Avalon Newport Burn Questions / Problems

[Slingshot]

I have an Avalon Newport Pellet stove I purchased end of last year for this heating season. It is a freestanding unit and I have it direct vented to the outside via one 5' section of the 3" pellet vent. I purchased a harman wall thimble kit (with the integrated fresh air intake) to go through the wall. I have a piece of flex line from the harman wall thimble air intake (2" I think) to the stove ... but the intake on the avalon stove is smaller, like 1" I think. So I have the flex line centered around the intake on the stove. I tried to put a hose clamp on it for a tighter seal, but it just crushed the flex line, so I left it the way it is.

I also downloaded the manual from avalon website and cleaned the stove per their instructions before I installed the stove, and the vent pipe was brand new, so I know that was clean. I also have checked the door seal and ashpan seal with a dollar bill (as shown in owners manual) and both passed - meaning I could not remove the dollar bill. So I assume the seals are good.

I have burned about a ton of Dry Creek brand pellets (Arcade, NY) so far and everything seemed to be working fine. I would clean out the firepot once or twice per day - some clinkers form. I have the air set WIDE open, but could not have the heat setting up to the highest setting because the pellets would build up inside in the firepot. It blows ashes out of the firepot, but does not blow burning pellets out. So I left the heat setting at like Medium/High and we have gotten by with that. I did not think the air should have to be WIDE open and not be able to have heat setting on max, but it was working ok, so I left it.

However, this past weekend I bought 25 bags of ACP (Appling County) brand pellets and started using them. First night I loaded up the hopper, woke up the next morning to find the firepot overflowing with some burned and mostly unburned pellets. There were some smoldering pellets laying on the bottom of the ashpan. The settings on the stove were the same. So that morning I cleaned out the stove completely, left the air wide open, and adjusted the heat setting to medium. Seemed fine through most of the day. But woke up this morning and the stove had stopped feeding pellets because the pellets were piled up in the firepot and overflowed into ashpan floor. I am perplexed ... the air is wide open, the stove has been cleaned, but with the heat setting on medium, the pellets build up and do not get burned.

I thought I understood the basics of pellet stoves, but now I am wondering if I am missing something ? I have cleaned the stove many times as shown in the owners manual, so I am fairly confident that ash buildup is not the problem. I am wondering if I should put duct tape around the fresh air intake at the back of the stove to make up for the 2" flex line, 1" flange on the stove ? Perhaps it is not sucking in enough air ?

Any help would be appreciated ... I am going home tonight to clean the stove again and see if I am missing anything.

 

[imacman]

Slingshot,

You mentioned that you cleaned the stove before installing it....is it a used stove?

The OAK isn't the problem....and the fresh air inlet tube is 1 3/4".....you can buy a tail pipe reducer at the local auto parts/muffler shop that will adapt your vent pipe to the stove.

BTW, there is NO reason to have the air control rod pulled out all the way.....if the stove is as clean as you said, it should be at about 1-2 on medium heat setting.

 

[Dodge]

Macman,

I am having the same problem with my Big E, the burn pot over flows after about 14 hrs. Currently I do not have an OAK. My flame seems to adjust to the air flow when the damper is moved. Do you think an oak would help and if so why? My vent pipe is 3", 4ft vertical and 2ft horizontal. If i go with an OAK, what material do you suggest. thanks.

 

[imacman]

The OAK isn't going to make much, if any, change to how the stove burns, IMO.

Is the stove clean...I mean REALLY clean? 80% of all burning problems we see on this forum are caused by a dirty stove.
If it's really clean, and you still can't get it adjusted to burn correctly, I'd contact Eric at Kinsman Stoves on this forum...he's the resident expert when it comes to Breckwell, and especially the Big E. (PM him at "kinsman stoves").

BTW, he is a great guy, and if you want an OAK for your Big E, I'm sure he can hook you up with the right thing, and his prices are reasonable.

If you need help cleaning the stove correctly, Eric did a 4 or 5 part "cleaning series" on this forum for Breckwell Big E stoves....lots of "tips".

Here's the link to Part 1 to get you started...you can search for parts 2-4 by putting "Breckwell cleaning part 2" into the search, and you should see that one and the other 2 as well....he really knows his stuff with Breckwell stoves.

www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/29589

Hope this helps.

 

[Slingshot]

Slingshot,

You mentioned that you cleaned the stove before installing it....is it a used stove?

The OAK isn't the problem....and the fresh air inlet tube is 1 3/4".....you can buy a tail pipe reducer at the local auto parts/muffler shop that will adapt your vent pipe to the stove.

BTW, there is NO reason to have the air control rod pulled out all the way.....if the stove is as clean as you said, it should be at about 1-2 on medium heat setting.

Yes, I bought it used. I cleaned the stove again last night. I found a decent build up of ashes in the horizontal exhaust duct around the exhaust fan. So I thought maybe that was the problem ... not being able to move enough air. So I finished the cleaning, put it all back together, ran it for about 1/2 hour on high and had the air intake rod 1/2 open. That seemed to be fine, I believe the flame pattern was as it should be. I realized last night that when the air control rod is pushed all the way in, it only restricts the air intake chamber to 1/2 way. When it is pulled all the way out, there is no restriction in the air intake chamber. I think that is how it should be ?

