I cleaned combustion fan, now low flame?

[mixpat]

Hi, hoping to get some advice. KInd of new to pellet stoves. I have a 2yr old Timberwolf TPS35. I bought it used and it has worked great...until now. I gave the stove a good cleaning today, including the combustion fan. The fan wasn't horrible, but the chamber it connects to had a fair amount of caked on ash. Brushed it all down (which I'm sure was needed)...put a new gasket on and fired it up. Fan is working fine, but the flame isn't as high as it was before (it's set to high). Now, its a short flame that seems to curl down (not sure that's the best way to describe it), instead of going straight up. I'm wondering if cleaning all that gunk out affected draft/air flow. Any kind of adjustments I can make? Thanks for any ideas.

 

[SwineFlue]

Comparing the flames before & after cleaning, was there a difference in vigorous movement or orange-ish color?

 

[mixpat]

No, color seems the same. Flame is still "active". Fair amount of sparks flying around the burn box. The flame just isn't as tall. I was thinking that cleaning off the caked on gunk instide the exhaust, when I took combustion fan out, may have changed the draft or something.

 

[SwineFlue]

I was thinking that maybe you had a slow, lazy flame before and improved it with this cleaning. If it's active with sparks flying, it sounds good.

 

[RossBoyle]

I agree with SwineFlue. Sounds to me like your stove is now burning properly.

 

[mixpat]

Good to hear. Thanks guys.

 

[Harvey Schneider]

Good to hear. Thanks guys.

Too late for "before" pictures, but I'm sure that an "after" picture or video would give us a chance to evaluate the fire.

 

[nailed_nailer]

Only thing I can think of is if you bumped the exhaust Damper (if it has one) while you were cleaning.

That would change your flame height.....up or down.

Good Luck.
---Nailer---

 

[mixpat]

Good idea. Here are a couple of pics. The first one is the stove on "startup". The second is a shot after the stove had warmed up.

 

[mixpat]

Oops...loaded the same pics twice. Sorry...new to this . Pic with big flame is when stove first fires up....small flame is after 20 minutes.

 

[RossBoyle]

Looks about right to me.