Enviro EF2I

[JDuncan]

My mother purchased this stove in July and has just recently started to use it. She lives in a mobile home and says that she came home last night and the stove had a big flame but the place was not even 60 degrees. Her burn pot continues to overflow and lots of ash builds up in the pot.

We had the dealer out today to look at it and he says that this stove takes a lot of tinkering to get it to work "just right", but had no idea what else to tell her. I'm sort of peeved with him right now as he told us that that stove would blow you out of that trailer when we bought it, otherwise we would have purchased something bigger.

Can anyone help out with tips on how to avoid the clinkers in the burn pot? How to keep it from running over?

 

[Shane]

Sounds like the air to fuel ratio is off. Did he test it with a magnahelic to make sure it was within specs? BTW will one of you wood room mods move this to the pellet forum?

check out www.hearthtools.com Rod has some good trouble shooting stuff over there.

 

[Gooserider]

Moved to the Pellet Mill, per request... Good luck in getting it fixed / adjusted...

Gooserider

 

[JDenyer232]

My mother purchased this stove in July and has just recently started to use it. She lives in a mobile home and says that she came home last night and the stove had a big flame but the place was not even 60 degrees. Her burn pot continues to overflow and lots of ash builds up in the pot.

We had the dealer out today to look at it and he says that this stove takes a lot of tinkering to get it to work "just right", but had no idea what else to tell her. I'm sort of peeved with him right now as he told us that that stove would blow you out of that trailer when we bought it, otherwise we would have purchased something bigger.

Can anyone help out with tips on how to avoid the clinkers in the burn pot? How to keep it from running over?

Read the manual, and then read it again, that stove should be roasting you out, make sure you clean it as per the manual. The air shutter needs to be set using a magnahelic gauge, if you don't have one have the people that installed it bring one with them and set the air shutter, if they don't have one then shame on them, it is necessary to have one to set up the enviro stoves. As far as clinkers and ash you will probably need to clean the burnpot and burnpot liner daily depending on the quality of the pellets being burned. Good high quality pellets can extend the cleaning to every 2-3 days, lesser quality ones need daily cleanings. Make sure that the heatlevel on the control is not set on low. There are 5 bars that indicate heat level, we usually run ours on the 3rd or middle range during spring and fall, and the 4th setting when the weather gets really cold. Also a powerfailure will reset the control board back to its lowest burn setting, so if you have a powerfailure you need to check and change the heatlevel setting. Hope this is of some help and let us know how things work out.

 

[JDuncan]

Thanks for the advice. I do not believe that the tech had a magnahelic gauge with him but I will call them right now and find out if they have one and if not why not

Apparently she has been starting it incorrectly and that has caused the pellets to build up in the burn pot and was smothering the ignitor flame. We also switched the pellets that she was using to another brand. Since she has a ton of the previous she's going to try those again but if they start to run over then we'll know that she needs different pellets.

She lives in a mobile home and I would think that that stove would blow her right out of the place if it's running correctly. The trailer isn't air tight though and maybe that is causing some of the problem. I'm going out tomorrow and will put the clear shrink wrap plastic on her windows for her to see if that helps. Trial and error here!! I have a Breckwell and I guess I'm a bit spoiled because I just don't have to mess with it all that much...hers needs a little more TLC.

Good thing for her she has horses and can use the lower grade pellets to bed the horses in if it turns out that they are the problem.....they work great for that...

 

[Xena]

I would tend to doubt the pellets are the problem unless
they are or were wet/damaged. I've tried ten different
brands, low grade, high grade and in between - all of them
produced heat, some better than others but certainly enough
to get things rolling far above 60F.

Before you head out to Moms, print out any troubleshooting steps
for that stove from the site that Shane pointed you to and bring
them with. I'm sure you'll find the problem. Good luck with it.

 

[JDenyer232]

Thanks for the advice. I do not believe that the tech had a magnahelic gauge with him but I will call them right now and find out if they have one and if not why not

Apparently she has been starting it incorrectly and that has caused the pellets to build up in the burn pot and was smothering the ignitor flame. We also switched the pellets that she was using to another brand. Since she has a ton of the previous she's going to try those again but if they start to run over then we'll know that she needs different pellets.

She lives in a mobile home and I would think that that stove would blow her right out of the place if it's running correctly. The trailer isn't air tight though and maybe that is causing some of the problem. I'm going out tomorrow and will put the clear shrink wrap plastic on her windows for her to see if that helps. Trial and error here!! I have a Breckwell and I guess I'm a bit spoiled because I just don't have to mess with it all that much...hers needs a little more TLC.

Good thing for her she has horses and can use the lower grade pellets to bed the horses in if it turns out that they are the problem.....they work great for that...

Glad to help, we have a vistaflame which is just a rebadged enviro heating a 1250SF house built in 1940, not exactly the most air tight home, but we burn 3 tons a season and can easily heat the living areas to 80F if I set the thermostat that high. So I'm sure that stove should be more than enough in a mobile home.

 

[hearthtools]

THE EF2 is the KISS system stove and one of the simplest stoves to use as long as you remember to put the stove from Start to Run

Pellet stoves are not Rocket Science
Fuel
AIR
SPARK

You got to have all three for the stove to work in tip top shape.

QUESTION
In the stove do you have Grey Ash soot build up?
Or BLACK SOOT BUILD up?
If BLACK it is an Draft or air problem.

This is why you need to check with a Mag. but normally just by sight you can tell

PUSH THE DAMPER ALL THE WAY IN. TALL ORANGE FLAME
PULL THE DAMPER ALL THE WAY OUT Lower More YELLOW Flam with pellets moving around GOOD
this tells us we have good draft.
If you dont.
All potential draft problems will need to be checked.

Could be the stove is installed wrong

Air adjust not correct or you have an air leak.

Sometimes if the Pedestal is not Bolted to the stove right it will leak air.

Could be a bad combustion blower

Could be the door is not shut tight and the gasket is not sealing.

Could be the burn pot and liner not set correct in stove

Could be a rats nest in the Stove REAL STORY READ MY POST HERE
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/12660/


more help here https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/13422/

and a lot more trick on the sticky pages at the top of the pellet room

 

[JDuncan]

Thank you so much for all of your help. I have printed the troubleshooting information and it looks to be VERY helpful. I'm going to take that with me and see how we do. She said that it was running well this morning, she has the damper out about 1/2 way, the fan at about 3/4's and the pellet feed at about 2:00 on the dial. No clinkers so far....

Hopefully the other pellets will work for her. They are made about 20 minutes from us and are much less expensive than buying from one of the stove shops, Wal-Mart, Lowes, etc. If we go and pick them up ourselves they are just $215 a ton... Everywhere else they are $300 a ton right now and I hear that they're going up next month.