Enviro Windsor, does anyone have a PDF to the original brochure?

[SmokeyTheBear]

If that burn liner pot comes out and there aren't any gaskets to get water logged a soak in warm soapy water will help free the crud in the pot.

 

[VCBurner]

Thanks for,the tips guys! I'll try both on the next cleaning.

 

[VCBurner]

Three days after the last cleaning, had a scary situation. I've had to run this thing pretty hard to keep up with these frigid temps outside. Today, I had it on 5/5 to try to heat up the upstairs, only for about an hour. Then I looked in the burn pot and saw pellets backing up the shoot :ahhh:! It was scary to see that with such a big blowing flame around it. The burn pot had so much built hard ash, that the pellets began to back up. I instantly shut it off and cleaned it after it cooled off. It still surprises me how quickly these things cool off. Note to self, clean up the pot evety other day if running it from setting 3 to 5 for long periods of time! Especially on 4 or 5!

The OAK pipe is extremely cold!

 

[DexterDay]

Sounds like it could use a tad more air.

Was it ash in the bottom of the pot? Or a clinker? (Did it break easily? Or rock hard)

Have you tried a fan at the top of the steps blowing down? Being a previous woodburner, you probably have.

Seems to be doing a prettt good job for you. I think a unit in the 45,000-60,000 BTU range would be running mid-range and do a little better job. Now you have been introduced to pellets and you know now the ease of operation. If you continue with pellets down the road, I think you will be better prepared and be able to dive in head 1st.

Heres hoping you get the heat upstairs and also your return back to the world of woodburning (keeping the pellet stove too) ;-P

 

[Frogwood]

Three days after the last cleaning, had a scary situation. I've had to run this thing pretty hard to keep up with these frigid temps outside. Today, I had it on 5/5 to try to heat up the upstairs, only for about an hour. Then I looked in the burn pot and saw pellets backing up the shoot :ahhh:! It was scary to see that with such a big blowing flame around it. The burn pot had so much built hard ash, that the pellets began to back up. I instantly shut it off and cleaned it after it cooled off. It still surprises me how quickly these things cool off. Note to self, clean up the pot evety other day if running it from setting 3 to 5 for long periods of time! Especially on 4 or 5!

The OAK pipe is extremely cold!

That does sound scary. Haven't had that happen to me yet although I rarely run it on 5/5...only for 15 mins or so if I do because that huge flame makes me nervous. Ran our stove on 3/5 all night and it kept the house around 66 with Bear Mountain pellets (hottest I've had).
Let us know if you are able to resolve.
Stay warm!

 

[VCBurner]

Sounds like it could use a tad more air.

Was it ash in the bottom of the pot? Or a clinker? (Did it break easily? Or rock hard)

Have you tried a fan at the top of the steps blowing down? Being a previous woodburner, you probably have.

Seems to be doing a prettt good job for you. I think a unit in the 45,000-60,000 BTU range would be running mid-range and do a little better job. Now you have been introduced to pellets and you know now the ease of operation. If you continue with pellets down the road, I think you will be better prepared and be able to dive in head 1st.

Heres hoping you get the heat upstairs and also your return back to the world of woodburning (keeping the pellet stove too) ;-P

So here are my thoughts after a day to mull it over:
The stove heats the house well most of the time. It may be stretched out when we experience low teens and single digits for long periods of time. Especially, in the single digits. I knew this when I purchased the stove, being well aware that it is rated to heat around the sane amount of space as the house has. The heat has a hard time reaching the far bedroom upstairs, but it does a fairly good job heating two bedrooms that are closer to the stairs, as well as the bathroom and long/wide hallway leading to the far bedroom. The hallway does a slight jog before it leads to the door of the 230 square foot bedroom. This may be too much to ask of this stove. I would like one more thing before I make a final assessment. Some corner fans blowing the hot air down the hallway into the bedroom, coupled with a fan down low blowing the air out of the room.


As far as the ash build up, it was hard, clumped together. Judging from what I've read about the Infernos, it may be pellet related. I now have a ton of these and will have no
choice but to burn them up.

The pellets at the top of the hard clump were whitish in color after the stove shut down. I think this was due to the lack of air when the stove shut down. This was the only time there were ever whitish cigarette like ash pellets in the burn pot There were still red ember like pellets on top of the burn pot when I opened the stove. I've yet to try another brand of pellets, but it really looks like it may be related to the Infernos.

