Great thread. Beautiful stove. Looked at them when Nu-Tec had them, Upland 207, but my situation couldn't make it work. As for power outage, I'd look into a UPS such as Cyberpower, if i recall your stove uses very little power... Although you may not need it, test it , unplug the stove and see.
Introduction: New Breckwell SPC50, many questions for install
- Thread starter jedirye
- Start date
-
Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.
We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.
We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
NU-TEC Stoves
Member
Oh my! I search Upland 207 Pellet Stove once in a while. Nostalgia. However, It has been quite a few years since US Stove Company purchased my designs. I am retired.
Tonight was the first time your posts showed up. USSC made some changes to the original Upland 207 Pellet Stove design that I have felt were problematic. Nevertheless, conceptually the stove operates the same.
From your posts, it appears that you have been advised by a number of people that do not really know the stove, including USSC customer service.
I really hoped that USSC would continue to produce some of my designs.
Unfortunately, it appears that USSC has halted production of a model that while it was made by NU-TEC Incorporated maintained a five star rating.
If you haven’t given up on the stove, I will try to give you guidance that should improve the operation. Email: [email protected] with a phone number and perferred time to receive a call.
Tonight was the first time your posts showed up. USSC made some changes to the original Upland 207 Pellet Stove design that I have felt were problematic. Nevertheless, conceptually the stove operates the same.
From your posts, it appears that you have been advised by a number of people that do not really know the stove, including USSC customer service.
I really hoped that USSC would continue to produce some of my designs.
Unfortunately, it appears that USSC has halted production of a model that while it was made by NU-TEC Incorporated maintained a five star rating.
If you haven’t given up on the stove, I will try to give you guidance that should improve the operation. Email: [email protected] with a phone number and perferred time to receive a call.
Great post and as noted- a lot of incorrect info being parlayed out there. Even within the industry, that is a constant issue, no matter what stove you are referring to. Glad to see the stove information getting resolved and the correct info being put out. Its hard for a lot of us to remember that we are inviting fire into our homes. This thread has made me want to look at that stove's manual and find out more about it. I don't sell that brand, I am just interested for my own awareness when selling our brands to be able to speak about other MFRs stoves. Thanks for the info NUTEC... Kudos to Ryann too for seeing the project through and getting the right info..
Breckwell's support and manual on this stove stinks and that is being very charitable. My stove was shipped twice and damaged twice but it was also shipped without an auger feed motor. I"m guessing that by now you don't use your stove very much.
We have been using the stove just about a week now and my wife really likes the appearance and the warmth but I think this will be the first and last season for it. I am convinced it is just too hazardous.
Power out is out and any pellets in the pot will smolder down into the auger feed tube in time. I really wish I had known more about this stove before I bought it. This thread is one of the very best on the hazards of this stove but you have to read closely and you have to be thinking FIRE HAZARD and mode of failure. I'll probably finish this season with it and let it go somewhere and chalk it up the $2,500 purchase price to bad experience.
Because of the burn back potential I would never ever leave this stove burning unattended. There are SEVEN devices in the operating system plus the control board that all have to operate successfully for this stove to function and function safely. There also has to be a person present to respond to any failure of these systems.
It is FAR from a failsafe device. Auger feed is the primary safety problem. If the fuel is not advancing at lest as fast as the flame front there is a hazard of burn back into the fuel hopper. The safety devices seem to rely on smothering any resulting fire hazard if this happens. Apparently this does not work too well since Jedirye had a fire in the auger feed tube when she simply shut the stove off. Isn't this the same as a power outage? The trap door did not smother the fire at all and this is why the operator manual is very specific that you empty the stove of pellets and let the fire burn out instead of just turning it off.
The latest rev of the Breckwell manual is better organized than the last that I got with the stove. It says many of the same things though and this is what it says about shut down:
SHUTDOWN PROCEDURE
If you must shutdown the stove without running out the fuel, just hold the power button for several seconds and confirm shutdown when asked on the screen. DO NOT UNPLUG THE STOVE AND KEEP THE HOPPER CLOSED. All motors will stop when power is manualy turned off.
