England 25-EP - intermittent inoperative auger motor

[GuitsBoy]

So we fired up the pellet stove for the first time of the season, and its behaving oddly.

It starts up fine, but after a short while the auger will stop feeding. The fire will die down, and after a few minutes, the auger will start feeding again, until the flame comes back, and it stops turning again. Its almost certainly temperature related. The trouble is, I'm not sure if the exhaust ever gets up to temperature enough to turn the convection fan on. I know the convection blower does turn on at least at first, but then after a few cycles of the auger feeding then stopping then feeding again, it seemed the blower motor never kicked back on. I dont get any error codes, aside from the occasional e2 on start up.

Anybody have any suggestions? Not sure if I should look at the thermocouple, control board, auger motor, or even the convection motor.

 

[BUBIBEAR]

What are the numbers on board display. heat range blower speed lower
3 buttons . ???

 

[GuitsBoy]

It looks like my settings are 1, 1, 1.

That doesnt sound right, but I dont recall ever changing them from stock, and certainly not to 111.

Either way, I think my issue was a vacuum leak. I did a proper plates off cleaning last night, and inspected the gaskets, and found a couple rough looking seams which might have caused the leak. The flame is still a bit lazy and its burning sooty, but that also might be from last seasons pellets. But at least it stayed running for 4 or 5 hours last night, on set setting 1, fan 3.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

center setting (low burn air) is too low so you are dropping the door switch as the stove warms up then picking it up again when the fire dies. set the LBA up to 5 by pushing the LBA then quickly pushing BOTH up arrows repeatedly until you reach 5 this should fix both the auger problem and the lazy fire

 

[GuitsBoy]

Awesome, thank you both.

I read there was a way to do a "master reset" on the stove, is that true? Should I do that? Or just set to 1-5-1 and leave it at that?

Thanks again!

 

[stoveguy2esw]

Awesome, thank you both.

I read there was a way to do a "master reset" on the stove, is that true? Should I do that? Or just set to 1-5-1 and leave it at that?

Thanks again!

there is but you shouldn't need that for this. the LBA setting on 1 is not going to run the exhaust fan fast enough to keep the vacuum switch satisfied once the stove has heated up and air density has fallen off

 

[GuitsBoy]

Great, thanks. Should I leave the other two settings on 1? What were the factory defaults? There's no reason for them to have been changed. Maybe my toddler son likes pushing random buttons. Glad he didn't manage to start it up.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

Great, thanks. Should I leave the other two settings on 1? What were the factory defaults? There's no reason for them to have been changed. Maybe my toddler son likes pushing random buttons. Glad he didn't manage to start it up.

with an EP unit the LFF and AOT are both at 1 so 1-5-1 is the ideal setting for that model

 

[GuitsBoy]

Thank you! thank you! thank you!

 

[stoveguy2esw]

Thank you! thank you! thank you!

is she back up and running now?

 

[GuitsBoy]

is she back up and running now?

Yes. Honestly the flame isn't noticeably stronger, and its still running sooty, but at least shes running. I did get an E-2 last night, but thats not out of the ordinary. Once I started it back up, it ran fine for hours. With some fresh pellets, she'll probably run much better. Thanks again.

 

[funflyer]

You should have a very active flame at LBA setting 5. Could be choking the air inlet somewhere. A simple check to see if there is an OAK restriction would be to pull the duct off the back of the stove while it's running and watch the flame. Mine didn't change very much between setting 3 through 9 until I pulled the duct, then there was a huge difference. I found the OAK debris cover that was supplied with the stove to be restrictive so I clipped off every other louver and the problem was solved. I was also getting more soot and smoke out the vent but none since the fix.