 

[VCBurner]

BTW, I ran the stove on 5/5 this morning for a couple of hours and it was all fine! No backing up at all. Had to run it hard with a low of 4° last night. Set the stove to 4/5 and went to bed. The boys room had an oil filled radiator going all night on 600 watt and setting 4/10. Everyone was happy!

 

[jtakeman]

I think you could reduce the load on the stove with some better/hotter fuel. I know its tough, But picking up a few bags to get thru the cold days may make life easier for you and the stove.

I lived with a stove that was fine on the double digit days for 8 seasons. But it was a pain when the temps dropped to the singles. I learned early to have the hot stuff handy when they were calling for such low temps. I could get by and was a bit more comfy. Had no chance on the below 0ºF days. So the wood eater was also fired to relief the pain.

If you have a couple extra bucks at least try picking up a few bags of Hamer Hot Ones, Barefoots or any other brand that have been know to crank out more heat than the ones your burning now.

 

[VCBurner]

Thanks for the advice. Picking up a few bags at a time to stash away for cold single digit days may be just what I need. Another good thing that has come from this is my wife gave me the green light to start looking for a bigger stove. Now, I'll have to convince her to let me put the Windsor upstairs somewhere! It probably won't be until next season. But I can start looking now and during the Summer months when prices tend to drop.

 

[VCBurner]

So the pot was just about to overflow again this afternoon. It was just about 48 hours after the last clinker clean up. I turned the stove off this afternoon, temps were warming up outside, almost 50° high. I had to run it pretty hard to try to keep up in the past two
days.

I took the burn pot liner down to the basement work bench and chiseled off all the built up clinker crud. The build up came off with a big flat head screw driver a hammer. I then filed inside all the wholes with a round, chainsaw file. A flat file scraped off some of the flat surfaces. After all the scraping I dunked the liner in hot soapy water while vac'ing off the inside of the stove and cleaned the glass. The rest of the crud came right off the liner with a brillo pad after a good soaking. The thing was as clean as could be. I did notice some pitting on some of the surfaces of the liner. Maybe time for a new liner? It does not look bad, only some slight pitting. Anyway, we'll see if the clinker build up will be at all diminished by the cleaner liner.

 

[Frogwood]

Curios what heat setting you were running this time when the pot overflowed...5/5 again?
Have had more crud build up while burning Bear Mtn pellets. Will try the soaking method as described by you and others. Thanks for the tip. Been cleaning the burn pot and doing basic cleaning every three days for the last few weeks. It has been worth the trouble as the Bear Mtns kick out some serious heat. The house was a cozy 68 this morning after running on 3/5 heat setting overnight with outside temp around 31*.

Expecting 2 - 6 inches of snow tomorrow in the Puget Sound area. Praying for no power outages!

 

[Ejectr]

So the pot was just about to overflow again this afternoon. It was just about 48 hours after the last clinker clean up. I turned the stove off this afternoon, temps were warming up outside, almost 50° high. I had to run it pretty hard to try to keep up in the past two
days.

I took the burn pot liner down to the basement work bench and chiseled off all the built up clinker crud. The build up came off with a big flat head screw driver a hammer. I then filed inside all the wholes with a round, chainsaw file. A flat file scraped off some of the flat surfaces. After all the scraping I dunked the liner in hot soapy water while vac'ing off the inside of the stove and cleaned the glass. The rest of the crud came right off the liner with a brillo pad after a good soaking. The thing was as clean as could be. I did notice some pitting on some of the surfaces of the liner. Maybe time for a new liner? It does not look bad, only some slight pitting. Anyway, we'll see if the clinker build up will be at all diminished by the cleaner liner.

Back in 2004 when I got my Windsor and registered it with Enviro, I got in the email a new burn pot that has a different pattern than the one it came with. Instead of having the holes all the same size, this one has a pattern of small holes and large holes on the bottom surface.

You want to know ANYTHING about your Enviro, call Alan at the Enviro manufacturing facility. Leave a message if he doesn't answer. He will call you back. He'll tell you what it is for sure. Alan..... Tech at Enviro 1-888-285-2224.

 

[VCBurner]

Curios what heat setting you were running this time when the pot overflowed...5/5 again?
Have had more crud build up while burning Bear Mtn pellets. Will try the soaking method as described by you and others. Thanks for the tip. Been cleaning the burn pot and doing basic cleaning every three days for the last few weeks. It has been worth the trouble as the Bear Mtns kick out some serious heat. The house was a cozy 68 this morning after running on 3/5 heat setting overnight with outside temp around 31*.