1. Your stove is equipped with multiple high temperature thermodiscs. The safety switches operate as shown. [where?]
A. The BURN BACK sensor turns the auger on high if heat is sensed in the auger feed tube. [and what does it do when the power fails?]
B. The HOPPER OVERHEAT sensor shuts the stove down to prevent a hopper fie. [What happens in the pellet feed tube when the stove simply shuts off?]
C. The FUEL sensor shuts the stove off when the fuel is exhausted. (This is a convenience feature)
Advancing pellets into a gravity feed tube is pretty failsafe if the power fails. Pellets don't advance, they don't drop and the fire goes out. Killing the energy source is the best means of risk management.
If Breckwell told Jedirye the stove does not have a blower for the fire they are mistaken. Open the door and open the damper and see what happens. The draft on the fire increases and you can also feel air coming off the two tubes that blow across the window. That isn't flue or chimney draft. Even the Upland schematic shows a blower into the fire box. The stove is a blow through with draft assist. I will check this again with the fire out one day soon. If I am wrong I'm willing to be told as much if someone can also explain why this is not so. Blow through is not so much a problem for me though so long as there is a proper chimney but there is the risk that flame can be forced up through the auger feed tube into the hopper as Adaryider says. This is also why there is an alarm on the hopper lid, to keep the path of least resistance out the flue and not out the hopper.
Breckwell also do not seem to understand the principals of operation well enough to write the install and operation manual. The rev A is better than before though. As Jedirye has learned, the instructions for the venting alone are a mismash of confusion. She is not alone in her difficulty understanding the instructions. It took me a year after I bought this stove to think I was not going to burn the house down. I'm still not sure about that except that the flue temp 6' up is very low. As for furnace cement and red silicone, even Selkirk does not recommend these. Red silicone is only good for 650 F intermittent and so I doubt it will hold up well. As for furnace cement you would have to break it each season to clean the flue.
My fire chief friend thought this stove was better than the gravity feed pellet stove he had that caught the pellet box on fire. I had convinced myself that other people are operating this stove successfully without problems and so it must be OK. Right? The more I know and the more I think about it the less I am convinced that owners are not just lucky.
Power out is out and any pellets in the pot will smolder down into the auger feed tube in time. I really wish I had known more about this stove before I bought it. This thread is one of the very best on the hazards of this stove but you have to read closely and you have to be thinking FIRE HAZARD and mode of failure. I'll probably finish this season with it and let it go somewhere and chalk it up the $2,500 purchase price to bad experience.
Because of the burn back potential I would never ever leave this stove burning unattended. There are SEVEN devices in the operating system plus the control board that all have to operate successfully for this stove to function and function safely. There also has to be a person present to respond to any failure of these systems.
It is FAR from a failsafe device. Auger feed is the primary safety problem. If the fuel is not advancing at lest as fast as the flame front there is a hazard of burn back into the fuel hopper. The safety devices seem to rely on smothering any resulting fire hazard if this happens. Apparently this does not work too well since Jedirye had a fire in the auger feed tube when she simply shut the stove off. Isn't this the same as a power outage? The trap door did not smother the fire at all and this is why the operator manual is very specific that you empty the stove of pellets and let the fire burn out instead of just turning it off.
The latest rev of the Breckwell manual is better organized than the last that I got with the stove. It says many of the same things though and this is what it says about shut down:
SHUTDOWN PROCEDURE
If you must shutdown the stove without running out the fuel, just hold the power button for several seconds and confirm shutdown when asked on the screen. DO NOT UNPLUG THE STOVE AND KEEP THE HOPPER CLOSED. All motors will stop when power is manualy turned off.
1. Your stove is equipped with multiple high temperature thermodiscs. The safety switches operate as shown. [where?]
A. The BURN BACK sensor turns the auger on high if heat is sensed in the auger feed tube. [and what does it do when the power fails?]
B. The HOPPER OVERHEAT sensor shuts the stove down to prevent a hopper fie. [What happens in the pellet feed tube when the stove simply shuts off?]
C. The FUEL sensor shuts the stove off when the fuel is exhausted. (This is a convenience feature)
Advancing pellets into a gravity feed tube is pretty failsafe if the power fails. Pellets don't advance, they don't drop and the fire goes out. Killing the energy source is the best means of risk management.
