Castle serenity start up issues

[Nickwolff24]

Hi everyone,

I recently installed the castle serenity about 3 weeks ago. I've burned about 4 bags of pellets through it and it burned pretty well, just some clinkers in the pot. Today however, I started it up and it seemed like the stove was getting way to much air, blowing the pellets right out of the pan, tons of sparks out of the exhaust as well. Initial reaction was to shut it down. Waited the 30 min delay , also cleaned the stove out and reset to factory settings. Tried starting again, And the entire stove filled with thick white smoke, and was pouring smoke out the chimney, and then it ignited with a huge flame and was still blowing air very hard, even when I shut the damper all the way and lowered the exhaust settings to 80v. Any idea ? Shut it down and didn't try since. Im going to call tomorrow to speak with a tech but they are closed now so wanted to see if anyone here knew. Im new to pellet stoves, learned most what I know off this forum.

 

[Deezl Smoke]

Hi everyone,

I recently installed the castle serenity about 3 weeks ago. I've burned about 4 bags of pellets through it and it burned pretty well, just some clinkers in the pot. Today however, I started it up and it seemed like the stove was getting way to much air, blowing the pellets right out of the pan, tons of sparks out of the exhaust as well. Initial reaction was to shut it down. Waited the 30 min delay , also cleaned the stove out and reset to factory settings. Tried starting again, And the entire stove filled with thick white smoke, and was pouring smoke out the chimney, and then it ignited with a huge flame and was still blowing air very hard, even when I shut the damper all the way and lowered the exhaust settings to 80v. Any idea ? Shut it down and didn't try since. Im going to call tomorrow to speak with a tech but they are closed now so wanted to see if anyone here knew. Im new to pellet stoves, learned most what I know off this forum.

The smoke fill and flash over ignition will happen from time to time. Basically it is a combination of burn pot, ignitor, and timing. It's important that the burn pot be positioned back against the rear of the frame it sits in, and that it is seated down properly with no ash under the lip. I hope the manufacturers eventually address this with a improvement to the burn pot, but IMO what is happening is after a few good burns the burn pot is warping a bit and allowing a gap between the ignition tube and the burn pot hole.

I have gone to putting handful of pellets in the burn pot after scraping the clinker ash before start up. It helps, but is not a cure. I even had to weld one of my burn pots as it warped at a formed junction. So for now, as much as I do not wish to say it, due to manufacturing tolerances, you may be stuck with ignition trouble until a permanent fix is found. I believe that fix is a new burn pot design.

On the first issue of blowing glowing pellets out, that too is a characteristic at start up as the high air draw is supposed to happen once the pellets have ignited. However, since the pellets are slow to ignite now, the timer does not know that. I do not know if that fan speed is adjustable in a deeper programing mode ,if one even exists, or not. But it would be nice to be able to lower the exhaust blower setting at start up.

That's probably not the news you wanted to hear, but maybe one or two of the other Serenity owners will chime in with a fix they have found. Otherwise, you have described my stove start up perfectly. It does not bother me however, as I have a tall enough vertical piping outside that seldom do glowing embers make it that far. They can on shut down, but not all that often.

 

[bags]

The smoke fill and flash over ignition will happen from time to time. Basically it is a combination of burn pot, ignitor, and timing. It's important that the burn pot be positioned back against the rear of the frame it sits in, and that it is seated down properly with no ash under the lip. I hope the manufacturers eventually address this with a improvement to the burn pot, but IMO what is happening is after a few good burns the burn pot is warping a bit and allowing a gap between the ignition tube and the burn pot hole.

I have gone to putting handful of pellets in the burn pot after scraping the clinker ash before start up. It helps, but is not a cure. I even had to weld one of my burn pots as it warped at a formed junction. So for now, as much as I do not wish to say it, due to manufacturing tolerances, you may be stuck with ignition trouble until a permanent fix is found. I believe that fix is a new burn pot design.

On the first issue of blowing glowing pellets out, that too is a characteristic at start up as the high air draw is supposed to happen once the pellets have ignited. However, since the pellets are slow to ignite now, the timer does not know that. I do not know if that fan speed is adjustable in a deeper programing mode ,if one even exists, or not. But it would be nice to be able to lower the exhaust blower setting at start up.

That's probably not the news you wanted to hear, but maybe one or two of the other Serenity owners will chime in with a fix they have found. Otherwise, you have described my stove start up perfectly. It does not bother me however, as I have a tall enough vertical piping outside that seldom do glowing embers make it that far. They can on shut down, but not all that often.

Just out of curiosity, have you ever tried to do manual lights or is that and option? I like these Serenity stoves and have had one on my radar for some time. If I ever need another stove or find a place for one then this would be the ticket.

My thinking: If you manually lit the pellets in the pot say a good handful with a torch for soldering would that start them quicker thus reducing this situation. I know they auto ignite and that is a no brainer but to eliminate this issue it would possibly be an option.

Speaking for myself it would not be a big deal opening the door and torching pellets to get them burning quicker. I say this because I know I could get pellets rolling on fire quicker this way than the igniter on my Harmans. Sometimes they take a few to get going using the auto igniter which I do pretty much 100% of the start ups with.

 

[Deezl Smoke]

Just out of curiosity, have you ever tried to do manual lights or is that and option? I like these Serenity stoves and have had one on my radar for some time. If I ever need another stove or find a place for one then this would be the ticket.

My thinking: If you manually lit the pellets in the pot say a good handful with a torch for soldering would that start them quicker thus reducing this situation. I know they auto ignite and that is a no brainer but to eliminate this issue it would possibly be an option.

Speaking for myself it would not be a big deal opening the door and torching pellets to get them burning quicker. I say this because I know I could get pellets rolling on fire quicker this way than the igniter on my Harmans. Sometimes they take a few to get going using the auto igniter which I do pretty much 100% of the start ups with.

I actually did try manual ignition with a bbq butane lighter. I have not tried the propane torch. Likely I wont go the propane route as I dont like keeping those bottles in the house. The pellets did not ignite in the time frame of the control panel vacuum loss shut down. I tried lighting prior to start up, and had nothing but smoke in the house as there was no draw out. I also have thought about the alcohol cube ignition, as I believe the original pellet stoves required? But have not made the effort yet.

I feel this is a burn pot issue and a new design pot would fix it. I have 3 serenity stoves and the two in the house, though plumbed identical, have completely different characteristics. The south stove is the worst for faulty ignition. Even on exclusively low, or #1 heat settings, the burn pots have warped. I have watched the ignition cycle many times and can see the ignitor glow through the perforations in the side panels. What I think is happening, is as the burn pot warps, even a small bit, there becomes a gap between the burn pot and the ignition tube. This gap is just enough to allow too much ignitor heat to escape. The vacuum created by the exhaust blower is whole chamber vacuum. This allows the vacuum to pull heat at the point of least resistance, IE: the gap between the pot and ignition tube, rather than pull it solely up through the pellet load. That likely did'nt sound quite right, but without better sealing between the ignitor tube and the burn pot, too much heat gets sucked out at the gap and just goes around the pellet load and out.
I could be wrong, but at this point, that is how I see it. I also think the burn pot could use a bit higher sides to keep all of the fuel, even the fines in the burn pot until fully burned and lightweight ash is all that is sucked out of it.

 

[The Scientist]

Take a close look at the platform that the burn pot sits on . Mine had weld spatters on the top against the back wall that was preventing the burn pot from seating against the platform it sits in. Also check all around the underside of the burn pot lip where it rests on the platform for weld spatters. remove spatters with a file. Check by running fingers along the surfaces.

This will not fix warping issues.