Ashby St Croix overflowing lazy

[hockeyfun1]

I've had this Ashby St Croix insert about 6 years and have had nothing but trouble with it. No OAK afaik. Chimney is in the center of my 2.5 story colonial in my living room. 1360 sq ft house not including basement or attic space. Unit cleaned this season and have burned about 10 to 15 bags since.

Startup: Called the manufacturer and they told me to start it, put gel on the pellets and light it. Leave the door open and don't start it for five minutes. This allows pellets to get hot, so after 5 mins when the unit starts feeding pellets, it doesn't smother the tiny fire out. This seems to have generally fixed this particular issue but it's not FAD since I shouldn't have to do this.

First 8 hours: flame is generally good on heat setting 3 or 4 out of 5. After 8 hours, it just gets really lazy.

Maintenance while running: This unit has a fork (it's like a grate) that I stick in the fire, drop the ash pan, close the ash pan back up, then drop what the grate is holding. After 8 hours on 3/5 or 4/5, if I set it to heat setting 5 out of 5, I have to drop the ashes every hour or the burn pot overflows with pellets. It's pretty much unusable since I have to constantly babysit it.

Damper setting: this is what I still can't get figured out. If I look at the diagram on the unit itself, there's a hill. I was told to put a pencil (not sure what end) at the bottom of the hill and set the damper there. That's what causes it to either overflow and/or burn lazy. Just for the heck of it, when it was running on setting 5 just now and burning lazy, I turned the damper to the top of the hill and the flame burned strong how it should but the unit flamed out and threw a #2 vaccuum pressure error. This is the total opposite end of where I was told the damper should be set. It burned great for like 30 seconds then died and gave that error.

Heat: lately with these issues it's not even making my living room go over 68 degrees on setting 5/5 when it's 20F outside. In the past when it randomly works fine, I can get it to 85F when it's 10F outside.

Overall: I'm getting closer to my issues being solved but I'm not there yet. Need suggestions, thanks.

 

[heat seeker]

Try this, it's a adaptation of what's in my manual. Put the stove on level 5, and adjust the damper for the correct flame height and activity. This will be, obviously, somewhere in between the two extremes you mention. This will take some time and effort, and after each adjustment, wait a few minutes for the flame to settle. It sounds like you're not getting enough air, and then when you open the damper all the way, you get too much air.

The pencil's thickness is a measure of how far the butterfly in the damper should be from the edge of the tube it's in.

My stove isn't too sensitive about where the butterfly is, but I set mine this way and it works just fine.

I don't know what the hill is you refer to - is it an image near the damper lever?

 

[hockeyfun1]

Try this, it's a adaptation of what's in my manual. Put the stove on level 5, and adjust the damper for the correct flame height and activity. This will be, obviously, somewhere in between the two extremes you mention. This will take some time and effort, and after each adjustment, wait a few minutes for the flame to settle. It sounds like you're not getting enough air, and then when you open the damper all the way, you get too much air.

The pencil's thickness is a measure of how far the butterfly in the damper should be from the edge of the tube it's in.

My stove isn't too sensitive about where the butterfly is, but I set mine this way and it works just fine.

I don't know what the hill is you refer to - is it an image near the damper lever?

It's hard to tell where to adjust the damper, because I can start it out fine but then hours later is when I run into problems.

I can move the damper left or right assuming it's dead center of where I could potentially set it. To the left is the top of the hill, to the right is the bottom of the hill. It's just a diagram. I am guessing the bottom of the hill is closed all the way and the top of the hill is open all the way?

 

[hockeyfun1]

I just tried moving the damper with the unit running and it flamed out and threw an error #2 vaccuum again. I barely moved the damper and it was right in the middle where it normally runs fine.

 

[jzm2cc]

99.9% certain stove is still plugged up internally within exhaust passages. Until that's addressed you'll have draft issues. I use a St Croix Lancaster and Auburn, when purchased used they were both plugged internally and ran poorly. It's been years since and both run great.

It sounds like your stove is multi fuel model without an electronic igniter. Usually these are very simple stoves to light if running correctly. 3 paint caps full of pellets, 30 seconds with mapp or propane torch, push on button and close door within a couple of seconds, walk away.

Leaf blower trick, running choke cable behind burnpot, bottle brush up ash traps, possibly removing exh fan may be in order. All of these tips are well documented within this site.

