Breckwell P23 - Pellets missing burn pot

[gggallons]

I'm a renter and our house has a Breckwell P23 installed. Last season, we were using it normally and everything worked pretty well, but we had a very common issue where quite a lot of pellets would miss the burn pot. Some were falling behind the burn pot assembly, pushing it away from the back wall, which would trigger a shutoff. It was never a huge problem, though, just an annoyance and a waste of pellets.

This season, we've been using a different brand of pellets cause our local store switched. I'm not going to keep using them, but they've been missing the burnpot at an even higher rate (they also produce way more soot and seem to burn faster). I started doing some digging and I'm seeing that really only a couple pellets should be missing the burnpot at all!

Any advice? I know some folks have burnpot extensions, but is that something I can find for sale or would I have to make it myself (way out of my skillset!)

Thanks in advance.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Missing the burnpot? I don't get that. Is it an auger stove or a drop chute stove?

 

[gggallons]

Like, they are either bouncing out or not landing in the burnpot, so they are ending up scattered around inside the stove, often landing behind the burnpot assembly. Aside from the waste, this causes issues as the build up pushes the burnpot assembly away from the back wall, which shuts off the stove.

Per the manual, it appears to be an auger stove, though I don't really know the difference. There's a small chute that comes out of the back of the interior of the stove, but a significant gap between the end of the chute and the burnpot.

 

[gggallons]

It's very similar to this model, just an older version: https://woodstoves.net/documents/breckwell/P23_Manual.pdf

 

[SidecarFlip]

That manual don't really tell me what I want to know and that is, do the pellets feed from an angled vertical chute into the burn pot or from a horizontal tube with a screw auger in it.?

Gonna go out on a limb and say you have too much combustion air coming in and it's blowing the pellets out of the burnpot. Can you reduce the combustion air via the control panel or draft shutter or both?

Stove kind of sort of is similar to my USSC 6039 but the burn pot is different.

Having said that, I can blow the pellets out of my burnpot if the combustion air is too great. They drop in and come right out on the floor of the stove.

There is no space between my burnpot and the inside back of the stove, mine is occupied by a faux brick panel, maybe yours is missing. They do tend to fall apart when they get old. I handle mine with great care.

 

[gggallons]

The pellets come out of an angled chute, yeah. I've played around a lot with the damper/draft shutter, but I'll see if that has any effect. I pretty much only ever run it on two settings - 1/5 most of the time and 3/5 in the morning to get it kicked off. The issue seems to occur no matter what, though maybe to different degrees. If I keep the damper set so that the flames burn straight up, which is what I've heard you're supposed to do, then there's not a ton of air getting in but it could be causing a bit of extra bounce.

As far as I know, there was never a faux-brick panel or anything like that. The gap is small, maybe 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch, but it's enough.

 

[Ssyko]

Brekwells have that tendency when the pellets are short. You can make an extension to sit on top of the burn pot that will eliminate the problem. If you don’t have the means shoot me you pot measurments an a pic of the pot in a private message and i will make you one.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Brekwells have that tendency when the pellets are short. You can make an extension to sit on top of the burn pot that will eliminate the problem. If you don’t have the means shoot me you pot measurments an a pic of the pot in a private message and i will make you one.

There you go. All fixed. Sheet metal to the rescue.

 

[zrock]

Yours uses the same style of burn pot mine used... The issue is the some of the pellet's drop to slow and hit the edge of the burn pot and bounce out.. I made my own extension out of some 3 inch flat stock it helps but you have to make sure its pushed tight against back wall. Only thing i wish i would have done different on this design is angle the side and door side wall a little more to catch the odd one that bounces out... I may do redesign #3 this summer if i get boared

 

[SidecarFlip]

I see a couple aftermarket retailers sell a burn pot where the back side is quite a bit hither than the front.

 

[Ssyko]

All ready, rear Section is somewhat movable/adjustable And sits into the pot by half inch.