As a result of slightly careless cleaning the ceramic temp sensor was slowly working it's way further over the burn pot and the stiffness of the sensor's wire was causing it to no longer be fully seated in the ceramic tip... Not sure if that was the original cause of the missed ignition but that's my best guess...
Anyway, my wife e-mailed me at work to let me know that the stove missed it's ignition and the burn pot was "filling up". I told her to turn off the thermostat and I'd handle it. I came home from work, pulled the dump handle, gave the burn pot a quick scrape, pulled the handle again and fired up the stove. As it turns out the pot was maybe 1/3 full when I got home...
So an hour later we're smelling that old familiar smell from the first few weeks when the stove was new... Burning paint... What the heck ?
Head on over to the stove and it's burning normally in the pot... and there's a bon-fire below in the ash pan !
Doh ! Kinda dumb to leave all those pellets in the ash pan but once I pulled the handle it was one of those out of sight out of mind deals...
Anyway, we calmly turned down the thermostat and waited for the bon-fire to go out, let it cool down enough to actually touch the ash pan, and dumped it out...
No damage done and hopefully a lesson learned... Hopefully this story will provide a laugh or even save somebody from the same dumb mistake. ;-)
Anyway, my wife e-mailed me at work to let me know that the stove missed it's ignition and the burn pot was "filling up". I told her to turn off the thermostat and I'd handle it. I came home from work, pulled the dump handle, gave the burn pot a quick scrape, pulled the handle again and fired up the stove. As it turns out the pot was maybe 1/3 full when I got home...
So an hour later we're smelling that old familiar smell from the first few weeks when the stove was new... Burning paint... What the heck ?
Head on over to the stove and it's burning normally in the pot... and there's a bon-fire below in the ash pan !
Doh ! Kinda dumb to leave all those pellets in the ash pan but once I pulled the handle it was one of those out of sight out of mind deals...
Anyway, we calmly turned down the thermostat and waited for the bon-fire to go out, let it cool down enough to actually touch the ash pan, and dumped it out...
No damage done and hopefully a lesson learned... Hopefully this story will provide a laugh or even save somebody from the same dumb mistake. ;-)
