englander 25pdvp pellet hog cant keep up

[joelswork]

Ok guys. Second attempt at this post. I have been given an older pellet stove in really good condition, everything that can be cleaned w/o a gasket has been cleaned and the gaskets are ordered for the extensive cleaning this weekend. The problem is the heat output. It doesn't match our old, small wood stove. The blower is blowing out air that is cool only 8 ft away and at 3-4 bags of pellets per day...it's expensive. 900 sq ft of old farm house on highest heat/blower setting is around 50 degrees

Oak is installed, vent is adapted to 6" double/tripple wood pipe. Help

 

[imacman]

Pellet stoves are room heaters, and anything that gets heated besides the stove room is just a bonus. And as for you saying that nothing that required a gasket has ever been cleaned is raising flags for me already.


Does your old farmhouse have any insulation? How long have you had the stove? did you get it new, or used? What are the lower 3 buttons settings? What pellets are you burning, and are they "fresh", or leftovers from a previous year?

 

[joelswork]

Well, I haven't cleaned anything that required a gasket. The former owner was a maintence nut but has passed away, I am assuming he did the regular maintence because he worked on these for a living and everything looked amazing clean when I got it (He even had extra blowers, glass, hood latches, door gaskets, control panel...but no blower, motor, auger or burn pot gaskets that I have found). As for the house, it is old and was drafty till I got the ole hair dryer and window kits going and that keeps me from flying kites in here anymore, no insulation except for the 1/4" stuff over the tyvac house wrap that was installed with the vinyl siding (blown in is on the to do list). the main room that we are trying to heat is 32x15 and has a 10x10 bathroom and a 10x12 kitchen attached, so only 700 sq ft with 9ft ceilings...it should do it.

I did have 15 bags of old pellets that seemed to have quite a bit of moisture but I've put through around 30 (over just the last week) of the somersets, so they are good pellets. Glass is new and is just a bit hazed over, no black at all so it seems to be burning pretty well as far as air/fuel mixture.

I am not sure how to get the propper setting from the control panel for the lower buttons but I'm assuming I just push them and this is what they said: low fuel feed 9, low burn air 5, air on temp 4 (and that looks very different from some of the posts I've seen on the lower control buttons).

Any suggestions would really help on this cold night! Thanks

 

[joelswork]

ok, quick clean of the burn pot and settings at 4-4-1 , like I saw in quite a few other posts, and the flame looks much different now! (I'll report the verdict in a little bit, there is a lot of air to heat up). These settings were just a shot in the dark from some other posts but feel free to chime in if there is something blazingly obvious that I did wrong. The only other thing that might make a difference is the chimeny height, I don't know if the blower is made to exhaust as high as my chimeny is (roughly 30ft) but I am taking it straigh out tomorrow as we enter phase II on the remodel for our upstairs which is completly sealed off right now.

 

[86 toy]

Well, I haven't cleaned anything that required a gasket. The former owner was a maintence nut but has passed away, I am assuming he did the regular maintence because he worked on these for a living and everything looked amazing clean when I got it (He even had extra blowers, glass, hood latches, door gaskets, control panel...but no blower, motor, auger or burn pot gaskets that I have found). As for the house, it is old and was drafty till I got the ole hair dryer and window kits going and that keeps me from flying kites in here anymore, no insulation except for the 1/4" stuff over the tyvac house wrap that was installed with the vinyl siding (blown in is on the to do list). the main room that we are trying to heat is 32x15 and has a 10x10 bathroom and a 10x12 kitchen attached, so only 700 sq ft with 9ft ceilings...it should do it.

I did have 15 bags of old pellets that seemed to have quite a bit of moisture but I've put through around 30 (over just the last week) of the somersets, so they are good pellets. Glass is new and is just a bit hazed over, no black at all so it seems to be burning pretty well as far as air/fuel mixture.

I am not sure how to get the propper setting from the control panel for the lower buttons but I'm assuming I just push them and this is what they said: low fuel feed 9, low burn air 5, air on temp 4 (and that looks very different from some of the posts I've seen on the lower control buttons).

Any suggestions would really help on this cold night! Thanks

make sure the large steel plate that sits behind the burnpot is flat agenst the back wall of the stove if it's not the heat won't be pulled through the heat exchanger properly and will just blow out the vent.. also with a lff setting of 9 i can see why it's flying through the pellets.. my stove would be glowing red if i turned the lff up that high

 

[joelswork]

Yep, the steel plate is flush against the back wall. I could only wish for a glowing red stove right now....This house hasn't been above 50 in 3 weeks....the day I took the wood stove out and put this in! But I have hope, I see some of the results from the other posts and know the possibilities of hardwood dried to an insanely low moisture rating then burned with air being force into the mix it can only get better.......someday!