Also make sure your control board settings are set up for multi fuel stove, not for auto lighting stove.

 

[Lake Girl]

When was the last time gaskets around the door and ash pan were changed? Besides the internal exhaust cleaning, this could be part of the problem.

When they cleaned the stove, did anyone go on the roof and clean the cap?

 

[hockeyfun1]

Gaskets were never changed. I will have to try the dollar bill test.

Yes, the cleaning guys went on the roof, and were also in my living room pulling the unit out. Since it was a pellet stove dealer doing the chimney cleaning, would they likely have cleaned the inside of the unit too?

I'll have to look up some of the cleaning methods that jzm mentioned.

 

[Lake Girl]

Depends on what you hired them for... Chimney clean or chimney and pellet stove service?

How was it running before the cleaning? Same thing/better/worse?

 

[hockeyfun1]

Depends on what you hired them for... Chimney clean or chimney and pellet stove service?

How was it running before the cleaning? Same thing/better/worse?

Slightly better but really about the same. I'll call and ask what's standard.

 

[hockeyfun1]

The manufacturer said to look in the burn pot at the many holes there and make sure it's not plugged. I didn't take it out but I can see the holes just fine and they're not plugged.

 

[heat seeker]

I'm a big fan of the leaf blower trick. Mine is very easy to do, since my vent is straight out the wall. No matter how well I clean out the stove's passages, the LBT always gets more ash out. My stove thanks me by breathing freely for the whole season with occasional inside cleanings.

When your stove craps out after hours of running, is the combustion blower still running, and at the correct speed? If you haven't blown the windings of the motor out with compressed air, the motor could be overheating and shutting down until it cools.

 

[hockeyfun1]

I'm a big fan of the leaf blower trick. Mine is very easy to do, since my vent is straight out the wall. No matter how well I clean out the stove's passages, the LBT always gets more ash out. My stove thanks me by breathing freely for the whole season with occasional inside cleanings.

When your stove craps out after hours of running, is the combustion blower still running, and at the correct speed? If you haven't blown the windings of the motor out with compressed air, the motor could be overheating and shutting down until it cools.

Is there anywhere I put the leaf blower in particular? I assume I need to take the unit outside and do this but don't know how to un-attach the vent in the back. I slide the unit out and not sure if the vent is semi-permanently attached with some red caulking or what. I know when I had the chimney cleaners here they were recaulking that.

Combustion blower still runs, just the flame is having the issues I noted. Running on heat setting 5/5 (max) makes it so I have to stick the grate in the fire and drop the ash pan every hour. The manufacturer said it should be every 10 hours or so if it was working normal.

Where are the windings located? I never used can air. I only burn about 15 to 25 bags per season since I have a NG furnace too. This unit has always had these issues since new.

 

[corkman]

Try to post some pics of the burn pot and of your vent set up so we have a clearer picture of what you have.does sound like it's choked up

 

[jzm2cc]

Look up " St Croix stove periodic maintenance " within Google Video or within Youtube for cut away view behind firepot and how to get in there to clean passages.

Do the same for "pellet stove leaf blower trick"

Otherwise push a bottle brush up into the two ash trap door openings. Once its cleaned out the damper adjustment will finally make sense and the burnpot shouldn't over flow so quickly.

 

[heat seeker]

You need to put the leaf blower on the venting, but where is not critical. You just want to make sure you get all the airflow going through the stove - and the door of the stove must be open to prevent possible damage to the vacuum switch. It is also quite important that you use the suction part of the blower on the pipe. You don't want to blow into the pipe, as you can visualize the mess ash all over the room would make! The YouTube videos will help make it clear to you.

 

[Lake Girl]

Since you have an insert, you would be using the leaf blower at the cap on the roof. If you have had these issues since new, have you considered a potential way to install an OAK (outside air kit)? It sounds like a negative pressure situation. Centered chimney usually means running an OAK line up the chimney beside the exhaust venting liner and terminating below the exhaust cap or down and out through a crawl space or basement. If cracking a window improves the burn, you need to explore installing an OAK.

 

[rickwai]

Suction side of leaf blower hooked to the end of your exhaust and sucked out or pull the stove outside and hook it to the exhaust if you cant get to the roof. That is gauranteed to fix the problem. Dont worry about the OAK right now.