Hi Everyone - I recently bought a used P68 that is in its fifth season and is running well. I've been running it for 2 weeks and on some days I'm having trouble getting it started. What happens is pellets fill into the burn pot to the point that they start to overflow into the ash pan. After about 20 minutes I start to see a lot of smoke outside and then the pellets finally ignite. Twice the flame has burst through the pellets as such force that I've heard a loud popping sound and pellets have sprayed against the glass door. After 5-10 minutes, the extra pellets in the burn pot start to burn away and the normal flow of pellets starts and the stove seems to run fine.
I bought this stove from someone I know in town and he didn't mention that he had any problems getting the stove to start - and I'm not under the impression that he would hide this from me. I'm starting to think that this problem is more "user-error" than stove issue but I'm running out of options to try. The stove was thoroughly cleaned before we installed it - is it possible that I need to give the burn pot another deep cleaning? This morning I gave it a good scraping and removed a lot of black ash build-up and thought that this would help - but it didn't. I wouldn't think I'd have to give the stove a full service cleaning more than once a month - and like I said I've only been running it for two weeks. I'm using the same setting on the feed adjuster as the previous owner - but I'm using different pellets - should I try to change the setting? Since the burn pot is filling up with pellets before it ignites - I would assume that the feed rate is too high - but maybe not??
Lastly, I read in the manual about having a draft meter reading done when installing the stove - the manual states that if the unit is adjusted too low the low draft pressure switch may not allow the feed motor or the igniter to operate. We installed this stove ourselves and didn't do this reading - could this be a problem?
I know other people have posted similar topics on the forum recently - but I wanted to see if my problem could be different. The obviously issue could be a a faulty igniter - but since the stove does eventually ignite - I'm just getting confused at this point.
Sorry for the long post - I appreciate any ideas or feedback.
Thanks!
I bought this stove from someone I know in town and he didn't mention that he had any problems getting the stove to start - and I'm not under the impression that he would hide this from me. I'm starting to think that this problem is more "user-error" than stove issue but I'm running out of options to try. The stove was thoroughly cleaned before we installed it - is it possible that I need to give the burn pot another deep cleaning? This morning I gave it a good scraping and removed a lot of black ash build-up and thought that this would help - but it didn't. I wouldn't think I'd have to give the stove a full service cleaning more than once a month - and like I said I've only been running it for two weeks. I'm using the same setting on the feed adjuster as the previous owner - but I'm using different pellets - should I try to change the setting? Since the burn pot is filling up with pellets before it ignites - I would assume that the feed rate is too high - but maybe not??
Lastly, I read in the manual about having a draft meter reading done when installing the stove - the manual states that if the unit is adjusted too low the low draft pressure switch may not allow the feed motor or the igniter to operate. We installed this stove ourselves and didn't do this reading - could this be a problem?
I know other people have posted similar topics on the forum recently - but I wanted to see if my problem could be different. The obviously issue could be a a faulty igniter - but since the stove does eventually ignite - I'm just getting confused at this point.
Sorry for the long post - I appreciate any ideas or feedback.
Thanks!