However, woke up this morning to find the firepot full and smoldering pellets on the floor of the burn chamber !! I am not sure what is going on. I thought I had the problem figured out when I saw the build up around the exhaust fan. So after I cleaned out the smoldering mess in the stove this morning, I emptied out the hopper of the ACP pellets and put the dry creek pellets back in. We will see what it looks like when I get home from work today.

 

[mrlisk]

Hate to resurrect such an old thread, but I'm having a similar problem. Avalon Newport PS, older style control panel with the twist knobs to control fan speed/ heat output.

Had it professionally cleaned and i installed it myself w/ 4" PelletVent Pro going out the wall into a tee and up 10 feet to a cap.

I bought 2 tons of Cubex this year and since finishing the install a couple of days ago have been having a heck of a time keeping it running. It ran for a while on high yesterday without issue, but when I went to turn it down to about medium, to let it run overnight, it ran itself down and eventually shut off with a fault error.

I relit several times with the same result within a half hour of firing it up. I watched it today a couple of times - the flame begins to die down and eventually the pellets being dropped in overwhelm what little flame is left and extinguish it - resulting in a pile of pellets overflowing out of the pot and eventual shut down.

I checked the gaskets today and found that the door was slightly out of adjustment and fixed it - did the dollar bill test and it passed.

And today it also knocked itself out while running on high. Not sure what's going on here (hope it's not related to the pellets!). My dad had luck in the past running the same pellet in this stove (he gave me the stove).

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Have you exposed and cleaned all ash traps in the stove, all intake air paths (on both sides of the damper), all of the piping between the ash traps and the combustion blower, have you removed and cleaned the combustion blower ( the impeller and the area between the impeller and the mounting plate WARNING you should be certain to have a spare gasket before removing the blower motor assembly from the blower ), the combustion blower cavity and the rest of the piping all the way to the vent pipes, and the vent pipes ( all the way to and including the termination cap), also the area above the burn pot and going to the ash traps.

 

[mrlisk]

Thank you for responding!

I just re-cleaned the entire thing after I posted. I had paid for a full cleaning before I installed it and **assumed** it was done thoroughly. During my cleaning today I found that the impeller blades and much of the surface on the exhaust was pretty crudded up. I also found that the brass nipple (air flow sensor?) was plugged up really good (solid clump) so I cleared that out.

In some other research I found that too much draft can be an issue with tall chimney setups - when I looked at the air control rod - it was wide open. Immediately after restricting it completely the flame became much brighter and seems more consistent (I literally just did this 10 minutes ago) and all seems well so far?

Seem reasonable or am I just hoping that it's my fix? :gulp:

Edit: also worth noting is that this is the longest it's run on the medium/low setting without dying.

 

[mrlisk]

As for the gasket - lesson learned! i slurped it up with the vacuum and made it to the local dealer within 5 minutes of them closing and got a replacement.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Thank you for responding!

I just re-cleaned the entire thing after I posted. I had paid for a full cleaning before I installed it and **assumed** it was done thoroughly. During my cleaning today I found that the impeller blades and much of the surface on the exhaust was pretty crudded up. I also found that the brass nipple (air flow sensor?) was plugged up really good (solid clump) so I cleared that out.

In some other research I found that too much draft can be an issue with tall chimney setups - when I looked at the air control rod - it was wide open. Immediately after restricting it completely the flame became much brighter and seems more consistent (I literally just did this 10 minutes ago) and all seems well so far?

Seem reasonable or am I just hoping that it's my fix? :gulp:

Too much air can cause a flame to be blown out and in rare cases for burn pot build up to occur.

A good number of us use a leaf blower that can be used as a leaf vacuum to remove crud from hard to reach areas after having brushed and pounded on the back walls of the stove ( WARNING if your stove has cast iron in the fire box area, do not do the pounding it is very easy to crack cast iron).

Burn pot buildup can take time to show up. Watch it for some time.

 

[mrlisk]

I was looking into that. My shop vac has a detachable blower I might be able to accomplish that with. If the problem persists, that'll be the next step.

I'll keep an eye out and my fingers crossed.

Thanks again for the help!

 

[heat seeker]

You want to make sure you use the VACUUM side of the blower/vac on the exhaust pipe, just a reminder.

If you don't, we want pictures!

 

[mrlisk]

I figured as much! The wife wouldn't appreciate the mess if I screwed that one up haha

You want to make sure you use the VACUUM side of the blower/vac on the exhaust pipe, just a reminder.

 

[heat seeker]

It has been done, and there are pictures on the forum…I'll say no more.

 

[imacman]

.....I had paid for a full cleaning before I installed it and **assumed** it was done thoroughly......

I'm sure you know the old saying about "assuming". In this case, I will just say that there are a LOT of supposed "professionals" out there that don't know how to clean a pellet stove, but know very well how to clean out your wallet....I guess you found one.

As for your air intake control, the rod has marks on it. When the stove is REALLY clean, the rod only needs to be pulled out to either the 1 1/2 or 2 mark. As the stove gets dirty inside, you can pull it out a little at a time.

Use the technique that the owners manual mentions....just enough air so the burning pellets are slightly "dancing" on the bottom of the burnpot....no more, no less.