Help with Enviro Empress

[mysticlaker]

Hi,

We have a three year old Enviro Empress that is acting up. I want to see if I can fix the problem myself because the dealer wants $199 to come out and take a look.

I keep up with my cleanings, but haven't removed the blower motor yet for a cleaning. I've cleaned the vents, the ash T, removed the firebox walls, and checked all gaskets and seals to the best of my ability.

The stove is starting fine, but the flame/fire is really fluctuating. Sometimes it is the normal nice with high output itself, and then will die down and then go back up again. The stove is on high (it operates on high/low mode with a thermostat and the room temp is lower than the set temp). One thing I have noticed is that as the auger during the cycle many times NO pellets drop for many turns. I am not sure if this was the way it was before, but now am paying a lot more attention to it. The fire has gone out a few times over the last few weeks and stove shut itself off. No error indicator lights are active when this happens. I have let the stove run out of pellets, pocked around from both sides to see if there is a jam, but could not idenify one. I did not remove the auger itself.

Any help that someone can provide, or if there is additional steps I can do (like cleaning the blower motor) that would be helpful that would be great.

I am a bit worried about the pellet quality as well. These are firemaster pellets from home despot.

Thanks for anyone's help.

ML

 

[seige101]

Ran into this same exact problem last year. The auger motor light would turn, it would sound like the auger was moving but it was struggling. What i did was remove the auger motor, split the gear case open and found some nasty dried up dirty grease. I cleaned all the old crap out, and put sum synthetic industrial grease in there (dow 33) I would think any light weight grease would work. I also oiled the bearings with some 3-1 oil. After i re-assembled the stove has been running great, you barely hear the auger motor at all now. Now on my annual cleaning i just add a drop or 2 of oil to the bearing, and at the end of this season i will check the grease again.

 

[mysticlaker]

Is this something I can do myself, or would you recommend getting a dealer to do it?

Thanks.

 

[seige101]

Extremely easy to do your self, You need the torx driver to take off the right side panel (control side), and i believe it's an 1/8 allen wrench to loosen the connecting nut to the motor shaft.

Once thats loose, disconnect the leads to the motor, they use a spade type connector. After that the motor assembly will fall right out.

 

[dvsstrike]

you may want to check the heat sensor at the exhaust motor. it may thing the stove temp is too high. you may also want to chech the auger itself. if there is to much dust on the bottom it would not feed that great i would check the auger first then re prime the auger. i have hadd mine for three years and have zero issues. i know the empress can burn anything and burn it great with a dampner adjustment here and there. those depot pellets arn't the greatest but the empress should be able to burn them with no issue. also on low you may want to check the feed rate setting. you may have to change ie from three sec feed rate to even 4 sec if you are running on low.

 

[mysticlaker]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies. I finally had a chance to work on this after the holidays. I tried these suggestions and none of them worked unfortunately. Cleaning out the augur motor was pretty messy, but it did not seem to help. I was happy everything went back in!

Any other suggestions? I have a scheduled call for next week for service, but anything else to figure this out would be great, even if I can give the service guys a heads up on potential parts if they can bring them in advance.

I visually verified the other fans/blowers are working as well during this process.

Is there any way to verify the auger itself has nothing stuck in it that is keeping pellets from feeding correctly? I have run it to empty, but that did not help.

Thanks,

ML.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

check up in the top of the drop chute for impacted pellet dust, sometimes you can get a jam in the top of the auger where it transitions to the drop chute causing inconsistant feed or auger jams. might also check the drive coupler where the auger itself is connected to the motor for slippage , either a shear pin or a setscrew will lock the auger to the motor drive shaft if its slipping you may have these issues as well. to check the drop chute, take a long item like a butter knife or screwdriver and poke it up the chute to the top (reaching through the front door) poke at it and ensure you are hitting metal up there and not wood dust , if stuff starts coming out , keep working it until it clears all the way out.

hope this helps ya

 

[mysticlaker]

Thank you. I will try this today.

The other thing I noticed (and I think this only started happening after cleaning the auger motor), is that the stove at startup only stays under control board control in lighting mode. It is no longer switching over to user control.

