Extracting maximum heat from Timber Ridge 55-TRPAH (aka Englander 25-PAH)

[acammer]

Good morning everybody. I'm about 1 week into using my new (AMFM refurb) 55-TRPAH. I bought the stove to replace an old Winrich Dynasty for something with a big hopper, auto ignition, and thermostatic control options. It's installed in the finished section of my basement (aprx 600sqft) which connects upstairs with a wide open stairway to a open center couple of rooms in my 1,500sqft upstairs area. I also have my propane furnace's cold air return setup through the wall right at the ceiling of the basement room where the air is the hottest. I run the furnace blower motor on low with a separate thermostat setup in the basement on cooling mode, when it gets warm enough down there it starts gently pushing air around the house. The stove is on it's own programmable thermostat upstairs, along with a third thermostat (set 3* colder and 2hrs later on morning warm up) on the propane furnace to back the stove up if it goes out or needs some help. Stove setup is a 45* dogleg into a 90* up elbow, up about 40" then another 90* elbow to 24" running out of the house - all 3" pipe. Outside air is also plumbed in. Burning Heatr's pellets - same as with the Dynasty. The stove is working great, aside from a ridiculously noisy convection blower that sounds more like the injection pump on a Cummins than a blower motor - it moves the air fine, just ridiculously noisy.

With the old Dynasty I was able to generate some serious heat, it would feed up to 6.25lbs/hr which was good for around 30-32k output BTUs. The PAH is supposedly capable of around 4lbs/hr and thus 25k output BTU. I just don't feel like I'm getting quite the heat I should be able to out of this stove. The thermostat throttles it as it should, and on a 30*F day it is able to keep the whole house at around 72*F, but man it takes it a long time to get those temps. I guess I was spoiled with the old Dynasty's output, but that extra 7-10k BTU made a big difference. So, I'm trying to get all I can from the PAH - obviously I'm running at 9 heat/9 blower when I'm calling for heat, which is most of the time. I started out by maxing out the LBA at 9, and then bringing up the LFF to 5. This produced more heat on the temp gauge I mounted on the heat exchanger by about 20*F. I had to drop the LFF back down to a 3 once I installed the OAK as the burn richened up and got dirty, I think that insect screen adds quite a bit of resistance to the airflow. It's running good on those settings - I'd just like more heat! Any thoughts on anything further I can do to extract more heat out of this stove? I sent an e-mail to Mike at Englander last Friday but haven't got a response. I'm sure this is their busy season, so I figured I'd reach out here. I'd love to hear any thoughts you guys have.

 

[CladMaster]

What heat mode is this stove in ? (A,b,C,d) / (1/2/3/4)

(There is a setup for changing the 'heat mode' for these stoves, just like there is for the PVDC/PDV stoves)

 

[acammer]

It's in mode 3, which I understand is the correct mode for this stove. I'm really hoping there will be something to enable this to squeeze some more energy. I just did a real good cleanup (I do them every 1-2 days) and made sure the burn pot holes are all open perfectly, there were maybe 3-4 that were partially occluded. Maybe that'll allow me to get the LLF back up to 5 where it was pre-OAK.

 

[acammer]

Getting the LFF up to 5 definitely makes a little more heat, and its definitely a little dirtier burn. I don't think there is a problem with the stove, just looking to optimize, get that last 5-10% of heat.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Been working around big diesels all my life basically (and own a couple in farm tractors) and I've never heard an injection pump on any diesel make any noise.. Meebe you have better hearing than I do..... Meebe your isolation grommets are shot or your bearings are dry or meebe the isolation gasket between the blower snout and the HX wall is missing.....

 

[BrotherBart]

Been working around big diesels all my life basically (and own a couple in farm tractors) and I've never heard an injection pump on any diesel make any noise.. Meebe you have better hearing than I do..... Meebe your isolation grommets are shot or your bearings are dry or meebe the isolation gasket between the blower snout and the HX wall is missing.....

Never run a diesel tractor out of fuel I presume.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Personally, no. Job wise, yes. The noise you hear isn't the pump, it's the cackle of incomplete and random combustion..

I watch my fuel levels in my personally owned diesels. I hate hand priming pumps and/or using 'mothers helper' to fire a diesel.

