Ran this stove flawlessly for 2 seasons in a bitter cold climate (lots of -30F's)
Our only source of heat in all small 700 sq ft house.
I mostly run the stove in manual peak winter, but use auto in fall and spring.
Last spring the stove started failing auto fire once in awhile, until it quit altogether so we continued with manual which worked great.
I pulled the igniter out this summer, and was surprised to see the insulation of the igniter wires mostly non existent. Basically bare wired.
The fuse had not blown, and upon inspection of the control board saw no (noticable) damage.
Bought a new igniter from an american manufacturer...15 fin. 310w made with 800 high grade stainless steel. Installed with no problems.
Turned the stove on this fall, and it did light automatically, but seemed to take longer than normal, perhaps 8 minutes or so.
Worked fine for a few days, then failed to auto start.
1 month later and I'm still fighting with the stove, it fails 99% of the time so I'm back to using manual when needed.
- Did an ohm test on new ignitor, read right around 50 ( tested my old ignitor and it actually read 48)
- Put a voltage tester on ignitor wiring from behind the stove, and it was 119v - 123v over 10 minutes of trying to auto start.
- Had already done complete cleaning...chimney sweep and clean out from both ends, pulled stove out and cleaned both chimney and rear exhaust of stove.
- Pulled exhaust probe and cleaned, reading on probe diagnostics when trying to auto start seem fine. Temp starts at right around room temp, and slowly rises as ignitor heats up.
- pulled ignitor and tested out of stove, using the stoves wiring and it glows red at about the 1:45 mark.
- burn pot was disassembled, cleaned above and below, all holes open, metal deflector is installed properly over ignitor
- Trap door under igniter is closed and screwed tight during start-up
- burn plate had warped after the first season, but still ignited, but pulled and straightened this fall.
- intake flapper was stuck in an open position, and now fixed and working.
- exhaust fan checked and cleaned and running between 2800 and 3008 rpm at start-up.
- checked all gaskets, hopper gasket seems fine, but I did find though if I held a lighter around stove door with exhaust fan on, that the flame gets sucked into areas of the hinge side.
- Removed old gasket, and cleaned very well, installed new gasket ...did not stretch it, let it cure for 12 hours with same results...seems to be a small leak on hinge side.
- Tried to adjust door on the handle side, and with every small adjustment, could not lose the leak.
- checked for cracks, holes, defects in casting around hinge side, cant find any problems.
-Tried different pellets, as well as some pine shaving in the burn pot..still failed. It seems to me the stove is over-feeding upon start-up, and this unit has no dip switches to control that, so I tested different pellets, and pine shaving in burn pot, with hopper lid open so pellets wouldn't bury or push out my test samples, with no luck, would get hot, but no ignition. Tried again by emptying hopper, so I could test with hopper door closed, same results.
SO...I know door is leaking, not sure if its my only problem. Stove definitly will begin to over feed after first ignition failure. Tried using duct tape in various positions where the gasket meets the stove and just using exhaust fan to see if I could stop the leak, or pinpoint it, but could not get leak to stop.
Anyone have any ideas what I may be overlooking? Stove started last night 3 times on auto, and failed again this morning.
The small leak bothers me, but I dont think it explains the over feeding. I also neglected using a surge protector on this stove and we have had many power outages and or brown outs, which did take out my Flat screen tv. I'm wondering if my control board is partly responsible with the bad igniter wires, and the possible brown outs while plugged in.
Any advice is very welcome !
Our only source of heat in all small 700 sq ft house.
I mostly run the stove in manual peak winter, but use auto in fall and spring.
Last spring the stove started failing auto fire once in awhile, until it quit altogether so we continued with manual which worked great.
I pulled the igniter out this summer, and was surprised to see the insulation of the igniter wires mostly non existent. Basically bare wired.
The fuse had not blown, and upon inspection of the control board saw no (noticable) damage.
Bought a new igniter from an american manufacturer...15 fin. 310w made with 800 high grade stainless steel. Installed with no problems.
Turned the stove on this fall, and it did light automatically, but seemed to take longer than normal, perhaps 8 minutes or so.
Worked fine for a few days, then failed to auto start.
1 month later and I'm still fighting with the stove, it fails 99% of the time so I'm back to using manual when needed.
- Did an ohm test on new ignitor, read right around 50 ( tested my old ignitor and it actually read 48)
- Put a voltage tester on ignitor wiring from behind the stove, and it was 119v - 123v over 10 minutes of trying to auto start.
- Had already done complete cleaning...chimney sweep and clean out from both ends, pulled stove out and cleaned both chimney and rear exhaust of stove.
- Pulled exhaust probe and cleaned, reading on probe diagnostics when trying to auto start seem fine. Temp starts at right around room temp, and slowly rises as ignitor heats up.
- pulled ignitor and tested out of stove, using the stoves wiring and it glows red at about the 1:45 mark.
- burn pot was disassembled, cleaned above and below, all holes open, metal deflector is installed properly over ignitor
- Trap door under igniter is closed and screwed tight during start-up
- burn plate had warped after the first season, but still ignited, but pulled and straightened this fall.
- intake flapper was stuck in an open position, and now fixed and working.
- exhaust fan checked and cleaned and running between 2800 and 3008 rpm at start-up.
- checked all gaskets, hopper gasket seems fine, but I did find though if I held a lighter around stove door with exhaust fan on, that the flame gets sucked into areas of the hinge side.
- Removed old gasket, and cleaned very well, installed new gasket ...did not stretch it, let it cure for 12 hours with same results...seems to be a small leak on hinge side.
- Tried to adjust door on the handle side, and with every small adjustment, could not lose the leak.
- checked for cracks, holes, defects in casting around hinge side, cant find any problems.
-Tried different pellets, as well as some pine shaving in the burn pot..still failed. It seems to me the stove is over-feeding upon start-up, and this unit has no dip switches to control that, so I tested different pellets, and pine shaving in burn pot, with hopper lid open so pellets wouldn't bury or push out my test samples, with no luck, would get hot, but no ignition. Tried again by emptying hopper, so I could test with hopper door closed, same results.
SO...I know door is leaking, not sure if its my only problem. Stove definitly will begin to over feed after first ignition failure. Tried using duct tape in various positions where the gasket meets the stove and just using exhaust fan to see if I could stop the leak, or pinpoint it, but could not get leak to stop.
Anyone have any ideas what I may be overlooking? Stove started last night 3 times on auto, and failed again this morning.
The small leak bothers me, but I dont think it explains the over feeding. I also neglected using a surge protector on this stove and we have had many power outages and or brown outs, which did take out my Flat screen tv. I'm wondering if my control board is partly responsible with the bad igniter wires, and the possible brown outs while plugged in.
Any advice is very welcome !
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