Expecting 2 - 6 inches of snow tomorrow in the Puget Sound area. Praying for no power outages!

Hey Frogwood,
I had it on 4/5 the vast majority of the time from Sunday night to Tuesday morning, with periods of 5/5 total of a couple of hours. Temps were in the low teens and single digits for almost two days, with a high of 19° on Monday afternoon. So I had to push it harder and my three day cleaning schedule shrank to two days. I figure three bags is all I should get with these Infernos before a clean up, stretching it out to 4 is possible at times. Now that temps are back to low 30's it was on 2/5 last night and the downstairs was 68° when we got up. It has been a mild winter for us so far. Last year at this point we had over 100 inches of snow. This year has been strange, we had 22" of snow in an October storm and not much else since then. Only a few inches here and there. Six inches is not considered much around here. But I've been seeing on the news how disruptive it can be for life in Seatle. Good luck with the snow storm, I hope you don't lose power.

 

[VCBurner]

Back in 2004 when I got my Windsor and registered it with Enviro, I got in the email a new burn pot that has a different pattern than the one it came with. Instead of having the holes all the same size, this one has a pattern of small holes and large holes on the bottom surface.

You want to know ANYTHING about your Enviro, call Alan at the Enviro manufacturing facility. Leave a message if he doesn't answer. He will call you back. He'll tell you what it is for sure. Alan..... Tech at Enviro 1-888-285-2224.

Thanks for that number Ejectr,

1)how often are you cleaning your stove?
2) Are you using it as a primary heat source?
3)Where do you get your pellets and what are you burning?
4)How big a space are you heating with you stove?

I only ask this because we live in similar reagions with comparable weather. I want to find some good pellets that don't cost $6.50/bag. Next year I plan on buying early to beat the price gouging, but I'd like to try a few different brands this year.

I do have the liner with different size wholes on the bottom. It must have been an upgrade done by the previous owner. The manufacture tag inside the hopper lid says August of 2002.

Thanks for the info,
Chris

 

[Ejectr]

Back in 2004 when I got my Windsor and registered it with Enviro, I got in the email a new burn pot that has a different pattern than the one it came with. Instead of having the holes all the same size, this one has a pattern of small holes and large holes on the bottom surface.

You want to know ANYTHING about your Enviro, call Alan at the Enviro manufacturing facility. Leave a message if he doesn't answer. He will call you back. He'll tell you what it is for sure. Alan..... Tech at Enviro 1-888-285-2224.

Thanks for that number Ejectr,

1)how often are you cleaning your stove?
2) Are you using it as a primary heat source?
3)Where do you get your pellets and what are you burning?
4)How big a space are you heating with you stove?

I only ask this because we live in similar reagions with comparable weather. I want to find some good pellets that don't cost $6.50/bag. Next year I plan on buying early to beat the price gouging, but I'd like to try a few different brands this year.

I do have the liner with different size wholes on the bottom. It must have been an upgrade done by the previous owner. The manufacture tag inside the hopper lid says August of 2002.

Thanks for the info,
Chris

I clean the stove every 5-7 bags. I can stretch it to 10 sometimes, but that makes the ash drawer a tad full. I'm using Okanagan pellets that I purchase from Squier Lumber in Monson, MA. They sell for $279/ton or $5.99 per bag.

I heat a 16'X 28' room with a cathedral ceiling that is an extension off the main house. Had a small wood stove in there when I bought the house that wouldn't even run all night. The other soursce of heat is 2 electric wall units with a fan in them (brilliant, eh!...to heat a 16x28 room with a cathedral ceiling). I understand why they did that because the rest of the house has forced hot air heat and this extension was an afterthought that sits on a concrete footing with a crawl space and it was pretty impossible to break through the main house foundation to get any kind of a heating duct into that room. Going through that cold crawl space would have cooled the heat down before it even arrived.

I usually run the stove on 1, only because it won't stay lit burning on 1 and auger trim light lit on 4. Used to burn LG pellets on that setting but the Okanagans will not run on anything lower than 1. That setting keeps that room at 68 unless the temps take a dive. The rest of the house is heated by a Harman PF100 pellet furnace that I am SO glad I put in this fall.

So in summation....I'm really not a good comparison. You're heating your whole house. I'm just heating a large open room. If I had my way, I'd put a ceiling in that room and use the upstairs for storage.

