Winston Pellet Stoves

[Excell]

"Fully insulated" yes, the walls are insulated, roof is the standard gable type pitch with insulation in the flat part of the attic. No, I don't have the R ratings. Hot air comes out of the slot above the glass, correct, that's the only place it comes out. Still, shouldn't this thing be blowing out air hotter than 97F?

I can't show it burning, I have to take it apart. I'll describe the flame as being full pot width, 6" high, not too fiesty and sooting up the glass very little. Sound about right?

It should be hotter than 97 for sure . It sounds like the heat exchanger is either covered in carbon or the heat is getting past it and going up the chimney .I don't know how that stove is put to gether so I can't help more . Does it have some kind of burn air control ? More air should make it leaner and hotter . On average you should be able to heat your garage with 40 lbs or less .I was just surprised that you couldn't get more than 35 lbs threw it on high .

 

[man-machine]

No burn air control, just a draft butterfly. Manual says not to make the burn flame too perky otherwise the heat is being pushed through too quick. That does make sence. The flame heat is baffled through a heat exchanger box with 12 1" diameter pipes, the outsides of which are as clean and bare as I can get them. Maybe it's the inside of those pipes that are in poor condition?

I'm dreading this tear apart, I've done it before and had that heat exchanger box out. Now I have to do that again plus the two fans. I'd rather drink a gallon of bleach.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Bleach isn't good for your beer intake device.

Got a bit of time here and I ran a firing calculation.

If you keep the on times the same please reduce the off time to 16 seconds. You will have to change your combustion fan speed and perhaps your damper to get a good flame the pellets should be active in the burn pot with a touch of blue above the pellets, the flame should be active, fairly tall and without black tips. This change will fire the stove at 17,800 BTUs/hour on low and 23700 BTUs/hour on high. Make your adjustments to the burn at the low firing rate. I have no idea of the safeties that exist for that stove and am hesitant to attempt firing above 24000 BTUs/hour until I know the limits.

You may not be able to adjust the flame enough to stop the pellet bed from becoming too high. In any event this is only one part of a part of what has to take place in order to heat that shop. The new low firing rate is 2.17 pounds/hour and the new high is 2.88 pounds/hour.

Excell,

Your setup may be much better insulated than his. I can quickly run ball park heat loss calculations if I have detailed construction information. As for any output air temperatures at 12 inches being an indication of poor heating or stove functioning, one needs to consider the air flow through the device. If the air flow is very large a low temperature is likely and a huge heat transfer may indeed be occurring.

Now, let's see I did mention brews.

 

[man-machine]

There is no way to manually change the combustion fan speed that I know of. The exception to this being of course when it goes from low to high burn, I would assume the combustion fan speed jumps up to accept the higher fuel feed rate. I know the room fan speed jumps up on high burn, that part is obvious.

The room fan speed potentiometer (sp) only controls the room fan speed in the low burn mode. This according to the owner's manual and verified by me piddling wth it. On high burn the speed control is overidden. I will post more pics as the project continues. I know you are all dying to see the extremely rare and exotic Winston Pellet Stove WP24 inner workings, right?

(crickets chirping)

 

[man-machine]

looks dirty

 

[man-machine]

controls

 

[man-machine]

Combustion fan... dirty yeah but not horribly bad. I will clean it.

 

[man-machine]

Room fan. Dirty too but not all that bad either. Getting cleaned also.
Ducts and passages on both fans wern't too dirty, some crud but not a lot.
Moving onto heat exchanger now.

 

[filburt]

I have used a Winston Stove for the past 20 + yrs. They have been out of business 10+ yrs, too bad the Winston Stove is one of the best ever made. In the past, I have been able to get replacement parts from a company in W. Virginia. They may be sold out. Your combustion motor takes a real beating as it moves all the hot gases to the vent pipe. If you can't get a replacement motor, it may be possible to have the worn out motor rebuilt by a motor shop. Keep your exhaust flue clean and the motor will last much longer. I have cleaned the flue with a brush, but now I just stick an electric leaf blower into the disconnected flue and blow it out once a year. Remember there is a vacuum inside the flue when the combustion motor is running. If you don't seem to be getting much heat, there may be a leak around the glass or the door seal. Keep these well sealed to have a good result. Clean your heat exchanger several times during the year. The best way to clean the exchanger is from the top of the stove by removing the plate and brushing out the air exchange tubes. The factory gasket is thin and fragile and probably will need to be replaced. Remember, you have negative pressure in the stove and don't want to suck out room air when the stove is running. On low, a 40# bag lasts me about 36 hrs. We never need to run it for any length of time higher than low. It really puts out heat. The circuit board has many safety built in which I think may not be working, such as an automatic shut down if the burn box overheats. After 20 years,, I don't trust these functions to be working properly, but I can't get a replacement board. I would guess that I have run about 40,000 lbs of pellets through my stove and it still is great. These stoves will need to have motors replaced once in a while and need to be cleaned regularly. Know what your burn should look like and when the flame gets lazy, fix it immediately.

