Help with New Englander..... Using way more pellets and tons of ash! (settings?)

[Steph2078]

Hello!
Need your suggestions... Stove worked great all last year and this year up until now. The stove just recently (2days) is building up with tons of burning pellets and then either going out (or almost ) and we have to shut it down to clean out the huge half burnt ash. We use barefoot, and always had very minimal ash. My settings are at 6-4-1 and running the stove at 1 output and 9 blower. This always worked great for us.
I saw a post about changing the settings a few weeks ago (tried it once and it had a very small fire so I put it right back to our previous before turing the stove back on) But stove hasn't seemed the same since??
Any suggestions??

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Have you really cleaned the stove from the air intake all the way to the end of your exhaust stack.

Massive ash build up can be caused by the pellets and or lack of air (for whatever reason, like long periods of running on low which allows ash to build up where you can't see it, a bearing issue on the combustion blower motor, or .... ).

 

[little_hawk_59]

i have a 25-pdv and it does this when not cleaned good small wire brush and all i dont own i leaf blower so i use a bid shop vac and it problem continuis pm stoveguy2esw he is an englander tech

 

[imacman]

It would help a little if you told us what model stove it is, but as Smokey says above, it sounds like classic "dirty stove" syndrome. What many people who own pellet stoves consider "clean", really isn't.

As for the settings, don't change anything untill you do a major clean.....you may find it's not necessary.

 

[Steph2078]

Thanks everyone, I have the 25-pdv .. and we did do a major clean prior to use late Nov. We use a wet/ dry vac to clean every 1-2 days. Vaccum and scrape the inside. We'll try and clean it out again when it cools. Might freeze a little... brrr!!

Could it also be not enough air intake because of the bad storm and being so windy outside?

 

[HEMI]

Thanks everyone, I have the 25-pdv .. and we did do a major clean prior to use late Nov. We use a wet/ dry vac to clean every 1-2 days. Vaccum and scrape the inside. We'll try and clean it out again when it cools. Might freeze a little... brrr!!

Could it also be not enough air intake because of the bad storm and being so windy outside?

what about the vent pipe also.....cleaned lately?

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

While you are at it check the gaskets as well. A little air bypass and no burny good at all.

 

[imacman]

Thanks everyone, I have the 25-pdv .. and we did do a major clean prior to use late Nov. We use a wet/ dry vac to clean every 1-2 days. Vaccum and scrape the inside. We'll try and clean it out again when it cools. Might freeze a little... brrr!!

Could it also be not enough air intake because of the bad storm and being so windy outside?

Steph, does a "major clean" include the following?:

-removing the impingment plate & cleaning behind it
-making sure all the holes in the wear plate/burnpot are clean
-clean behind ash traps with rubber hose on vacuum, banging on metal firebox to loosen "crud"
-removing combustion blower & cleaning/scraping
-and as Hemi said, the ENTIRE exhaust pipe from combustion blower to end
-remove the convection blower & vacuum dust bunnies/pet hair/etc and oil if it has oiling ports

just using a wet/dry vac in the firebox isn't enough....as I mentioned above, your stove has all the symptoms of a dirty stove.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Thanks everyone, I have the 25-pdv .. and we did do a major clean prior to use late Nov. We use a wet/ dry vac to clean every 1-2 days. Vaccum and scrape the inside. We'll try and clean it out again when it cools. Might freeze a little... brrr!!

Could it also be not enough air intake because of the bad storm and being so windy outside?

You are supposed to have a deflector plate over the outside air intake that should take care of issues involving wind as far as the OAK is concerned.

Now I'd expect more issues from the vent but then only if the vent is terminated by a straight out open pipe that is directly facing into the wind.

Now if the snow is covering the OAK you'll have burn air issues.