 

[Frogwood]

Curios what heat setting you were running this time when the pot overflowed...5/5 again?
Have had more crud build up while burning Bear Mtn pellets. Will try the soaking method as described by you and others. Thanks for the tip. Been cleaning the burn pot and doing basic cleaning every three days for the last few weeks. It has been worth the trouble as the Bear Mtns kick out some serious heat. The house was a cozy 68 this morning after running on 3/5 heat setting overnight with outside temp around 31*.

Expecting 2 - 6 inches of snow tomorrow in the Puget Sound area. Praying for no power outages!

Hey Frogwood,
I had it on 4/5 the vast majority of the time from Sunday night to Tuesday morning, with periods of 5/5 total of a couple of hours. Temps were in the low teens and single digits for almost two days, with a high of 19° on Monday afternoon. So I had to push it harder and my three day cleaning schedule shrank to two days. I figure three bags is all I should get with these Infernos before a clean up, stretching it out to 4 is possible at times. Now that temps are back to low 30's it was on 2/5 last night and the downstairs was 68° when we got up. It has been a mild winter for us so far. Last year at this point we had over 100 inches of snow. This year has been strange, we had 22" of snow in an October storm and not much else since then. Only a few inches here and there. Six inches is not considered much around here. But I've been seeing on the news how disruptive it can be for life in Seatle. Good luck with the snow storm, I hope you don't lose power.

2 inches in Seattle is a disaster with all the steep hills…the place just shuts down if it snows. Been snowing all day here and the kids are having a blast. We live on an island to the west of Seattle so power outages can sometimes last a while. If it does go out I run a power cord from an outside generator into the house and run the stove and fridge off of it. Seriously considering ripping out our old prefab fireplace (which we don’t use) next year and building an alcove for a wood stove. Seen lots of examples on Hearth of folks doing that. Won’t have to worry about the power outages so much in that case.

Stay warm!

 

[VCBurner]

Hey Fw,
The wood stove idea sounds great. Nothing like a nice freestanding stove for those power outages! Stay warm without the generator and even do some cooking in or on it! Burning wood is really fun, IMO, plus there are no motors or sensors to worry about. I cleaned my wood stove far less than I have been cleaning the pellet burner. The flames are also better to watch.

We have 3 inches on the ground so far tonight, it's only supposed to get to 4. The past two days have seen easy heating for the stove. Last night got to 7° low, but it was no problem for the Windsor at 4/5. My wife kicked it up a notch in the middle of the night. It was only 65° in here with it set on 3/5. Made it up to 70° inside with single digit temps by the time the boys and I got up. Right now life is good, lots of pellets in the basement, lots of heat from the Windsor.

 

[DexterDay]

Been awhile since I seen a photo. Thats beautiful Chris. You should be proud of the work you did. That Hearth pad looks awesome.

 

[raybonz]

Hey Fw,
The wood stove idea sounds great. Nothing like a nice freestanding stove for those power outages! Stay warm without the generator and even do some cooking in or on it! Burning wood is really fun, IMO, plus there are no motors or sensors to worry about. I cleaned my wood stove far less than I have been cleaning the pellet burner. The flames are also better to watch.

We have 3 inches on the ground so far tonight, it's only supposed to get to 4. The past two days have seen easy heating for the stove. Last night got to 7° low, but it was no problem for the Windsor at 4/5. My wife kicked it up a notch in the middle of the night. It was only 65° in here with it set on 3/5. Made it up to 70° inside with single digit temps by the time the boys and I got up. Right now life is good, lots of pellets in the basement, lots of heat from the Windsor.

Hi Chris,
While I agree that pellets are a good heating method I am glad I burn wood with all the issues that pellets present.. I actually thought about pellets at one time but wood came out on top with low/little maintenance and the fact that wood is readily available.. Wood also needs no power and that was the clincher for me.. I know you had little choice but if you did I bet wood would have won out.. I will also add that I like to keep my home around 75 degrees and easily heat 1632 sq. ft. on 2 floors which is easy to do with wood without beating my stove to a pulp.. Stay warm!

Your Friend,
Ray

 

[VCBurner]

Hi Chris,
While I agree that pellets are a good heating method I am glad I burn wood with all the issues that pellets present.. I actually thought about pellets at one time but wood came out on top with low/little maintenance and the fact that wood is readily available.. Wood also needs no power and that was the clincher for me.. I know you had little choice but if you did I bet wood would have won out.. I will also add that I like to keep my home around 75 degrees and easily heat 1632 sq. ft. on 2 floors which is easy to do with wood without beating my stove to a pulp.. Stay warm!