 

[man-machine]

Thanks. Both fan motors are in ok shape and all of that is now cleaned. It's the heat exchanger box I'm concerned about now, the pipes are covered with what looks like mineral deposits (you know what I mean) and a heavy duty wire wheel in an air grinder is hardly taking it off. I'll have to wait a few days until I get a chance to take it in and sandblast it. Sandblasting will do a better job of reaching in between the pipes anyways.

Nothing was as dirty as I thought it would be considering the problem. But I think I was choking the draft too much, the door glass would get black and sooty and running it like that will dirty up the heat exchanger a lot quicker. The scaley deposits on the tubes must be robbing me of at least some of the heat. Once they are clean and smooth they shouldn't dirty up so quick either. We'll see. You're right though, on low burn 40lbs will go past 24 hrs. Upping the feed rate and shortening the "off" time doesn't seem like the answer to more heat, it just seems to make a bigger sooty ashy mess and with the dirty buildup, less heat.

If, after all this work this thing doesn't perform well it's going to the dump. This is a joke. I could heat this shop with a NG fired heater for $60 a month with zero hassles, instant on, no wrestling with pellets ect. I'll bite the bullet and charge an industrial quality NG unit heater and be done with it.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Thanks. Both fan motors are in ok shape and all of that is now cleaned. It's the heat exchanger box I'm concerned about now, the pipes are covered with what looks like mineral deposits (you know what I mean) and a heavy duty wire wheel in an air grinder is hardly taking it off. I'll have to wait a few days until I get a chance to take it in and sandblast it. Sandblasting will do a better job of reaching in between the pipes anyways.

Nothing was as dirty as I thought it would be considering the problem. But I think I was choking the draft too much, the door glass would get black and sooty and running it like that will dirty up the heat exchanger a lot quicker. The scaley deposits on the tubes must be robbing me of at least some of the heat. Once they are clean and smooth they shouldn't dirty up so quick either. We'll see. You're right though, on low burn 40lbs will go past 24 hrs. Upping the feed rate and shortening the "off" time doesn't seem like the answer to more heat, it just seems to make a bigger sooty ashy mess and with the dirty buildup, less heat.

If, after all this work this thing doesn't perform well it's going to the dump. This is a joke. I could heat this shop with a NG fired heater for $60 a month with zero hassles, instant on, no wrestling with pellets ect. I'll bite the bullet and charge an industrial quality NG unit heater and be done with it.

You can do whatever you want with the stove, it will likely never heat that shop of yours considering the rate that it is being fired and the heat loss of the building.

I'd also expect that the auger timing change will also result in a slightly faster rpm in the combustion motor and thus increase the air flow through the pot. Your primary combustion air control is likely your damper.

You can not expect 12,000 BTUs/hour (what you are getting before efficiency issues) to do the work of 15,000 BTUs/hour (likely the minimum you'll need after efficiency issues), the laws of thermodynamics just no worky that way.

As for the economics of NG over pellets that depends upon the cost of each at your location. The cost of NG at this location would involve two miles of pipe etc. Not likely to happen in my lifetime, housing density just isn't there for the utility company to put it in.

Without the manuals this is all try it and see. Just keep a close eye on it.

As for filburt's concern about the safeties on the stove. If you can read the numbers off of the snap discs you should be able to locate replacements. The way most stoves are set up the safeties are such that the control board doesn't actually get involved except to perhaps flash a code.

Now it is possible that the hi limit snap disc won't open and that is the puppy I'd be concerned with with the firing rate change.

 

[man-machine]

Sorry for the bitterness but I'm sure you can understand my frustration. I would expect a stove this size to heat 768 sq ft even if it is on a bare concrete slab and not blow out a 97F temp on low burn, that's just pitiful. I'll see what I gain after sandblasting the heat exchanger tubes, it better be a lot otherwise I'm screwed. A few more things to consider:

1) The stove has an infared phototransistor located under the fuel drop chute at the rear of the burnchamber. It is aimed at the combustion chamber and looks for a flame. (I'm using the termanology straight from the book) Odd thing is the two leads are not connected to anything an there is absolutely no where to conect them to. Nothing. They are even tagged with an initialed "tested" tag from the factory. According to the book this is more of a safety thing than being related to burn performance, it says it looks for a flame in event the power goes out and comes back on ect. ect.

