Vogelzang VG5790 Room Air Issue

[Tyru]

Just installed a VG5790 in the basement of a 1100 SF ranch. Basement is spray foam insulated along with the rest of the house. The stove started and operated as expected except for the low amount of heated air coming out the from of the stove. The amount of air does not appear to change no matter what burn setting I use. The room air blower is turning. The blower does operate at high speed when the stove is commanded to shut down. The rating of the blower is 200 cfm, I would estimate that the blower is operating 25% capacity when the stove is in operation. I contacted customer support who said that this was normal.

Anyone have experience with the amount of room air?

We ran the stove for 12 hours using a good quality pellet at setting 3 with an outdoor temp of 35 deg and could not get the basement above 65 deg F. It appears that the stove does not provide even close to the rated heat output.

 

[Lake Girl]

Welcome to the forum.

What temp do you have it set for? If it is within 3* of set point, it returns to original setting. If set point is reached, will idle on one. Likely has to fall 3* to trigger higher burn. Being in the basement, temperature fluctuation may not be that much.
page 10 of the manual http://www.northerntool.com/images/downloads/manuals/38208.pdf

Otherwise call the tech support of the manufacturer.

 

[Tyru]

The stove was in manual mode and I did call tech support. Wanted to see if anyone who has this stove finds the room air output to be low.
I have seen review from people with larger homes that say they have to run the unit on 1 and still too much heat. That is not what I am finding with this stove.

 

[Lake Girl]

What did tech say? You would still need to set the temperature in manual mode so it will ramp up to reach temperature and go back to idle when temperature is satisfied. Have you tried increasing the set temperature? The temperature sensor will be located at the back of the stove where it is cooler so a bump of a couple of degrees may improve that. Usually the fan will coordinate with the burn rate and temperature set point. It usually takes 1/2-1 hour to notice changes...

How is the air damper set? What are the characteristics of the flame? If your damper is opened too far, you will have heat loss out the exhaust. If closed too much, flame quality will be poor and more fly ash will collect in the firebox. Mark the damper rod with nail polish or similar so you know where your starting point is before making adjustments.

 

[Mt Bob]

Sounds like stove is not burning hot enough,not really a room air circulation problem.

 

[Tyru]

The support person that i got on the stove said it sounded like the stove was operating properly.

This stove has two modes of control, If you put it in manual, the controller ignores the room temp sensor and runs at whatever rate you set until it runs out of pellets or you shut it down. In temperature mode it will change the rate of fire based on the difference between room temperature and the setpoint. We confirmed that the pellet cycle does increase when the burn level is increased. However, the blower speed does not appear to change. We will try bumping up the temp setpoint just to see if makes any difference.

This has a manual air damper on the back which I have set at about 40%. Tech confirmed this is a typically setting got level 3 burn. Flame looked good in this position. No black and not too lively a flame. Sides get so hot that you cannot open the magnetic side panels and paint is blistering in places. I'll try playing with the settings a bit more to see if I can get more heat.

Thanks again for your help

 

[tlc1976]

I posted but deleted it because I didn't think it was relevant. But now I think it was. I have a VG5770 which is a smaller stove with what appears to be the same control board. At 35 deg outside temp it will hold the house at 65-70 easily on HR (heat range) 1, sounds like we have similar sized houses and you have a well insulated basement.

The room blower is supposed to change speeds from probably 20% at HR1, progressively through the heat ranges until it runs at full speed at HR5. The difference is audibly noticeable. And it runs at full speed when shutting the stove down. Yours does that so it's not the blower itself, but it may be an issue with the control board. I first suggested this then deleted the post because I don't run mine on thermostat. So I didn't want to steer you to a bad control board if it was just a settings issue. But I really think that might be the issue based on what's been posted.

I was going to ask if it is feeding more pellets and getting hotter. I was concerned that if it is indeed increasing the HR and not increasing the room blower speed, that the stove would overheat and trip the manual cutoff switch. Mine is supposed to cut off at 200F. Your side panels are blistering? Yes it's not quite the same stove but mine are not even hot to the touch anywhere except the front corners, and even still not hot enough to burn skin or paint, just uncomfortable like hot water.

I hope your cutoff switch is working properly. I had to replace my switch with a better quality brand because it was finicky, it was loose and if you walked by it would cut the stove off. Didn't want to bypass it, biggest fear was the room blower failing and getting so hot it ignites the hopper full of pellets. No other issues with my stove knock on wood.

Damper setting or intake air should not be the issue. Mine typically runs best progressively from full choke at HR1, midway at HR3, full open on HR5. When I first installed it, I didn't have an OAK so it couldn't breathe. It would smoke and error out well before 12 hours, so that does not seem to be the issue here.

 

[lhuffhines]

Tyru, something is not right with the stove. That is not correct operation. Call USSC back. Ask for Ashton. Make sure you tell her about the hot side of the doors. That stove has a larger feed rate than the 5770 model and should run you out of the room.

I'm not a tech but I work for USSC.

sent from my pixelated Nexus 6p

 

[Mt Bob]

Tyru, something is not right with the stove. That is not correct operation. Call USSC back. Ask for Ashton. Make sure you tell her about the hot side of the doors. That stove has a larger feed rate than the 5770 model and should run you out of the room.

I'm not a tech but I work for USSC.

sent from my pixelated Nexus 6p

Yep.agree,that stove should burn the house down from the inside,thanks for your help,ihuff

 

[lhuffhines]

Yep.agree,that stove should burn the house down from the inside,thanks for your help,ihuff

Well in our industry we dont like to say it like that. Lol. [emoji12]

But yea. That is one of our higher BTU pellet stoves as it has high feed rates programmed into the controls. Most do just over 6lbs per hour and this one is 7 iirc.

sent from my pixelated Nexus 6p

 

[Mt Bob]

Well that was my point,earlier in the thread,that stove is not building enough heat.If not building the heat,everything else is mute.

 

[tlc1976]

Yes I agree it is a bigger stove than the 5770. The 5790 running on HR3 should cook you out of the house. But considering it is getting hot enough to blister the paint off the side panels, I think it may be building the necessary heat, just not getting it out of the stove. But in any case, considering the room fan does function on high (shutdown), but is not increasing speed when heat range increases, tells me that something is up with the control board.

 

[sweets]

Exactly