushed out of the exhaust vent by the combustion fan are two different things.
I used to wonder what everyone meant by "dancing pellets" because my pellets just didn't dance. I never ran the stove with the damper wide open because I thought I'd dump all of our heat outside. Now that I understand that there are two separate air flow paths going on here, I have the damper set wide open, which on our stove is setting 5.
Our Napoleon NPS40 has a deep, cylindrical burn pot with holes in the bottom and around the lower sides. On damper setting 5, the pellets are dancing! but they are not popping out of the pot. Spent embers are being purged out as sparks, and the embers are mobile and active in the bottom of the pot, but the pellets are not leaving the pot. My guess is that this is at least in part due to the burn pot depth and shape.
We have the feed set on 4, as recommended by the owner's manual. We have the convection/room blower fan set on 4 as well. We can turn the convection fan up a little more but there isn't even a setting marked "5." It's just "4" and a bit more, perhaps 4.5, and at the highest setting the fan is a little loud. So we are holding the feed and the convection/room blower at about the same settings.
I haven't deployed my candy thermometer in the exchange tube port (my usual method for taking the temperature) but I can report that the temperature in the house is increasing. The temperature has risen 2', while at this time in the evening the outside air temp is falling.
So- what do y'all think?
I had been keeping the damper closed as much as possible while maintaining a clean burn. My thought had been not to dump heat out of the exhaust vent.
The sales rep told us to open the damper as much as we can without popping pellets out of the pot. Purging spent pellets as sparks out of the pot is OK and normal. So much air flow that active, heat producing pellet embers are pushed or popped out of the burn pot signals that the damper is open too much.
She told us to open the damper as much as we can without purging active embers from the pot, as above, because more air in the burn pot will cause the fire to burn hotter. She said not to worry about dumping heat out of the exhaust vent; pellet stoves work in the opposite way from woodstoves in this regard. Room air is pulled in and through the heat exchange tubes, then pushed out, by the convection fan. Fresh air is pulled into the burn pot through the open damper by the combustion fan, and exhaust gases are pushed out of the exhaust vent by the combustion fan. The heated air pushed through the heat exhange tubes and into the living space by the covection fan and the exhaust gases pushed out of the exhaust vent by the combustion fan are two different things.
I used to wonder what everyone meant by "dancing pellets" because my pellets just didn't dance. I never ran the stove with the damper wide open because I thought I'd dump all of our heat outside. Now that I understand that there are two separate air flow paths going on here, I have the damper set wide open, which on our stove is setting 5.
Our Napoleon NPS40 has a deep, cylindrical burn pot with holes in the bottom and around the lower sides. On damper setting 5, the pellets are dancing! but they are not popping out of the pot. Spent embers are being purged out as sparks, and the embers are mobile and active in the bottom of the pot, but the pellets are not leaving the pot. My guess is that this is at least in part due to the burn pot depth and shape.
We have the feed set on 4, as recommended by the owner's manual. We have the convection/room blower fan set on 4 as well. We can turn the convection fan up a little more but there isn't even a setting marked "5." It's just "4" and a bit more, perhaps 4.5, and at the highest setting the fan is a little loud. So we are holding the feed and the convection/room blower at about the same settings.
I haven't deployed my candy thermometer in the exchange tube port (my usual method for taking the temperature) but I can report that the temperature in the house is increasing. The temperature has risen 2', while at this time in the evening the outside air temp is falling.
So- what do y'all think?