 

[acammer]

I think we're getting off topic - think rotational rattle of a diesel at fast idle and you've got my blower sound. It's not really relevant here, I'll reach out to amfm about a new stove making that much noise, I'm looking for more heat!

 

[SidecarFlip]

That sounds like metal to metal, loose or abscence of a gasket.... I take it the stove was used, not new......

 

[acammer]

That sounds like metal to metal, loose or abscence of a gasket.... I take it the stove was used, not new......

It's an amfm refurbished unit. You'd think they'd have checked that...

 

[SidecarFlip]

You'd think but they probably never tested it 'under load'. Just made sure all the functions worked correctly and the drives (feed and blowers) turned freely plus a thorough cleaning......

 

[acammer]

Yea, everything works correctly, it's definitely not giving poor heat, it's nearly keeping up with my 2100sq ft at 70*F with 30*F ambient outside temps. I'm pretty fastidious about my cleanings, it's definitely not plugged up at all. I'm hoping we can get Mike from ESW to chime in and see if there are any more options to push a little more heat somehow. Unless there is a way to get more airflow performance, I'm guessing not. At least it's gentle with pellet consumption, it uses less than the stove it replaced for similar levels of heat.

 

[OhioBurner©]

Sounds pretty good to me. I'd say maxing out your LBA at 9 might be wasting heat increasing what your putting up the flu but if your adjusting the feed up to where the burn is getting dirty then it sounds like maybe your air is still not high enough, but I'm certainly no expert yet. I'm wondering about your OAK though, besides the screen is there any other restriction (length, bends, etc). By the way most people talk here the OAK is something that will magicaly double your performance and youll only use half the pellets you did before (I'm being a bit sarcastic here) but in any case it shouldn't be choking the air. But since its brought up, I've been meaning to pull mine to see if that is partly responsible for my somewhat dirty burn, it did start burning dirty about the same time, but I doubt its the issue and have since found my gaskets are not sealing.

I envy you being able to heat such a large place with the little inexpensive stove though! My house is so poorly insulated I've been running it and the Jotul Rockland the last few days to keep the house warm enough, and still half the upstairs is low 60's.

I'm curious as well but doubt you can squeeze more heat out of the unit other than the settings you've adjusted, unless there is some problem yet unresolved. Your doing pretty well, even if it isnt quite as good as the 50% larger stove you had prior.

 

[acammer]

Sounds pretty good to me. I'd say maxing out your LBA at 9 might be wasting heat increasing what your putting up the flu but if your adjusting the feed up to where the burn is getting dirty then it sounds like maybe your air is still not high enough, but I'm certainly no expert yet. I'm wondering about your OAK though, besides the screen is there any other restriction (length, bends, etc). By the way most people talk here the OAK is something that will magicaly double your performance and youll only use half the pellets you did before (I'm being a bit sarcastic here) but in any case it shouldn't be choking the air. But since its brought up, I've been meaning to pull mine to see if that is partly responsible for my somewhat dirty burn, it did start burning dirty about the same time, but I doubt its the issue and have since found my gaskets are not sealing.

I envy you being able to heat such a large place with the little inexpensive stove though! My house is so poorly insulated I've been running it and the Jotul Rockland the last few days to keep the house warm enough, and still half the upstairs is low 60's.

I'm curious as well but doubt you can squeeze more heat out of the unit other than the settings you've adjusted, unless there is some problem yet unresolved. Your doing pretty well, even if it isnt quite as good as the 50% larger stove you had prior.

I agree, it is doing pretty well - I think I got spoiled by the old clunky but monstrously hot stove I had before. Stove performance really has a lot of parallels to engine performance - you basically have a big air pump - the amount of output you get is limited to how much air you can move, which determines how much fuel you can add. In my case I'm moving as much air as I can, and then adding in as much fuel as the air will tolerate. It certainly isn't the most efficient use of the fuel, but that's not my goal.

I am still suspicious of the OAK limiting airflow - I think those insect screens they come with have to impose a restriction to some extent. I have the factory kit installed with about 4ft of the aluminum hose stretched out, through the wall with their thimble kit and supplied screen. I used gentle bends as to impose as little restriction as possible. I'm certain that the OAK doesn't help the stove perform better, but helps the overall performance by reducing the negative draft on the home by drawing the air outside.