Could this be a new problem I created, or just another manifisation of a pellet feed problem?

Thank you for all your help,

ML.

 

[mysticlaker]

well, i've exhausted all do-it-yourself options for now with cleaning, poking, checking, etc. and can't see anything else it could be except the auger motor being shot. the stove is under warranty so they part will be free, but i'll have to pay for labor and a house visit.

sucks...

ml

 

[mnoack]

I replaced my auger for similar reasons. A couple points: I emptied the bin so that there were just a few pellets & watched the auger. What I saw was that many time when the auger motor hummed it did not turn. In addition, when the auger motor was going, the stove actually heated the house better at level 2 than at higher heating settings, because at the higher settings the convection fan actually cooled the stove to the point where it was never blowing hot air.

That said, I thought that the auger motor was only covered for 2 years. If it is covered, you can certainly replace it yourself, if you were able to remove it & clean & regrease it. I replaced mine, myself, under the warranty.

mark

 

[Nicholas440]

I dont have an Empress and this may sound silly, but have you tried to adjust the feed rate ? I assume you can adjust feed rate on the Enviro models. My Quadrafire Castile has a nice flame , very active and sounds like a big blow torch , but it will die down to a real low flame at times and then goes back up, but it has never gone out. I had to adjust the feed rate according to the user manual and my auger does not drop pellets on every index as it turns. I can hear it turn and I watch it and it seems as if this is how it is supposed to work. Even on the Highest setting the auger does not drop pellets on each index but it works great.


Try the feed rate if you can...

Good luck !

 

[mysticlaker]

Hi,

When I got my empress in 2005, the augur motor was under the 5 year warranty. I think they changed it so it is under the 2 year warranty now.

I'll call my dealer and ask if I can do it myself.

Thanks for the suggestion on the heat settings. I'll try to do that till I get this fully resolved.

ML

 

[mysticlaker]

Well, it's hard to tell from the documentation what's under warranty, so I'll just have to bring what I have in (it says steel parts 1 year, all electrical parts 5). I guess this is electrical so I'll be buying myself.

Anyway, I'm going to install it myself once the part comes in. I hope this is the problem. As far as I can see everything else works properly, all fans are going and adjusting properly, the control board adjusts for the different heat needs.

It should be pretty easy now. The hardest part was the loosening of the setscrew the first time. So it should be a pretty quick install once I get the part.

I do have one additional question for someone about the tighteness of the set-screw when reattaching. Once properly tightened, the auger is attached to the motor drive shaft with the set screw and coupler. The coupler will rotate around as the auger turns along with the set screw. I think that is the correct tightness. The set screw and coupler rotate once properly attached, and the auguer stays in place accordingly. Is that correct tightness? I didn't tighten it as completely as when I took it off because it was so difficult to lossen the first time.

Thanks again everyone! This is my first time working with these types of parts and I really really appreciate the help.

ML

 

[mysticlaker]

Now I have a problem. I tried to get the auger motor out again, but now it won't slide off the off the motor shaft. It won't move for diddly after getting set screw off. Anyone have any ideas? The first time it just slid off, now, it's jammed real good. I cut myself pretty good trying to push at it to get it to come off, but nothing.

Ouch.

 

[mnoack]

I had to use a flat pry bar to get mine out (thanks to Rod P, for the suggestion). If you go straight in from the back with a short flat pry bar & wedge the 90 degree end on top of the motor it will pop right off. In fact, make sure your wiring harness is out of the way & either put something under it or catch it with your other hand. Mine came off much easier than I expected with the pry bar after I had been working it for two days with other methods & no success.

Mark

 

[mysticlaker]

Well, I tried the bar trick and that didn't work....

The service dealer came and replaced it. He had a hell of a time also...Took him about 30 minutes to get it off using wrenches and tools. The auger is replaced and the stove is pumping out the heat (just in time)....

Thanks for the help guys. I feel a lot more comfortable with the insides of the stove now (but hopefully won't need to be back in there except for cleaning in the future_

ML