Quadra Fire Mt. Vernon AE Not Working Correctly

My stove is set to turn on at 4 am and this morning when my dog barked to be let out it was 5 am and I noticed the family room was pretty cold and the wall thermostat only said 60 even though the stove had been on for an hour. The stove was on but seemed to be running very low with only a little heat coming out of it. I looked at the thermostat and it said "shutdown". It did not show an error message but it did show something like CC1 or CCL but I have to be honest here, I was half asleep so Im not sure. I got up for good at 7 am and the stove was off. I admit that I let the stove get dirty as it has been about a month. I cleaned the stove and then raised the temp to 75 so I could see if it was working properly. It got up to about 68 and then shut down again. No error messge. Again it seemed to be a very low flame and not much heat coming from the stove. I waited an hour and tried again and it did the same thing. It was only two days ago that it got real cold here so i pushed up the temp to 75 and it worked properly. Im not sure what is going on as I did not see this issue in the manual.

Thanks everyone for any help.

More info. About 2:50 I pushed up the temp to make it fire up and try again. It did light but the flame was low and in about 3 minutes it went into shutdown. I looked at the display and there were no error codes, it just said shutdown. So I was standing there talking to my wife about it and I looked again and it said firepot min temp not reached. At 3:00 it's changes to a different program and so when 3 pm came it turned on and it stayed on and it'a been on now for about 20 minutes and it's normal. Good flame and the fan is pushing out heat. Above the temp on the display it read: SS Low. I had to go outside for a few minutes and when I came back in it was still running fine but now it said: SS MED. I checked it a few minutes later and it said Auto: ML and then switched to AUTO M and then back to AUTO ML again. I don't know what those mean but it is staying on and putting out heat and acting normal. It's almost like it was acting like the auger that feeds pellets got stuck for a bit but I don't really know.

kappel15 said:

You are running on auto. The closer it gets to room temp desired, the slower the stove will run. I would try running on manual for a while, esp. when it is cold out. And it sounds like you need to read your manual again,to familiarize yourself with your stove again. Those are standard readings on the wall control. It goes from startup, to sslow, ssmed, to auto or manual, depending on what you have it on. Some of the shutdown times might have been when it has run for x amount of time, and will do an auto shutdown, and then restart, if it hasn't reached temp yet. You may of had a misfire in there at one point. It is very important to keep stoves clean. This means entire exhaust path, thru stove and exhaust pipe. Firepot holes need to be kept clean. Baffle needs to be removed and fins cleaned. Also two exhaust ports at bottom on both sides of fins. Stay in touch. kap

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Hello Kap. Ive been on auto for the past two years but I admit I don't look at the display that often. Again tonight the temp dropped in the house and it came on like it should but shut off way too early. The program was set to shut off at 70 degrees and it shut off at 66. I like it sit for a few minutes and then I pushed the manual temp up to 75 and it came on and stayed on until a new program kicks in at 9 pm. The program is set for 65 degrees so it shut off. When I push the temp up it overrides the program so I guess that is kind of like manual. The firepot and baffle and all of that is very clean. I think maybe it needs to burn off these pellets so I can get my hand in there and turn the auger. Im wondering if something is happening so that it is not getting enough pellets? Although, when I have pushed up the temp manually, it ran fine. I guess well see what happens when it turns on at 5 am if it will stay on??

kappel15 said:

You can run it on manual, and it will still run off of a program. What setting do you have the flame height set at? This is also your feed rate. And you can see your auger if you take right side panel off. What year stove and what revision control board do you have? And it takes the stove a while just to get out of the ss modes. And maybe the temp calibration needs to be reset, if it isn't meeting room temp. kap

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The stove is a 2012 Model. I will have to look up the revision control board. I did not know that it would run off a program while in manual mode. Can you explain the difference between auto and manual modes? It came on perfectly last night and did exactly what it was supposed to do. Whatever happened there for a day seems to be gone now. I do appreciate the help.

kappel15 said:

This is all in your manual. In auto, the closer it gets to room temp, the slower the stove will put out heat. In manual, it runs at the setting you put it at. Anywhere from low to high. And both will run off a program. I'm guessing you had a clinker stick or something that slowed startup, to where it had to restart or something.kap

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I finally found it in the manual. There was a short paragraph on the auto/manual and then a few pages later it went into greater detail. I had missed that second part. I still can't quite figure out what is going on with it. Last two mornings it lit when it was supposed to and then shut down with the low firepot temp error. After shutdown it lit again and then worked perfectly for the rest of day. This morning it did the same exact thing and then when it lit the second time, again it's working perfectly again. I thought it may be a pellet problem but if that was the case I don't think it would light the second time. Not sure what is going on.

