house full of smoke

[utahdl]

When my wife arrived home the house was full of smoke and the stove was shut off. She unplugged the stove before noticing the blink status. We have a harman p68.
When I arrived home, I noticed that the burnpot had pellets that were not burned in it. The pellets in the center of the pot were burned, but nowhere else. I feel like the stove shut off quickly, but it appeared that no power was lost in the house. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
dan

 

[hossthehermit]

When my wife arrived home the house was full of smoke and the stove was shut off. She unplugged the stove before noticing the blink status. We have a harman p68.
When I arrived home, I noticed that the burnpot had pellets that were not burned in it. The pellets in the center of the pot were burned, but nowhere else. I feel like the stove shut off quickly, but it appeared that no power was lost in the house. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
dan

How long have you had the stove? If it's been running trouble free for a while, I'd clean it, plug it in, fire it back up, if it happens again note the blinks, trouble shoot from there. If this was your first burn with a new stove, call your dealer. BUT, that's just MY opinion.

 

[hearthtools]

I say just do a good cleaning.
It might have just had a burn pot full of crap and the fire was not burnin correctly and it died out.
happens all the time when people go for long times with out cleaning out the burn pot.

Just clean and fire back up

 

[utahdl]

I cleaned the stove two weeks ago and scrap the burn pot daily. Whats bothering me is that a couple of weeks ago I turned the stove up and when it began to feed, i noticed that the lights on the control panel went a little dim. It acted as though it lost some power, similar to when the lights dim when running a vacum or iron, but it lasted a second. Im wondering if it had some type of a surge again causing it to shut down. If so, how do I tell if it was caused by the stove or the outlet it is plugged into. Keep in mind that this stove is the only device plugged in that outlet, and it is the same outlet that its been plugged into since it was purchased in 07.

Thanks,
dan

 

[littlesmokey]

Two thoughts. First, the smoky house is an issue. How are you venting? Straight out and stop or out and up? The situation suggests the stove shut down while on a normal burn, didn't get air to sustain the burn, or could not push the smoke out your stack. Check with your neighbors and see if you had a power interruption for even a few minutes. It may have signaled a power failure with a significant drop and no actual loss. If you are experiencing dimming of lights from a vacuum cleaner, you have some household power issues. Based on your ID, I assume you are in Utah, where abouts? I may have some extra help for you based on your location.

 

[utahdl]

Im venting out and and up and was using the vacum analogy as an example, tht doesn't happen in my house. As far as being form utah, I am not; I just like it there a lot. Hopefully, i will be able to get a hold of my dealer and well figure it out. I just dont want it to happen again.

 

[littlesmokey]

Dan, what about the power outage situation? Many stoves will not restart if the power goes down. Is you home very tightly sealed? The room venting still could be caused by the smoke not being able to escape the negative internal pressure. It doesn't sound at all like a cleaning problem on your part, but a catastrophic failure of the blower and vent system of the stove.

 

[utahdl]

I checked with my neighbor and the power did not go out. I did get a hold of my dealer and someone is coming out tomorrow. The more i think about it the more frustrated I get. Shouldnt the smoke have gone out the vent?

 

[Lousyweather]

absolutely should have, youre right....unless there was some sort of outage causing the combution fan to stop turning or getting power to turn....its what sends out the smoke....Im wondering if your combustion fan didnt overheat and cause the thermal fuse pop.....possibly an overheat situation that rectified itself?

 

[slls]

The smoke should have gone out a vertical vent, normal convection, heat rises. I think you have a vent obstruction problem.

 

[Lousyweather]

he didnt mention what his venting was.......if there's no vertical rise.....no draft

 

[utahdl]

The vent goes out and connects to a vertical pipe and terminates about three feet up.

 

[littlesmokey]

We really are trying to offer some help, but we are asking questions that really will help solve this. It would really help to know the arrangement of pipe and lengths of runs on your flue to establish the EVL and determine if you have enough run to naturally aspirate the stove. Diameter of the pipe is important too. T's, L's and bends add significantly to the values. Also, when was the last time you cleaned the flue? Was it last week when you cleaned the stove? I still don't have enough information to give you even a ball park guess....

