How does your Empress burn??

[canyon453]

We are new to pellet stoves and recently purchased a red Empress, looks great in the room.

Tonight I am running the stove on 2. The fire gets going pretty good (8-10" flame) then dies down (below burn pot edge),
then gets going again, etc.. the cycle last 2-3 minutes. Is this normal?

Thanks,
Canyon453

 

[dvsstrike]

i shouldn't mine does not do that i get a steady flame most of the time. i also do dnot watch it all the time. you may have to adjust the dampner onthe side a litlle(pulling it out slightly). i see your in ma and running the stove already wow. still warm on the cape tough.

 

[90durham]

Hello fellow Empress owner, have the same Inferno red model, I see the same with mine depending on feed rate. Getting close to 0C tonight up here and have done a couple overnight burns already(am new owner as well). I find myself adjusting damper slightly depending on rate and fuel brand, just wait till you crank it up to 5 for a couple hours.
Beautiful.

 

[wb2bhc]

My lady Empress is burning quite well.
Using Hi/Lo thermostat setting so when on low (idle) the flame is mostly
in the burn pot and the blower cranks down, when it calls for heat #5
The pellets fall more rapidly and the blowers blow.
Temp here in NNJ is in the 40's and the house is at 72
Nuttin could be finah
Have a warm and toasty winter

Jay

 

[seige101]

My stove burns the same on lower settings. Last year i tried it half the winter on thermostat on/off mode, and ended up switching mid way through the winter to high/low operation.
Question though, anyone hear of a hybrid hi/low on off mode? Let me explain, say t-stat is set for 70, it gets down to 69, stove turns on high until the stat stops calling for heat, the stove would then idle on low setting for about an hour and then turn off unless the stat called for heat again. Seems like the best of both worlds, and avoids the ignitor from burning out.

 

[DiggerJim]

Question though, anyone hear of a hybrid hi/low on off mode? Let me explain, say t-stat is set for 70, it gets down to 69, stove turns on high until the stat stops calling for heat, the stove would then idle on low setting for about an hour and then turn off unless the stat called for heat again. Seems like the best of both worlds, and avoids the ignitor from burning out.

Yeah, it's called SmartStat by St. Croix. It drops to low mode for an hour to see if the thermostat calls for more heat, if it does it fires up some more, if it doesn't it finally shuts off until the next call for heat.

 

[canyon453]

Thanks for the replies..

It appears that a couple of you have the same behavior on the low setting, so I think
this is normal operation.

One other question, does your Empress emit a slight smoke smell when it
initially lights up? Not overpowering, doesn't set off the smoke alarm,
but you can tell you are buring wood.

The SmartStat sound interesting..

 

[srjtr7]

Thanks for the replies..

It appears that a couple of you have the same behavior on the low setting, so I think
this is normal operation.

One other question, does your Empress emit a slight smoke smell when it
initially lights up? Not overpowering, doesn't set off the smoke alarm,
but you can tell you are buring wood.

The SmartStat sound interesting..

Yes, mine does the same.....I get a smell of smoke/wood when I first start it.

I like it .....I burn softwood and it smells like I am burning some fresh wood.

Brings back memories of camping

 

[smithmal]

I have an empress as well. I know that the "1" setting is completely useless because the auger doesn't turn fast enough/drop enough pellets to sustain a flame. I would expect that at 2 it probably drops a bunch of pellets (initial burst of flame) and then theres a delay (dies down) before it drops another bunch. There's no problem at setting "3" though.

smithmal

 

[nanama72]

It's great to see this post because it reassures me that nothing is wrong with my stove. I have the empress insert and it's the same thing. With some pellets I can lower it to level 3, others can't get lower than level 4 without the fire going to smoldering and smoking up the house. It puts out better heat with the ones that I can turn down to level 3, so it seems pellet dependent. That means we're going through about 2 bags of pellets a day but the house is so nice and warm so I can't complain. I hope it's still warm enough when it's a lot colder. Has anyone tried Pike pellets before in the empress? I found one good review from another stove, but that it also has some longer pellets and I'm concerned that could block up the auger. They aren't cheap either. Have some Cleanfires on the way.

 

[steamguy]

We've had an Empress since about this time last year; let me have a shot at it...

Nothing is wrong with your stove. On "1", the feed rate is so slow that with some fuels, they're completely gone before the next lot drops in. Some pellets will naturally "log-jam" and not feed right away; then with the next turn of the auger, they all drop at once. That's the reason for the high-low effect. We actually find it kind of pleasant, not like some phony gas fire but instead like a "real" wood fire where it goes up and down naturally.

We also clean our pellets because where live, it's tough to get really clean fuel for a low price. With some of these, when you reach into the bag and bury your hand, it actually comes out 'sandy' with all the fines in there. So we had to start cleaning the fuel. Some folks say that a lot of fines in the fuel can cause pellets to feed inconsistently.

I find it odd that you have to keep adjusting your damper for where you have the feed speed set. The stove is supposed to be controlling the combustion blower speed, so that it gets the most efficient burn rate for the feed rate. You'd be defeating that by adjusting the draft. Suggest you have it set with a magnahelic and then mark that point as a baseline and leave it and watch to see how the stove performs. Of course if the damper is open too much, your pellets will burn so fast that you wouldn't be able to use any of the slower settings. With some fuels, we have to adjust the damper a little to keep the stove from generating too much soot. It's going to generate some, but it should be tan to brown. If it's black... then there's not enough air.

You also shouldn't have smoke in the house. If you do, then you have something not tight, somewhere. Your ash pan is loose, or the door is not sealing properly; those kinds of things. There are pros here who are better qualified at figuring this one out than me, because they make their living servicing the stoves. Me, I've only been burning a pellet stove for some 15 years or so. When we looked at stoves to replace our old one last year, we saw a Quadrafire at a dealer and the thing really smoked on startup. I mean a big old cloud of smoke puffed out of it. The dealer said 'That's normal," so we said 'no' to that one. Our Empress only smokes out the chimney on startup.

Hope this helps.

 

[steamguy]

Oops, site error, double post - sorry.

 

[nanama72]

So if we use a mag to test on the highest level, the setting of the damper should be good at all levels? Thanks.

 

[steamguy]

You are correct. Let me quote from the Technical Guide - you can download this same Guide from Enviro:

Taking a reading of vacuum pressure inside the firebox with a magnehelic gauge can be used to set the slider for best combustion. The best settings are a reading of 0.12 to 0.13 inches of water column (30 Pa) on the high fire setting. Some fuels may require higher or lower settings. The reading can be taken from the 1⁄8” (3 mm) hole located on the front of the unit below the door in the ash pan front.

Some general ways to set your damper, from the same Guide:

The slider damper is located behind the cast doors and under the firebox.
• If the fire should happen to go out and the heat output indicator has been set on the lowest setting, the Slider Damper should be moved to the left slightl, lessen the air flow into the firebox.
• If, after long periods of burning, the fire builds up and overflows the burn pot or there is a build up of clinkers, this would be a sign that the pellet quality is poor, this requires more primary air, the slider damper must be moved to the right to give the fire more air.
Figure 16: Efficient Flame.
The easiest way to make sure that an efficient flame is achieved is to understand the characteristics of the fire.
• A tall, lazy flame with dark orange tips requires more air – Push Right
• A short, brisk flame, like a blowtorch, has too much air – Push Left
• If the flame is in the middle of these two characteristics with a bright yellow/orange, active flame with no black tips then the air is set for proper operation.
The combustion exhaust blower is a variable speed blower controlled by the heat output setting. This blower will increse or decrease the blower speed as the heat output setting is turned up or down.

Hope this helps solve it.