Englander 55-SHP-10 not heating well

[Lady Terisa]

After a few years running my Thelin Parlour 3000, it has decided to give up the ghost. It was cheaper to buy a new stove than to repair the old one. After much reading I decided on the Englander, it was perfect for my situation. House was built 1996, not especially tight, but fairly well insulated.
Everything installed acccording to the manual including the OAK. Stove is having ignitor issues, but I can work with that. The main problem is that it isn't heating enough.
The room it's installed in is comfortable, but the upstairs (wide open stairwell with ceiling fan set to draw up) is freezing. There is a huge draft coming down the stairs, I can actually feel it blowing. Shut the stove down and voila, draft is gone. Is there a setting for the room air exchanger? Current setting lower, 6-4-1, heat blower 4-9, but the heat/blower can be any combination and still the drafy persists. I have seen posts about the "mode" settings. How do you change them? I so wanted to love this new stove...

 

[DrewBoogie]

Are you running it hot enough for long enough to bring the whole house up to temp? I run mine on 9-9 for hours until the house is up to temp if the house goes cold. Initially, i wasn't letting the temp come up in the whole house and was ready to dump the stove. Now i know i need to run it for a day or so to warm the house. The other thing you can do is check out the mode you're running in. Some people report running it in C to get more heat out of your stove. These Englander stoves seem to heat better on softwood pellets, even better than blends. I'm also contemplating cutting some vents to get heat upstairs better. People report evening temps between floors by doing this, as long as it's within code. Search around for "Englander", lots of recent threads answering your exact questions too.

 

[Lady Terisa]

DrewBoogie I hadn't thought much about having to run the stove for that long in order to bring the house up to temp since my last stove would heat the house comfortably in less than 2 hours from a cold start. I'll give that a shot as we are expecting that lovely snow storm to come across starting tomorrow afternoon.

 

[Chrisnow86]

englanders are slow to get hot, i run mine on high for a few hours it takes a good hour to get nice and toasty.. i did the mode change on my stove.. it made a lot more heat but it burns more pellets, fuel=heat.. here is a link to another forum tells how to do the change

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/englander-pellet-owners-wanna-share-good-stuff.104004/

 

[SKOAL MAN]

If you are feeling a draft, I bet you don't have your OAK hooked up, do you? You are pulling the air from upstairs into the stove!

 

[Chrisnow86]

He has a OAK installed....

 

[Chrisnow86]

Oh and always start your stove on atleast 5 or higher... I always start it on 9

 

[SKOAL MAN]

He has a OAK installed....

I didn't see that! I don't understand why he has so much draft coming down to the stove then, unless the door isn't sealing?

 

[Chrisnow86]

I know what he is saying... All the hot air rising from the stove and the cold air sinking and rushing back to the stove... I would like to know what sq ft his house is... I bet if he did a mode change to c his problem would be solved...

 

[Lady Terisa]

Yes, the OAK is installed. The problem was on my end of not being used to a stove that took this long to heat the house. Ran the stove last night on 9-9 and the upstairs was finally getting comfortable. The upper layer of air is warm and it does seem to be pushing the cold air down. Hopefully this will correct once house comes up to temp. The house is about 1300 sqft. I'll change the mode to c when the temps drop a little more. Chrisnow thanks for the link!

 

[SKOAL MAN]

Yes, the OAK is installed. The problem was on my end of not being used to a stove that took this long to heat the house. Ran the stove last night on 9-9 and the upstairs was finally getting comfortable. The upper layer of air is warm and it does seem to be pushing the cold air down. Hopefully this will correct once house comes up to temp. The house is about 1300 sqft. I'll change the mode to c when the temps drop a little more. Chrisnow thanks for the link!

You will notice a huge difference once you change to C mode! I did mine a couple of days ago and I actually have to shut the stove down for a couple of hours before bed or it's too hot to get to sleep!

 

[Lady Terisa]

You will notice a huge difference once you change to C mode! I did mine a couple of days ago and I actually have to shut the stove down for a couple of hours before bed or it's too hot to get to sleep!

Finally changed the stove to "c" mode on Saturday. Holy moley what a difference. Brought the house up to temp, then turned the setting down to 3:3 and it kept the place comfortable all weekend. I am loving this! Thanks everyone for all the help!

 

[Chrisnow86]

glad to help!

 

[jp57]

Finally changed the stove to "c" mode on Saturday. Holy moley what a difference. Brought the house up to temp, then turned the setting down to 3:3 and it kept the place comfortable all weekend. I am loving this! Thanks everyone for all the help!

I've read a bunch of posts of people changing the "mode" to a "C". What does this actually change on the stove?

I'm finally going to start running the stove more and want to make sure that I'm being efficient with it.

 

[Chrisnow86]

basically just dumps in more fuel, and i heard it speeds up the combustion fan to help burn the extra fuel as well.