25 PDV high burn issues

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T

Tom Whitmore

Member
Jul 24, 2012
16
Poconos PA.
www.uscco.com
Bit of a background first ,

Bought this stove used , off of Craigslist , it was in decent shape but it had looked as if it wasn't taken care of well.

Brought it home , put a paint job on it , cleaned it the best I could and brought it in the house , vent consists of 90 degree out of stove , 3' vertical rise to 90 degree out of the house , 3' through the wall to a 45 degree aimed toward the ground. OAK is installed directly out the back of the stove , through the wall and screened on the outside. The stove is running in "D" mode.

Found out the first couple of times we used it that it had major air leaks everywhere , brought it back out to my shop , took it apart and re gasketed and sealed the entire stove , new hopper door latches , new baffle plate as it was missing . Re installed the stove and it burns with a much stronger flame than before and there are no air leaks .

We burn Tractor supply house brand pellets as it is what we have here at the house and our Austroflamm loves them .

Now the problems ,

It seems that when the stove is burning on anything above the 1 or 2 settings , that the auger will overflow the burn area with pellets resulting on an out of control flame , I have timed the top auger and it runs for 4 seconds on 8 off on setting 3 , which still results in a high flame and overheating stove. On setting 2 I can keep relative control by keeping the bottom buttons on the control panel to 2-6-1 , anything above a 2 on the low fuel feed will do the same as a higher heat range.

We really like the stove and I can tell from the short time we have burned it that it will be a bear when its cold , throws a TON of heat and will work well for us. Just need to work through these issues .

I tried a call to England stove works and was on hold so long I hung up , I tried to P/M Mike from England on this site but never received a response .

Anyone here care to help or offer some advice on what might be the issues ? I do not have a problem buying parts , but don't want to blow money on an exhaust blower or control panel if it is something simple like an adjustment.

Thanks in advance

TOM
 
The default mode for that stove is 'C' I think.

The lower 3 buttons, from left to right ...... set them to 4-4-1 or 1-4-1, I can not remember how to set these off the top of my head, someone will chime in with instructions.

You are going to need to change that 90 bend that's on the back of the stove to a cleanout T or you will have to take the vent apart to clean the ash out of it.

These stoves overfill the burn plate, it's the way that they have been designed, you will see loads of pellets being pushed onto the burn plate by the auger. Sometimes the pellets do not burn completely and part burnt pellets are pushed to the front of the stove (red hot embers). These stoves burn with a semi-lazy flame at times on low settings, on higher settings the stove will look as if the flames are out of control, this is normal.
 
OK, I'll give it a shot. Based on what you posted for the setup, if you can maintain all the stove to wall clearances you should try to get rid of the 3 feet of horizontal run if you can trim that by a foot this along with removing any screen on the OAK a wind guard is one thing a screen can mean many things, some screen has almost as much blockage as air space, while other screening is much courser like maybe 1/2 inch mesh (weasel guard) stuff used by us chicken keepers which would let a lot of air through the works. The critter guard is really only needed in the off season. A wind guard may be needed but not always and I do hope you are not venting into the prevailing wind and have at least a 1/4" rise per foot in the horizontal section.

Your current setup is very close to the limit for 3" venting with an EVL of 14.5 and you may be in a hilly area any blockage in the OAK, lack of rise in the horizontal, or venting into the wind will cause what you are experiencing. Oh one other thing after making the changes be certain to completely clean that stove and vent as there is nothing like starting out with crud in the works from prior attempts. Please see https://www.google.com/search?q=leaf blower pellet stove cleaning youtube

ETA: If you know how to do a factory reset on that stove do so before playing with any settings, you really need it in the correct mode and ESW would be the only ones that can match up your control board and stove by date and serial number.
 
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OK,

Took the screen off of the OAK, reduced the horizontal run to 2' with a 45 degree turndown on the end. No difference in burning . There is no restrictor in the bottom of the pellet hopper that was there when I got it , nor any provisions to mount one. . I have tried a makeshift restrictor as I see the newer models have them , all this did was bind up the pellets and they would jam going down . I took the restrictor I made out.

I now have the stove on heat range 2 , bottom three buttons @ 1-5-1 , flame and stove is controllable in this position , any higher on the LFF and the pellets start to pour into the burn area . It will also "over feed" if I go to heat range 3 .

Could this be an exhaust blower not providing enough arflow problem ? Control panel problem ?

I do not know how to factory reset the control panel , from what I have read , this stove by default was to burn in "D" mode , but at this point I am unsure.

Thanks for all of the responses .

TOM
 
TOM did you clean the entire stove and vent system or did you just remove the OAK screen and have you got that stove in the correct mode and what is your altitude?
 
I just took apart all of the pipe and checked for cleanliness when I swapped the 3' through the wall pipe for a 2' piece , it was clean as it was when new (It was new a few weeks ago , but with what you said I thought I'd check anyway) , the stove was broken down and cleaned and regasketed this past weekend, it is clean .

Stove is in mode "D" , hold the up and down arrows while plugging in the stove , it shows "D" . I am+/- 705' above sea level.

Thanks

TOM
 
Tom Whitmore said:
I just took apart all of the pipe and checked for cleanliness when I swapped the 3' through the wall pipe for a 2' piece , it was clean as it was when new (It was new a few weeks ago , but with what you said I thought I'd check anyway) , the stove was broken down and cleaned and regasketed this past weekend, it is clean .

Stove is in mode "D" , hold the up and down arrows while plugging in the stove , it shows "D" . I am+/- 705' above sea level.

Thanks

TOM
Click to expand...

Tom,

When you get it to display the mode, to change it to 'C' you press the heat and blower up or down buttons at the same time.