If you are OK with this, wait 'til the tech comes, I can't help you with what you have shared so far.

 

[utahdl]

From the back of the stove there is a 90 degree elbow attached to a ~1 foot section of pipe which extends outside. From there it attaches to a T shaped pipe. Attached to the T is a 2 foot section topped of with a 90 degree elbow and a horizontal cap. Length of all the pipe sections outside is just over 3 ft. I hope that helps. I cleaned the pipe outside at the end of last season and I started burnng towards the end of October this year.

Thanks, Dan

 

[littlesmokey]

I don't have the schedule with me, but someone will respond with the EVL. It does appear that you don't have enough pipe to carry the smoke from your stove. Most manufacturers seem to recommend an 8ft rise. This will account for the smoky house at least in part if not total. The greater concern is why the stove stopped burning. If you had no power failure that would shut the cycling of the stove down, something has interrupted the normal cycle and shut the stove down. Have you run the stove since the shut down? If so, was it a normal start, or a non-starter? It's good you are going to get a tech out there, they can run tests on the board and check all the switches and fuses.

 

[utahdl]

when i returned home last night I started it up again, and it didnt seem to be putting out much heat. My house was 55 degrees the stove was set to ~68 in room temp mode and i could only get a 3 inch flame. Today, i cleaned it and it seemed to be running better. Are there certain questions i should be asking the tech?

 

[smilejamaica]

did you put the stove and venting in or did you pay for a professional to install it . how long has it been installed . i installed mine myself but i got a permit ,had it inspected,called the insurance co. remember your bringing fire into your family's home be careful.ask him if the venting is legal and why you have smoke in your house.make sure he can tell you how this happened .take care good luck be careful.

 

[sydney1963]

What does your EVL add up to??? Mine actually adds up to 17, not 15 and vents just fine but wouldn't go much higher than that.


Pellet stoves have to push the exhaust air through the vent pipe with the stove's exhaust fan. With less restriction your pellet stove will breathe easier and burn more efficiently. First let's clarify the word restriction. Restrictions come from several different items.

45 degree elbows
90 degree elbows
Horizontal distance
Vertical distance
Elevation where you live.

A rule of thumb equation we are using has been adopted by most pellet manufactures. The equation is called the sum of Equivalent Vertical Length (EVL). All of the above mentioned venting restrictions have been assigned EVL values as follows:

Each 45 degree elbow = 3 EVL
Each 90 degree elbow and Tees with clean out = 5 EVL
Each foot of horizontal run = 1 EVL
Each foot of Vertical run = 0.5 EVL

Elevations above 3000 ft with an EVL of 7 must adapt to 4 inch vent pipe.
If your installation is below 3000ft, we would need to do some math. The rule of thumb equations is that if the sum of the EVL is 15 or greater, then the pellet vent pipe would be increased to 4 inch diameter pellet vent pipe.

 

[Lousyweather]

when i returned home last night I started it up again, and it didnt seem to be putting out much heat. My house was 55 degrees the stove was set to ~68 in room temp mode and i could only get a 3 inch flame. Today, i cleaned it and it seemed to be running better. Are there certain questions i should be asking the tech?

Two things he should do while he is there:

1. take a draft test (cold stove)
2. hook up the DDM, check parameters

 

[utahdl]

Tech just left, replaced motherboard and temp probe. Could not give a definitive answer as to why stove shut down and why smoke entered the house. We unplugged the machine during start up hoping to see where the smoke might of came from, a tiny bit was exiting from around the door. He tightened the handle and it seemed to stop. He seemed to think that the weather conditions that day played a role in not venting properly, we did receive a lot of rain that day. He felt that the pipe legth and elbows were within specs, and was in contact with Harman. I guess I feel somewhat better, but without a definitive answer Ill always be left wondering? Thanks for all of your input.

Dan