 

[86 toy]

something else i just thought of is maybe your control board some how got reset to the wrong mode.. i beleave your stove should be at c.. here is how to check. Unplug the stove ,plug back in and quickly depress and hold both up and down fan blower buttons at the same time for a couple seconds and release . You should be seeing a letter c in the top left box. If not , depress either the up or down button below to set it at c mode.

edit: i just realized your burning a pdvp not a pdvc i don't know if your stove uses the same control board as the pdvc so your mode may not be c from the factory.. mybe Mike H. can clear this up for us.. sorry about the confusion

 

[imacman]

ok, quick clean of the burn pot and settings at 4-4-1 , like I saw in quite a few other posts, and the flame looks much different now! (I'll report the verdict in a little bit, there is a lot of air to heat up). These settings were just a shot in the dark from some other posts but feel free to chime in if there is something blazingly obvious that I did wrong. The only other thing that might make a difference is the chimeny height, I don't know if the blower is made to exhaust as high as my chimeny is (roughly 30ft) but I am taking it straigh out tomorrow as we enter phase II on the remodel for our upstairs which is completly sealed off right now.

4-4-1 is not a bad place to start, and should make a big difference in the amount of pellets burned....that setting it had before of 9 on the LFF was the max that the stove could pump into the burn pot!!

Chimney height, even if it's all straight up, is marginal for the stove. If you do go straight out through the wall, there still should be a cleanout T and at least 3-4' of vertical rise for proper draft.

And from what i'm reading in your other post, sounds like a lot of any heat the stove is making is being soaked-up in the poorly insulated walls. Adding insulation will make a BIG difference.

 

[joelswork]

Ok, another issue might be the possibility of something partially clogging the heat exchanging system for the room blower? I see the 4 holes at the top that the air gets blown into the room with and I see two small holes under the lip residing under the door. i am assuming that these two holes are the inlet side for the room air, and I am getting a drafting up through them as seen by holding a lighter up to them...but there is quite a bit of debris up in there and I can't see that far in there. How the heck to you clean those out, what about propper cleaning of the room air exhaust.


Well, stove was in cool down mode for checking what mode it was in but I'm gonna crank her back up cause I'm down to about 40 in here and it's only 20 outside. I've tried quite a few times on englander's phone but they are busy and their phone keeps confirming that too. I'll drop mike another email, seems to work faster! Or....if you're out there Mike.....

 

[joelswork]

so, after a full cleaning after waiting for the cool down. I started it up at the new bottom settings....what the heck is this? This is a crazy insane flame of tonadic activity with pellets being burned as they come off the auger....not what I'm used to seeing!

These things were just piling up in the burn pot and if I knocked the chinkers off the vent holes, it would create a flame that looked like a wood stove fire......not this end of a welding torch thing in here...and this is just on 4...I'm going up to 7 but I'm a bit scared and have to get up at 5am

I'm in some kind of violent firey trance....is this supposed to be what a good pellet fire looks like in this old stove?

 

[Nicholas440]

I dont know anything about the Englander stove other than what I read here from the experts, but it sounds like you finally have a decent flame going in that old stove. It seems to me that if you have it set to a medium flame that in about an hour you should be up over 50 degrees in the house. I dont think you are going to be able to heat the entire house since its only a space heater and not a furnace. Hopefully the Englander experts will chime in on your settings and you can get the most out of that stove.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

ok, the 25-PDVP is an older model we built from 1995 through 2000, was rated up to approximatly 1800-200 sqft. GREAT stove , easy to work on and clean, hopper holds about 60 lbs.

to the OP , it would help me to know the manufacture date of the stove so i know what "guts" are in it, i'll help you dial the old girl in for optimal heat output. in a way i almost envy you that stove , i have a friend up the road that has a 1997 model that is phenomenal at heating her double wide.

seriously though the stove evolved some over the years we built her , i know that stove better than anyone you will ever talk to ,its one of my favorites, get me mfg date off the tag on the left side of the pedestal just below the exhaust blower so i know what i have to work with , i'll get the old girl dancin for ya

 

[joelswork]

Thanks Mike, it was manufactured in January 2000.