Are you using 3" or 4" vent pipe ?
 
Tom Whitmore said:
I just took apart all of the pipe and checked for cleanliness when I swapped the 3' through the wall pipe for a 2' piece , it was clean as it was when new (It was new a few weeks ago , but with what you said I thought I'd check anyway) , the stove was broken down and cleaned and regasketed this past weekend, it is clean .

Stove is in mode "D" , hold the up and down arrows while plugging in the stove , it shows "D" . I am+/- 705' above sea level.

Thanks

TOM
Click to expand...

It was used and used stoves are noted for being rotten inside, where the sun doesn't shine, on other brands of stoves that were purchased used various items such as fiberglass insulation was finally sucked out of them, mouse nests, animal pieces, caramels, kids toys. and so on goes the list. Sometimes this stuff came out after repeated attempts at cleaning.

It would help to have a picture of the burn pot and to know that the burn pot gasket was also one that you replaced
.
The mode is still in question, ESW is the proper place to determine that.

We will get there.
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
It was used and used stoves are noted for being rotten inside, where the sun doesn't shine, on other brands of stoves that were purchased used various items such as fiberglass insulation was finally sucked out of them, mouse nests, animal pieces, caramels, kids toys. and so on goes the list. Sometimes this stuff came out after repeated attempts at cleaning.

It would help to have a picture of the burn pot and to know that the burn pot gasket was also one that you replaced
.
The mode is still in question, ESW is the proper place to determine that.

We will get there.
Click to expand...

Well, I thought I cleaned every nook and cranny as it was totally disassembled , but i'm by far perfect and could have missed something .......

Burn pot gasket was replaced as well as the gasket the auger assembly attaches to the inside of the stove. For that matter , every gasket was replaced as I didn't want to take any chances.

I know it is in "D" , if this is right or wrong for my stove is for ESW to tell me I suppose .

I know we'll get there , and I really do appreciate ALL of the help .

Thanks

TOM
 
OK,

FWIW , just shut the stove down as it had set the smoke detector off in the room from running too hot again, it had been running for 1 hour and 40 minutes , the top of the stove over the door was at 627 degrees according to my I/R gun , this was on heat range 2, Blower speed 7 . LFF was at 1 , LFA was at 5 . Picture attached was a quick open the door shot , as you can see the auger(s) had overloaded the burn pot area to a point that it overfired the stove , wild sooty flame , etc....

I would not guess at this low of a setting that the stove should burn this hot ?? No ? That the auger should not keep piling pellets into the pot and overfuel it ?

This does not happen from the start , it takes a while to go haywire like the picture , it was burning fine for the first hour or so , the last 20 minutes +/- you could see the burn pot loading up like this .

Thanks

TOM
 

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Ok here is a link to another forum, behind the heat baffle there are two holes the air from inside the stove goes threw them then threw exhaust blower these areas are known to get filled with ash and can make the stove run off...cleaning out in there could help.. And what type of pellets are you burning?

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/heat-exchanger-25-pdvc.101554/
 
[Hearth.com] 25 PDV high burn issues Just snapped a quick shot of mine this is after 4 hours running on heat range 5 your def getting too much fuel... How is the flame? Is is slow or does it rip like crazy?
 
I will check that out , thanks . Pretty sure I got them all when it was dismantled over this past weekend but i'll check again .

Tractor supply house brand Hardwood pellets , I have had good luck with them in my Austroflamm and they are what I had on hand (4 tons)

Thanks

TOM
 
Chrisnow86 said:
View attachment 146453 Just snapped a quick shot of mine this is after 4 hours running on heat range 5 your def getting too much fuel... How is the flame? Is is slow or does it rip like crazy?
Click to expand...

I wish mine would look like that after 4 hours , I cant even use it for 4 hours as it will load up like the picture I posted.

Not a rip roaring flame , but not lazy either . I stopped the exhaust blower while burning and there is significant difference , definitely airflow there , is there enough ?? I dunno .....

Thanks

TOM
 
In order for any sensor to see overheating situation the sensor can't be buried in ash, ash is an excellent insulator, it has been known to keep embers hot enough to cause a fire after days of removing the ash from a stove.

I'll keep harping on the importance of cleaning until I pass. Ash is the number one cause of all pellet stove burning issues.

Start at the air intake and follow the air path through the stove until you crawl out the end of the vent. You have to have that entire path clean.
 
Ouch, Tom, looking at the picture you took of the stove, it's acting strange, that's way too much fuel for sure. Not sure what to suggest at this time. With any luck, Mike at ESW will pop in here and contact you with some idea's.
 
There is only one heat sensor on the 25-PDV , it is located to the right of the burn pot held in place with one screw from the rear of the stove.

The stove and passageways are clean , not full of soot or the like , I flushed , cleaned , pressure washed , air blew , and scrubbed this thing when it was dismantled to re gasket it this past weekend , I had it disassembled to the point where all there was was a shell , blower(s) , burn pot , auger assembly(s) , hopper , door , were all removed , blasted clean and reassembled.

The stove has problems , being dirty is not one of them .

Thanks

TOM
 
Then you are left with a possible failing combustion blower or a bad controller.

ETA: I also sent Mike a PM in your behalf and yes he is quite busy this time of year..
 
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The only thing I might add is that the bottom 3 buttons should be 6-4-1. I've tweaked mine down a little, but I'm at work at the moment and the stove isn't...

Eric
 
I think the upper auger motor may have been changed and its a 4 rpm instead of the correct 1 rpm motor the flame looks like my pdv stove on 6 or 7 with the lowers 5 4 1. Just a thought or the board is toast.
John
 
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