Father in law is having some problems with his Stove

[insuranceman1]

Hi everyone. I am a new pellet stove user and I love my empress! Could not be happier...well if it cleaned it self and filled it self with pellets...maybe

My father in law bought a pellet stove not sure what type it was but it makes no difference that stove did not seem to put off enough heat. The dealer came out and looked at the stove and said that there must be something wrong with the stove and took it back the dealer replaced his old stove with a Us Stove Hearth Focus since it was another multi fuel stove and close to same btu. Well this stove running on the highest setting seems to only heat the small sun room it is in to 68 -70 degrees. When I say small I mean small like maybe 250 square feet. I can hold my hand on the stove...and it is only warm. The flame seems nice and high...but the stove will not put off any heat like my empress. Here is what has been happening...stove will run for hour or so and then flame will get lazy and smoke glass up. I have played with the air damper and everything is set to Auto. Now I did find out he was putting in a layer of pellets and then corn and then pellets figured this could be the cause. So we went with all corn...still is not putting of any heat and the glass is still smoking up. I have messed with the air damper checked to make sure the burn pot is clean...not sure what else it could be? Thanks for any help in advance!

 

[stoveguy2esw]

if he times are similar with each attempt at start it sounds like a sensor issue , does the exhaust blower shut all the way off when the fire goes lazy? you may also have a baffle or somthing out of place in the stove which may be causing the heat to be pulled through the exhaust without transferring , this leads to very high exhaust temps , which if hot enough (most exhaust blowers have thermal kickout switches built in that open the circuit at 485F) that could be shutting down the exhaust blower, or breaking the high limit threshold. if you are aware of a link that will show me the manual for the unit especially wit an exploded view i could take a look at it and see what i can pick out , im not real familiar with their stuff but i know stoves in general pretty well.

BTW if its a US stove unit , from what i hear they have pretty good factory support , look them up , cal their tech line and go over it with them as well.

 

[schoondog]

Insuranceman,
I have a US Stove 6039 insert and its keeping my 1300 sq. ft home warm. I think you have a problem. Pellets OK? I have found that the truest thing I have read on these pages is what the webmaster stated .... BTUS going into the stove is what will come out of the stove. I'm not experienced enough to be comfortable diagnosing your problem, but my 6039 is really the same stove you have and its 24* outside and most of my home is 72 now. And its running on #3 in auto. Mike Holton is right , call US Stove, they will help. Also read the manual, if you don't have one its on the US Stove web site. For what its worth my stove heats best with Linetics, then Propellets and the couple of bags of Penningtons have been OK. Clean fires don't give me much heat, I use them only when the weather is above 30*. Spend some time with it, its capable of doing a good job.
Schoondog

 

[insuranceman1]

Thank you both for you help. I am going over for Christmas and I am going to play around with it but if I can't seem to get it working I am going to get him to just call the company.

Thanks.

 

[krooser]

If the flame is smoky or lazy it's not getting enough air... it's not the fuel. What kind of chimney or vent? Something is plugged up... how much fuel has gone thru the stove? When was thelast time the stove was diassembled and throughly cleaned? ... I mean THROUGHLY cleaned.... probing into all the hidden baffles and such that hide ash.

 

[insuranceman1]

This stove is new it was never used before. Maybe 4 bags of pellets and 50 lbs of corn have been used so far. He is now using just corn, the corn has been tested and the moisture content is ok to use. The pipe I think (father in law's stove) has a 45 off of the back and then out of the wall then a T and up 3' and Term cap. The pipe is also new.

One thing that I learned on here was that the auto setting on this stove is worthless. So when I had set the stove on 9 and everything to auto it appeared fine. Air damper setting was pefect. But as others have said this stove on the auto will eventualy shut down...the draft setting and feed rate need to be set not on auto to work properly? All I know is the stove appeared perfect I was there not quite an hour when I left it felt like it was starting to put off some heat but still wasn't hot. I figured another hour she would be kicking...well called them the next morning before they went to be glass was smoked up and the flame was lazy and the little sun room was like 68 degrees. I showed him how to adjust the air damper but once it is set it should only need minor adjustments so I do think it is that.

I am so glad that I got the Empress it works great! The only thing that sold me was the auto ignite over some of the stoves that had to be lit cause the wife would be using it. Also the wife thought it looked nice too. When my mother in law comes over to our house she is like...wow Dave your stove feels great! Then she looks at my father in law...I am trying to help him out if you know what I mean.