Your Friend,
Ray

Hello my friend,
Good to hear from you. Yes, I miss the wood fire no doubt. I scrounged the wood and processed it myself. It was a great fit for my lifestyle. But I am entering the pellet burning with an open mind. I have enjoyed it so far. I have noticed with this stove that going beyond 72° starts to feel uncomfortable, almost like a forced hot air heating system. With the wood stove, 76° was ideal in the stove room. Thus the farthest spaces were also warmer. Thanks for posting Ray,
Take care,
Chris

 

[VCBurner]

Been awhile since I seen a photo. Thats beautiful Chris. You should be proud of the work you did. That Hearth pad looks awesome.

Thank you Dexter, this stove is really growing on me. I guess that is only normal when we go through such lengths to save on heating costs. The stoves become our allies.
BTW, I saw a Mt. Vernon AE on CL for $1000. It is a 2006 model, the owner said it needs a control board. The pics look great.

 

[raybonz]

Hi Chris,
While I agree that pellets are a good heating method I am glad I burn wood with all the issues that pellets present.. I actually thought about pellets at one time but wood came out on top with low/little maintenance and the fact that wood is readily available.. Wood also needs no power and that was the clincher for me.. I know you had little choice but if you did I bet wood would have won out.. I will also add that I like to keep my home around 75 degrees and easily heat 1632 sq. ft. on 2 floors which is easy to do with wood without beating my stove to a pulp.. Stay warm!

Your Friend,
Ray

Hello my friend,
Good to hear from you. Yes, I miss the wood fire no doubt. I scrounged the wood and processed it myself. It was a great fit for my lifestyle. But I am entering the pellet burning with an open mind. I have enjoyed it so far. I have noticed with this stove that going beyond 72° starts to feel uncomfortable, almost like a forced hot air heating system. With the wood stove, 76° was ideal in the stove room. Thus the farthest spaces were also warmer. Thanks for posting Ray,
Take care,
Chris

I have heard that pellet stoves dry out the air a lot. What do you think is the reason for this? Woodstoves dry out the air too do you feel they dry out the air to a lesser degree than pellet stoves?

Thanx,
Ray

 

[VCBurner]

Ray,
I'm by no means equipped to answer this question scientifically. But I will attempt to speculate,in my own crude way. The bulk of the heat comes through the heat exchangers of pellet burner. By no means is it soft heat like the heat from a wood stove. Because it is so rapidly heated and forced through it is essentially burned out. The flame is also forced. This is the reason why the pellet burners can get so much heat out of such small amount of wood that is in the burn pot. As you know, any time you try to push hot air through cool air it loses its energy quicker than if it was slowly dissipating. On a wood stove, even a convection type heater, a big portion of the heat comes softly from the body of the stove and is not blown out like a forced air furnace. The heatfills the room more evenly because it radiates out of more surfaces.

Another reason why I can't get as much heat upstairs as I would like. Example: outside tempabout 21°, 74° at the thermostat in the stove room right now. I am sitting 3' away from the side of the stove and I can hardly notice it is running. But if I stand 3' away from the front of the stove, I can feel it for sure. The flame is tall and bright and fills the center of the firebox in a pretty uniform way, the sign of a good burn. As I look from the side, I can see the heat waves coming off the oval enamel difuser on top of the stove, making that part pretty hot. I can't leave my hand on it for more than a second without feeling too hot. I wish I had an IR to see how hot that difuser is. The stove's heat setting is on 4 out of 5 and the cast iron is hot, but I can put my hands on the sides without a problem. The temperature upstairs is 70°, about six feet away from the coldest room. Inside that bedroom it is 64°. That is a difference of 10° between the stove room and the furthest room. However, I can't blame the stove, it is more about the lay out. The hallway leading to the far room is
almost 22 feet long and 3' 3" wide and takes a jog before leading to the doorway. It also has two other bedrooms and
a bathroom to heat on the way. I think any medium sized stove rated to heat 1600 sq ft would have a hard time heating the far room. I do think a medium sized stove would send more heat upstairs due to the natural radiance of the wood stoves.

 

[VCBurner]

I cleaned the stove yesterday, the burn pot was full but less than before the liner scraping. There was also less to scrape off of the liner this time, the screw driver works well for me. The burned crust comes off easily with a bit of force. Overall, scraping the pot completely, with every clean up, will improve the performance of the stove.

 

[Ejectr]

You really should try a few bags of Okanagans or the like. I think you will see a radical difference in not only the performance of the stove, but the clean up and build up as well.