2) Both fan motors are single speed 3k rpm. They say so on the labels. The controller must boost or cut voltage to obtain high and low speeds. I'm only sure of the room fan running at two speeds, that part is obvious but the combustion fan I'm not sure of. I guess I could go out back while it's running and make sure the exhaust is hitting two different levels.

Again I appreciate the help you guys are giving on my behalf. I am trying to furnish info that is concise to what's going on.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Sorry for the bitterness but I'm sure you can understand my frustration. I would expect a stove this size to heat 768 sq ft even if it is on a bare concrete slab and not blow out a 97F temp on low burn, that's just pitiful. I'll see what I gain after sandblasting the heat exchanger tubes, it better be a lot otherwise I'm screwed. A few more things to consider:

1) The stove has an infared phototransistor located under the fuel drop chute at the rear of the burnchamber. It is aimed at the combustion chamber and looks for a flame. (I'm using the termanology straight from the book) Odd thing is the two leads are not connected to anything an there is absolutely no where to conect them to. Nothing. They are even tagged with an initialed "tested" tag from the factory. According to the book this is more of a safety thing than being related to burn performance, it says it looks for a flame in event the power goes out and comes back on ect. ect.

2) Both fan motors are single speed 3k rpm. They say so on the labels. The controller must boost or cut voltage to obtain high and low speeds. I'm only sure of the room fan running at two speeds, that part is obvious but the combustion fan I'm not sure of. I guess I could go out back while it's running and make sure the exhaust is hitting two different levels.

Again I appreciate the help you guys are giving on my behalf. I am trying to furnish info that is concise to what's going on.

Yes you have it correct the control board does in fact vary the voltage to control the speed of the motor.

Please believe me when I say I understand completely your frustration, been there, done that, didn't exactly care for it.

However no one on this planet has ever overturned the laws of thermodynamics, you need to fire that stove at a rate that exceeds the heat loss of the structure in order to first increase then hold the temperature at a specific value.

 

[man-machine]

Thanks again. I'll post after the sandblasting and reconstruction to see what was gained as far as temp output. I'd like a gain of at least 50% over 97F on low burn. Right now the heat exchanger box it out and there is no easy way to clean the inside where the room fan blows through. I tried banging it around and 100psi compressed air but can you thing of anything else? High pressure hot water at the car wash perhaps? I'm looking for any and all possible gains.

 

[filburt]

If your glass gets a heavy soot on it, it is probably one of three problems.
1) The heat exchanger is blocked as the exhaust fumes are being vented.
2) Your vent flue has a block in it after the combustion gases go through the exhaust fan. Probably it is a good idea to never damper the exhaust air.
3) You are using crappy pellets. (Unlikely)

You mentioned a scale like deposit on the heating exchange tubes. I have burned somewhere between 40,000 and 80,000 lbs of pellets and my heating tubes look like new and are are easy to clean. My guess it that some inferior pellets were burned that were made from timber that spent some time soaking in salt water and that the mineral deposits are actually sodium chloride. You might try just a damp rag overnight soaking to see if you can dissolve the mineral deposits. Even if you have mineral deposits on the heat exchange tubes you should still get a good heat transfer.

 

[man-machine]

I think if I leave no dampening or very little dampening I can get away with running a much higher fuel feed rate. That "relaxed" flame that I mention might be what's killing me. On the other hand when I run the fiesty-looking flame the pellets hit the burn pot and the red embers go fly up into the heat exchanger. Is that bad or good? I mean is the flame supposed to look like a roaring blowtorch? According to the manual thats too much combustion air, or so it says. But I'd take the lean, clean flame over the sooty, ashy mess. That would have to be the less of two evils.

I'm going to have to figure out a way to re-gasket the flange surfaces where the combustion fan housing mates to the other duct component. All that white cotton-like material (please name what it is if you know) got shredded when I took it apart. There is also that other simular material on the bulkhead-type firewall that seperates the front from the back. I'm sure some of you must know what it is called, it's white and fluffy on one side and a dark grey charcoal colored texured paper-like material on the other. I need more of that. I guess I could call Woodstove Warehouse and see if they have it in bulk.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

I think if I leave no dampening or very little dampening I can get away with running a much higher fuel feed rate. That "relaxed" flame that I mention might be what's killing me. On the other hand when I run the fiesty-looking flame the pellets hit the burn pot and the red embers go fly up into the heat exchanger. Is that bad or good? I mean is the flame supposed to look like a roaring blowtorch? According to the manual thats too much combustion air, or so it says. But I'd take the lean, clean flame over the sooty, ashy mess. That would have to be the less of two evils.

