Avalon Arbor weird fire/smoke problem after stove move

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rtinker

New Member
Hearth Supporter
Dec 14, 2010
2
Central Maryland
Hello,

I hope somebody can help guide me, as thanks to the energy credit, a repair person cannot come out until January and we are currently experiencing the coldest weather we have had in years!

I installed this pellet stove myself over two years ago and have not had any problems. We do regular cleaning during the season and then a very thorough cleaning in the off season.

We started using it this season and only got a few weeks into it before we had to shut it down and move the stove because we were replacing the flooring in the room that the stove is in. The stove is directly vented with a single ~22 degree elbow, and a total of about 36" of pipe (so not very long).

When we moved the stove back into place, it was perhaps 3/4" lower than before, so our level direct vent now has a very slight upward angle going outside (I doubt this has anything to do with the problem, especially since it is going upwards, but I am trying to provide all of the information I can). We cleaned everything, and I even removed the screened cap on the vent pipe outside and could see clearly through the pipe to the elbow, so the vent is in good shape.

So here is what happens: Startup is fine - it ignites the same as it always has, and I get a good, strong flame going, but then just when the convection fan kicks in, the fire is immediately smothered and smoke starts coming out of every orifice possible. The first time this happened I thought that the draft may not be right so I let it run a little longer, and the flame acted like the air vent was being opened and closed - it would get smothered almost to extinction, then act like it just got a gasp of air and reflame, then get smothered again. Most of the time it is smothered and I could not take the smoke anymore so we shut it down. I tried again the next day and got the same result - as soon as the convection fan turned on, the fire acted like it was getting zero air.

It SOUNDS like there is a gasket/seal that has totally failed, but I cannot understand how that can happen when the stove was used only 5-6 days previously without any problem. It seems more likely that something shifted, fell, or otherwise failed as a result of the move. I jacked the stove up using a floor jack from the underside of the ash pan - could the weight of the stove done something to the ash pan gasket to cause a complete failure of the seal?

What is my most likely cause for something like this? While we clean the stove pretty thoroughly, I have never removed the fan housings or gone "deep" into it (although I do remove the cover on the exhaust fan and clean around the blades of that one), so if somebody suspects something internal, I can gladly take it apart and see what I can find. Since service is required to go through a dealer service guy, I cannot get my hands on a service manual to show how the stove comes apart or the paths of the air flows more than what they show me in the owners manual for cleaning.

I verified also that the combustion air intake is working - I can move the lever and affect the flame, and I hear whistling even when it is in some positions, so I know that is working OK. I also assume the exhaust fan is working fine because for several minutes before the convection fan turns on, the stove is fine and there is no smoke coming in the home.

Ideas?

Thanks MUCH in advance for your help!

Tink
 
I can think of a couple of things.

1: The stove if drawing inside air can no longer get enough once the convection fan kicks in.

2: The combustion fan, its cavity, or the ash traps have had crud move in them.
 
I had wondered if it's ok to put a dolly jack, like a motorcycle jack, under the stove to lift it up and move it without damaging the ash pan or something else. I would think that is ok. I was going to move mine that way to slide it out to change out the venting. When the dealer delivered it, two guys used canvas lifting straps strung underneath the stove and lifted it into the house.
 
I would make certain that the entire base of the stove have a lifting plate slid under it.

Jacks + weight = trouble.

The OP could still have a problem due to the way they moved the stove, I would have thought they would at least have inspected the stove after the move.
 
Thanks for the ideas guys - thankfully, I was able to contact a technical resource for service on the stove (just a little bit ago). While the verdict is not completely "in" yet, I will post here some updates in case it helps somebody else...

The first thing he said was that the brackets for the ash pan could have been damaged by all of that weight, so several of you are already thinking that too. He suggested I get the combustion fan going and then use a candle or incense to put smoke near the edges of it and see if it gets sucked up into it. If it does, then you have a bad seal there. He did not think a bad seal could cause that much of a problem (snuffing out a roaring fire) and it seems he is right, because I did the test and the seal is good.

So then he mentioned that the combustion fan not running would definitely cause what I was seeing, but I said that it was definitely working because you hear it and I am able to get the fire started without any smoke. However, if the control board failed in some weird way, then it might be shutting down the combustion fan when the convection fan kicks in - e.g. the transition from startup mode to run mode.

So in getting ready to check the combustion fan, I put the stove in manual mode and fired it up - but this time, everything was textbook perfect!

What I was doing before was to put the stove into Auto mode since that immediately started the stove anyway (there is demand) but would shut down the stove if our outside temperature got above 39 degrees again. It is therefore possible that if the stove still has a problem, that it is something in the control board having to do with it starting in the "Auto" mode. If not, then the little bit of Tinkering and cleaning we have done must have gotten it fixed.

My wife had her hand/ear near the combustion motor when we were testing, and she thought she felt it stutter when the convection fan kicked in, so there is also the possibility of a fan starting to fail - if the switch from startup mode to run mode temporarily kills the power to the fan motor, and the fan is having trouble starting up, then that would also explain the problems.

So, I am letting it run for a while (get some heat in this place!) then I will shut it down and let it cool off and do some testing with Auto mode to see if that is the case, and if it works every time, then I have to assume it is a fan motor about to fail or some sort of weird pellet stove gnome that somehow got evicted.
 
If the combustion fan is under a heavy ash load it will tend to draw a bit more juice and then anything on the same circuit cycling on can affect it.

They are not powerful devices and need very little additional load to cause problems.

The same thing can happen after burning for a while with over length venting, the load just becomes large enough for them to go south in many different ways.
 
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