Exhaust vent is hot!

[bearphishing]

I've been doing a lot of reading on what other users are saying about their vent being just warm to the touch. Mine is very hot inside and outside of the house; I can hold my hand 2 feet above the vertical rise outside for less than a second before I would probably burn the skin. I have bent the tabs in on my impingement plate so it sits even closer to the back wall and has maybe an 1/8 of an inch of forward lean. My vent is double wall Duravent 3" and I never imagined it would be hot enough to leave a nice burn on my arm when I grazed the elbow when I was finishing the grout on the stone. My settings are 4-2-1 and mostly burn at 1 and 4 or 3 and 7 for when it gets below 10 degrees. Besides the daily cleaning, I have gone through the stove and cleaned it out thoroughly....4 times.... with a 3/4" silicone tubing attachment i made for the vac. The house is only 1200 sf and I am not having too much trouble keeping it up to temperature. It almost seems the air coming out of the vent is as hot as the air coming from the blower and from my understanding this doesn't seem anywhere near normal???

I attached some pictures of the venting and of the flame that does not look to be too lazy. I know dirty glass.

 

[bearphishing]

I forgot to mention I have only been burning for a month to the day so that's why 4 thorough cleanings of the heat exchanger and baffles seems excessive

 

[Bioburner]

You have a leak in the elbow behind the stove. Couple wraps of self fusing silicone tape will cure that. Some stoves have a higher exhaust temps. To get a true read of the venting temp you need to use a non contact temperature. They don't like reflective surfaces so a touch or two of flat black stove paint is in order. Things can feel hot to touch at a little over 110F especially metal.

 

[bearphishing]

Yeah I keep forgetting to grab a heat gun from work to check it out. It's pouring outside right now but the termination cap and vent are both dry because the rain vaporizes instantly when it touches the metal. I'm no Marine Biologist but something tells me that metal is closer to the 212+ range

 

[Delta-T]

human skins burns at about 140ish....be careful

 

[Harvey Schneider]

Above the vent will be very hot. The exhaust hood will be very hot. Don't touch.
The vent walls should not be very hot. If the outside of the vent is running hot enough to burn you, it is possible that you are over-firing the stove. I have seen pictures of a vent glowing red from an over-fired pellet stove.
If you have significant leaks at the joints in the vent, that can cause the outside of the vent to get much hotter than it should be. I wrapped all of the seams (including the elbow's joints) with a high temperature aluminum tape. If you have leaks you can probably smell wood smoke when the stove starts up.

 

[Lake Girl]

You have a leak in the elbow behind the stove.

Eagle eyes Good catch! I would wrap all those joints...

 

[bearphishing]

Thanks by the way about the leak suggestion. Those 2 leaks are coming from where the elbows can be rotated, not the joints. I would not call the leaks significant because during start up there is no odor of the pellets which i did experience when the stove adapter's silicone was pulled from the stove. I even went as far as to get a 4 gas meter with an integrated sampling pump from work that measures CO and there was nothing registered. In my opinion, burning on the lowest setting no matter the duration, should not over-fire the stove.

To be honest I think there is heat escaping from somewhere within the stove that it shouldn't. Common sense would point to the impingement plate but I cant get that sucker any tighter to the wall and I saw in a previous post Mike from ESW said there should be a little play.

 

[Bioburner]

When you get the numbers I would get in touch with Mike Holton at Englander to confirm and remedy. Our smart stoves in house(3) I can almost always lay a had on with out much problem. Non smart stoves run hotter.

 

[bearphishing]

I found a cheap meat thermometer in the house and I placed it out on the termination (not touching any surface) and estimated it to be about 240 degrees because it tops off at 190. The inside blower is reading 145. This is on the lowest setting possible, so I think this proves shes burning a bit odd.

 

[Bioburner]

Didn't think there was any cheap meat out there anymore. Give Mike a note and see where it goes. Room air fan working properly etc. Not at all versed in Englanders. I've got 7 different stove makes in our collection and can give more first hand experience on those. Probably be moving out of country before someone gives me a chance to tackle into an Englander.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

LBA too low, this is causing loading in the pot especially with the elbows in the horizontal and a short stack outside.

bring the low burn air (center button) up to about 6.

how long to burn a bag of fuel on heat range 1?

 

[Bioburner]

Weekend night service again! Or did you just get bored Mike?

 

[bearphishing]

I turned it up to 6 and I will see how this goes but I noticed I get a couple clinkers with the LBA at a higher setting. I'm getting about 24 hours on a bag at the low setting. I closed the hopper feed plate about "halfway" to reduce on pellet consumption.

 

[bearphishing]

By the way, thank you very much for the reply Mike. The exhaust temp is definitely cooler; enough where I can touch the vent. The only issue I have now is the convection blower is only putting out about 90 degrees or so as opposed to the 145 with the lower LBA setting. I forgot to mention I have the stove on heat mode C if that makes any difference in troubleshooting.