I'm going to have to figure out a way to re-gasket the flange surfaces where the combustion fan housing mates to the other duct component. All that white cotton-like material (please name what it is if you know) got shredded when I took it apart. There is also that other simular material on the bulkhead-type firewall that seperates the front from the back. I'm sure some of you must know what it is called, it's white and fluffy on one side and a dark grey charcoal colored texured paper-like material on the other. I need more of that. I guess I could call Woodstove Warehouse and see if they have it in bulk.

man-machine,

You can get gasket material in large sheets from, some stove shops, HVAC dealers, auto supply stores and on the web. You just have to make certain it has the correct temperature rating and can make a gas tight seal. It is sometimes called Lynn Sheet.

The other stuff you should talk to a stove shop or boiler company.

I have no doubt that your stove can be fired at a higher rate than it was changing those dip switches should also change the voltage the combustion motor sees etc ....

 

[filburt]

I have never tried to damper my stove since it is an insert and vent dampering would be nearly impossible. You may have a different model that runs a bit differently. I have always felt that the hot embers that come out of the burn pot are a necessary function for keeping the burn pot empty. When I get soot on the window , the flame starts looking lazy, the sparks stop flying around,and byproducts start accumulating in the burn pot, something is wrong and needs to be corrected. The embers that fly around when another dump of pellets occurs have never been a problem. Most of them just burn out and end up in the ash tray as fly ash. I suppose a few of them are sucked up through the combustion fan, but that has never been a problem. I have been up on my roof when the stove is running and the exhaust gases are cool to the touch. To me that means the heat exchanger works efficiently and little heat is lost up the chimney. I clean the heat exchanger two or three time a year and blow out the exhaust flue once a year. If you have a screened rain cap one the end of your exhaust flue, make sure that isn't plugged with creosote or fly ash. I think if you try to restrict the exhaust fumes, you will significantly increase solid emissions and creosote.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

The pellets should be active (actually moving around, this is called the pellet dance) in the burn pot with a touch of blue above the pellets, the flame should be active (closer to white in color with a tinge of yellow) , fairly tall and without black tips.

With a flame like that you will have embers ejecting whenever more pellets enter the burn pot and whenever the pellets get small enough that they are essentially changing to ash.

The air flow keeps the pellet pile from building and over flowing the burn pot. There should always be a bit of the bottom of the pot visible.

filburt, man-machine has a free standing unit there are pictures in the thread.

 

[man-machine]

Spice up this topic with a little dirtbike action near Moab.
I posted the pellet stove on the dirtbike site so now we're even.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Spice up this topic with a little dirtbike action near Moab.
I posted the pellet stove on the dirtbike site so now we're even.

Mods, please reduce the points on this thread, now if you had posted a really hot topic maybe the pyros on here would be happy.

If it is dirt bike pics they have to have afterburners ;-) .

 

[man-machine]

There goes my promotion from "firestarter" to "burning chunk" at 22 posts ... blah

Any-hoo I'll try a new stratagy of wide open draft control and increased fuel feed and see what that does. To heck with being a skinflint on pellet usage, I need real heat .. do or die. The auger is about 1.5" in diameter if that is of any help. Hey, you guys are awesome and I'm very impressed with the level of knowledge. Btw, after shutdown I was ending up with big hunks of cold embers in the burn pot whatever that means.

 

[man-machine]

SmokeyTheBear... Many, many thanks for going the extra mile to be of assistance. I found out my fax-copier-printer will also scan so I will get the owner's manual scanned into a file which will then be e-sent to you and whoever else has an interest in reading it.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

SmokeyTheBear... Many, many thanks for going the extra mile to be of assistance. I found out my fax-copier-printer will also scan so I will get the owner's manual scanned into a file which will then be e-sent to you and whoever else has an interest in reading it.

There ya go. Them thar newy fandangled thingys have to be good fer something.

 

[man-machine]

And macman, I hope the rear pic explains the 4" intake and 2" exhuast, you can see how one is inside the other.
As for the temp switches, two are mounted side by side on the combustion fan housing. One is adjustable/variable and set at 110F.. I'm assuming for the room fan to kick on, the other is a fixed setting type, must be for overheating safety shutdown I would think.

I'm still trying to get more pics posted but the resizing site I'm using is getting buggy and is somehow sidetracked on a lengthy downloading process, not sure why.