kappel15 said:

Time to time the initial fuel drop. Should be a minute and a half. I would also use a flashlight and a small mirror, and look up drop chute to make sure there is nothing blocking opening to drop chute. And use these same things to look at bottom of firepot at igniter slit. Make sure there isn't any blockage of a clinker or anything, blocking slit from lighting fire on time. Max igniter time is 4 minutes. Should be in sslow for 4 minutes also. If you are on a pellet setting. Double check what fuel table you are on. Is your flame height ok? May be time to recheck it and make sure it is at proper height. This is in your manual also, on how to do it. Flame height is also the feed rate. Last thing is it could be your firepot thermocouple. Make sure it is touching the inside end of the cover. kap

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Im going to clean it again today and do all the things you suggested. It had been working fine for about a week. Maybe sometimes starting in the morning and then shutting down but re-lighting and then all would be fine. It was low on pellets last night so I filled it and then this morning the house was cold again. What it is doing now is starting up and the flame looks really good and all and then it just shuts down. No error messages at all. Then in about ten minutes it will light again and do the same thing. Pulling my hair out. It did it on manual also.

More info Mr. Kappel. I cleaned the stove again and I don't have a mirror that will work but I use a toothbrush and get into those places as much as I can. I did notice something different though. In the past when I used my shop vac to vac the baffle and the firepot if I get it anywhere near the hole in the baffle where the pellets drop down from it will suck out a ton of pellets. Today it sucked out about 15 pellets and that was the end of it. No more came out. Also, I used to be able to put a screwdriver up there and pellets would fall out, today none and the bin on top of the stove was full. I then emptied all the pellets out of the hopper and vacuumed that out and I sucked out a bunch of pellets from the hole on the back left where the auger is. So now it was all clean and I poured in one large 32 oz of pellets and I pushed up the temp so the stove would turn on. It went to startup and I stayed there and watched the hole that the pellets fall from in the baffle with a flashlight. Nothing came out after ten minutes or longer but I could see a red amber at the bottom so it was trying to light but no pellets fell. The combustion fan also turned on. Nothing fell out though. I kept waiting to get the firepot temp error but it stayed on start up. I then made a sandwich and sat on the couch. In ten minutes I looked over and it had lit and had a nice full flame. I then got up and opened up the hopper and it had sucked up almost all the pellets except for a few in the hole. I sat there for 15 minutes to watch and see what happened when it sucked up the rest of the pellets in that auger hole and all it did was shutdown. It never sucked in the rest of the pellets.

On the auger, I removed both the right and left panel but Im not seeing it at all. Is it in plain view or is it in a housing? When the hopper was empty I could see the top of the auger and I could reach in and touch it. It has some play from side to side or up and down, Ive forgotten but you can not make it turn in a circle at all. Im not even sure if it is supposed too.

My board said revision C.

Thanks for any help Kap.

kappel15 said:

When you put some pellets in empty hopper, it will take a while to get pellets up thru auger to where they will drop down chute. Needs to fill all that space before they start dropping. Surprised you didn't get any errors on that one. And when the stove quit after that, you had ran out of fuel in hopper to the point there was no more vacuum in firebox, as it was sucking air from auger. If you remove right side panel, you should see the auger motor. All you have to do is follow direction of auger in bottom of hopper to right. page 32, figure 32.3, shows the auger motor on end of auger. Too look up drop chute from firebox, any hand mirror should work. And to look in bottom of firebox, a small compact mirror works well. If you have a mother, wife, or girlfriend, steal theirs. lol When you said it started and had a good flame, but then quit. sounds like a thermocouple that had been bent too far and cracked the coating on the wires. This can make the tcouple act up without throwing an error code out. When you find the auger motor, you can see if it is turning, when stove calls for fuel. If it jams, it is suppose to reverse itself, to try and free the jam. The optical sensor could be dirty and not seeing the holes as it should. Page 34 shows a tear down of auger. Not a good one, but enough to see optical sensor. It sits over the disc with the holes in it. kap

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Well tonight i just plugged it back in and put about 10 cups of pellets into it and then turned the temp up to 80. It lit fine and has been going with nice flame for 30 minutes. I can assume that it's not the auger then? Im just kind of tired tonight so if it acts up in the morning I will try all your suggestions. Im thinking that maybe the cleaning I did today took care of it but it shut off with the hopper door open. So well see but it is sure going now!