HELP! Near Disaster with My Quad Santa Fe

[welshcob]

Things got a bit too exciting when I came home from work this evening - I smelled a bit of smoke when I entered the house (not enough to set off any of the three detectors), glancing at the stove put me into action. Burning pellets filled the firepot and were piled up in the rear of the chamber, unburned pellets filled the visible area of the chute. At least all of this was contained within the stove. After a bit of thought I shut off the stove and pulled the lever to dump the firepot - now I had active fire in the ash drawer AND in the chamber. I dumped a half box of baking powder into the ash drawer, and just waited for the pellets in the chamber to burn out. No fire in the hopper, thank heavens!

This stove is a Quad Santa Fe, installed by the dealer at the beginning of October. I've pushed about two tons of Clean Energy hardwood pellets (Lowes) through the stove, just started the third ton yesterday. All pellets were bought at the same time from the same truckload. I had cleaned the stove Sunday - not the fans, but a good vaccuuming, removing the back plates and brushing off the convection tubes. This morning I dumped the firepot, scraped out the chamber, and emptied the ash drawer before heading off to work. I remember that the door didn't seem to catch when I first closed it, so I pushed it in and closed the lever a second time. I noted when the dust settled this evening that the door was very slightly ajar - hmmmm.......

I've now cleaned her up and everything SEEMS to be working OK, but of course I am concerned (nervous wreck?) and the dealer WILL get a call first thing in the morning. But.............is it safe to run this thing overnight? Is there some safety mechanism that should have operated that didn't? If it happens again, am I at risk of a hopper fire? The rear of the chamber and behind the rear plates is now covered in black soot (not creosote), and it looks sort of ominous.

This is why we should never run out of beer when burning pellets!

 

[Nicholas440]

It sounds like your stove was not burning the pellets completely or well enough , and kept on feeding new pellets down the chute into the pot. I have a Quad Castile insert, and I know that the Quads have a safety disc mounted right on the side of the firebox, which is a high temperature shut down switch, and also has a diaphram vacuum switch which senses the air pressure or vacuum in your firebox, if the combustion blower should stop or your exhaust vent get plugged up it would lose vacuum, and this switch will stop it from feeding pellets. So it does have safety features but I dont think the stove has a way of knowing when the burn pot is filled to the top or overflowing. As long as the thermocouple mounted on top of the pot senses a certain temperature it will allow the pot to keep on burning.

Im not sure just what took place with your stove but I would give the dealer a call and see what he has to say. It sounds like it should be ok, but I would keep a watchful eye on it for a few hours and note if its allowing the pellets to burn thoroughly or well enough while it feeds new pellets into the burn pot. Does your fire seem to be active and have somewhat of a blow torch sound to it? The flames should be a whiteish yellow, and very active, not lazy and orange looking. You should be able to see if the pellets are burning down and not building up in your pot, if they are building up I definately would shut it down and call the dealer.

Hopefully one of the Quad guru's here will read your post and have an answer for you.

 

[welshcob]

Thank you so very much for your response. The stove has been running now for several hours in perfectly normal form - nice clear blue/white/yellow flame. Looks like I will be sleeping on the couch tonight with one eye open. I think you are correct, for whatever reason it kept spewing pellets when they weren't fully burning...I suppose once it gets ahead of itself things can get out of hand - the thermocouple is gonna say whee-ha, we got fire. Just wish I knew what would say hold on folks, we're choking on those pellets.

Stay warm, folks!

 

[firewarrior820]

this happened to me ,and i found out my exhaust pipe/vent needed to be cleaned.

 

[welshcob]

this happened to me ,and i found out my exhaust pipe/vent needed to be cleaned.

Really? I'll have to review the leaf blower instructions and check into the vent. But I would have thought there would be some failsafe mechanism in the stove. Thanks, I'll check it when I go out to feed the barn critters.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

There is a failsafe for the exhaust, it will shut the stove off if it gets plugged, not because someone forgot to tell you that the annual in the exhaust system check is really a periodic check that should be performed at each one ton mark.

I don't do a check I just clean it out at the end of each pallet.

This can also occur (for many other reasons as well all related to the air path through the stove) if you don't have a good seal on your door or for some reason don't get the door shut and fully latched.

A lot of stoves will choke on a filled pellet chute and if you don't bother the fire (it will actually shut down due to low temperature in the stove) just turn the stove off you can avoid other unpleasant events.

 

[welshcob]

OK, Smokey, thanks for the details. I do think my problem was self-inflicted. Turns out the vent pipe was about 1/3 full of fine ash. And apparently I didn't have the door tightly sealed, which teaches me not to rush about in the morning. I'll keep an eye on it today, but from what you said I guess the stove is functioning just fine.

And if it happens again I'll just shut off the stove, grab the two dogs and my laptop and leave - if the house is still standing when I return, fine. If not, that might be OK too - very old house falling apart faster than I can repair it.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Hey Terrier Lady,

I didn't get the door on my stove fully latched one evening because of a nature call. Got back in the room and hey what happened to my nice fire. No smoke, but the fire was well on its way out and the chute was full. All stoves however don't act the same so that is why I use weasel words, like some, a few, many, not all, etc...

I think that I have verified that all of my "safety" things somewhat function. But whenever there is a flame involved that can get access through hot embers etc... to your rooms it pays to be extra careful. I even went so far as to have 12" of hearth (slate tile) around my stove on the front and along the sides until well past the door area. I still haven't trimmed it out, been too busy with other things. Mostly of the moving cubic yards of things variety and working on our new house.

Always lived in old houses until this one.

I love old houses and I understand about the repair needs, been there, done that, 9 bathrooms, 4 kitchens, 4 heating systems, many windows, singles, siding, painting, etc...

Now it is landscaping (many yards and tons of) and a bit of interior painting.