If Breckwell told Jedirye the stove does not have a blower for the fire they are mistaken. Open the door and open the damper and see what happens. The draft on the fire increases and you can also feel air coming off the two tubes that blow across the window. That isn't flue or chimney draft. Even the Upland schematic shows a blower into the fire box. The stove is a blow through with draft assist. I will check this again with the fire out one day soon. If I am wrong I'm willing to be told as much if someone can also explain why this is not so. Blow through is not so much a problem for me though so long as there is a proper chimney but there is the risk that flame can be forced up through the auger feed tube into the hopper as Adaryider says. This is also why there is an alarm on the hopper lid, to keep the path of least resistance out the flue and not out the hopper.
Breckwell also do not seem to understand the principals of operation well enough to write the install and operation manual. The rev A is better than before though. As Jedirye has learned, the instructions for the venting alone are a mismash of confusion. She is not alone in her difficulty understanding the instructions. It took me a year after I bought this stove to think I was not going to burn the house down. I'm still not sure about that except that the flue temp 6' up is very low. As for furnace cement and red silicone, even Selkirk does not recommend these. Red silicone is only good for 650 F intermittent and so I doubt it will hold up well. As for furnace cement you would have to break it each season to clean the flue.
My fire chief friend thought this stove was better than the gravity feed pellet stove he had that caught the pellet box on fire. I had convinced myself that other people are operating this stove successfully without problems and so it must be OK. Right? The more I know and the more I think about it the less I am convinced that owners are not just lucky.
Hey guys!
It's been a while. Sequoyah, your post was very informative. I will make it a point to read it before every cold season to not let me get complacent about this stove.
We stocked up on pellets and are ready for another winter. I don't understand how people have left this stove on unattended, for several of the reasons mentioned above. We have exterior cameras on our house and will put one specifically on the stove inside if I need to make a very quick grocery story run. Probably not even grocery store, convenience store yes. Other than that, we operate with extreme caution and I think this year I will look into a battery backup at least for peace of mind. It won't look great (a UPC, but... safety first!) but I digress.
Other than that, it's here to stay because it's simply too heavy to move anywhere else. But, I like it at least aesthetically and functionally for the very few times a year we use it. Ironically, we did a kitchen remodel and now have a propane tank. I often wondered if I would have known for sure we'd go with propane for a kitchen stove would I have opted for a propane heating stove? I researched, and it's pretty expensive to use propane, so I'm good with the $4 bag of 40# pallets that will last days here in Florida
Cheers all and keep on burning!
It's been a while. Sequoyah, your post was very informative. I will make it a point to read it before every cold season to not let me get complacent about this stove.
We stocked up on pellets and are ready for another winter. I don't understand how people have left this stove on unattended, for several of the reasons mentioned above. We have exterior cameras on our house and will put one specifically on the stove inside if I need to make a very quick grocery story run. Probably not even grocery store, convenience store yes. Other than that, we operate with extreme caution and I think this year I will look into a battery backup at least for peace of mind. It won't look great (a UPC, but... safety first!) but I digress.
Other than that, it's here to stay because it's simply too heavy to move anywhere else. But, I like it at least aesthetically and functionally for the very few times a year we use it. Ironically, we did a kitchen remodel and now have a propane tank. I often wondered if I would have known for sure we'd go with propane for a kitchen stove would I have opted for a propane heating stove? I researched, and it's pretty expensive to use propane, so I'm good with the $4 bag of 40# pallets that will last days here in Florida
Cheers all and keep on burning!
Plug your stove into a UPS, so that for short power outages the stove will continue to run (for 20 to 40 minutes depending on the size of the battery in the UPS). Make sure you buy a "Pure Sine Wave" UPS, like some of the models from Cyberpower.
A UPS like this will cost about $199. The Cyberpower model CP1500PFCLCD is a good choice. They will also sound a warning beeper that will alert you that the stove is running on back-up power.
A UPS like this will cost about $199. The Cyberpower model CP1500PFCLCD is a good choice. They will also sound a warning beeper that will alert you that the stove is running on back-up power.
Similar threads
