Hi all,
Brand new to the forum but have been cruising the threads for a week or so trying to get a grasp on what is happening with my stove. I purchased a new house in NH and the temps have started to drop outside. In order to prep for the winter I have started to get familiar with my stoves, a Lopi Liberty and a much older Jotul (not sure of the model yet). I replaced the firebricks in the Lopi, and still need to do the door gasket, and most likely the baffle brackets (but should last until next year). When speaking with my local stove shop, and discussing the condition of the stove, I was told that a blower would make parts like the baffle brackets and tubes last longer as well as increase the spread of the heat generated by the stove. All of this made sense to me so I sprung for all of the parts I needed and bought the blower.
I successfully replaced the bricks and decided to tackle the blower next. I followed the directions exactly and fired up the stove. SUCCESS
.......at least for the first fire. 
Now I can't get the blower to kick on again. I checked the wires, checked the breaker, checked that the blower was getting power to different spots (ie. the blower, the rheostat) and still nothing. I tried getting a very hot fire going....still nothing. So I do what most other people do at this point and turn to the glory that is the world wide web, which eventually leads me here.
I have read the threads others posted on blower issues; some being snap-disc, some being bearing or blower age/cleanliness, and others being about temp. I can obviously rule out the age/cleanliness and temp since it has now been a weeks worth of varying fire sizes trying to get this blower to turn on. I am not sure about what the exact temp is on the stove (I just ordered a stove top thermometer) but I know that it gets HOT. At this point I can only surmise that it must be the snap disc or that I somehow shorted out the blower?
I have yet to try to jump the wires on the snap disc because I would like to get any opinions and advice from this forum and the stove shop before doing any modifications...especially if the blower is under warranty. One final detail is that after the blower worked on the first day I did notice that the GFI circuit broke on the line that the blower is plugged into. I reset the circuit, moved any other loads that were on it to another circuit, and it has not tripped since - most likely because the blower has not turned on.
Is it possible that I shorted out the blower somehow? As mentioned, followed the installation directions exactly, and have read them several times after the fact to make sure that I didn't miss anything. One noe that I keep reading over and over again is in regards to the snap disc and the wire clip. It says something like "ensure that the wires from the snap disc do not contact the firebox or else it could short out the blower". As far as I can tell the wires were never in contact with the firebox after I completed the installation but that comment does make me curious. Could I have shorted out the blower through the snap disc wires if the fire got too hot? Would that permanently damage the blower and cause it to longer function? Not that I think I did but I am curious.
In any case, all help is appreciated as I fumble through my first woodstove. Thanks in advance.
Brand new to the forum but have been cruising the threads for a week or so trying to get a grasp on what is happening with my stove. I purchased a new house in NH and the temps have started to drop outside. In order to prep for the winter I have started to get familiar with my stoves, a Lopi Liberty and a much older Jotul (not sure of the model yet). I replaced the firebricks in the Lopi, and still need to do the door gasket, and most likely the baffle brackets (but should last until next year). When speaking with my local stove shop, and discussing the condition of the stove, I was told that a blower would make parts like the baffle brackets and tubes last longer as well as increase the spread of the heat generated by the stove. All of this made sense to me so I sprung for all of the parts I needed and bought the blower.
I successfully replaced the bricks and decided to tackle the blower next. I followed the directions exactly and fired up the stove. SUCCESS
.......at least for the first fire. Now I can't get the blower to kick on again. I checked the wires, checked the breaker, checked that the blower was getting power to different spots (ie. the blower, the rheostat) and still nothing. I tried getting a very hot fire going....still nothing. So I do what most other people do at this point and turn to the glory that is the world wide web, which eventually leads me here. I have read the threads others posted on blower issues; some being snap-disc, some being bearing or blower age/cleanliness, and others being about temp. I can obviously rule out the age/cleanliness and temp since it has now been a weeks worth of varying fire sizes trying to get this blower to turn on. I am not sure about what the exact temp is on the stove (I just ordered a stove top thermometer) but I know that it gets HOT. At this point I can only surmise that it must be the snap disc or that I somehow shorted out the blower?
I have yet to try to jump the wires on the snap disc because I would like to get any opinions and advice from this forum and the stove shop before doing any modifications...especially if the blower is under warranty. One final detail is that after the blower worked on the first day I did notice that the GFI circuit broke on the line that the blower is plugged into. I reset the circuit, moved any other loads that were on it to another circuit, and it has not tripped since - most likely because the blower has not turned on.
Is it possible that I shorted out the blower somehow? As mentioned, followed the installation directions exactly, and have read them several times after the fact to make sure that I didn't miss anything. One noe that I keep reading over and over again is in regards to the snap disc and the wire clip. It says something like "ensure that the wires from the snap disc do not contact the firebox or else it could short out the blower". As far as I can tell the wires were never in contact with the firebox after I completed the installation but that comment does make me curious. Could I have shorted out the blower through the snap disc wires if the fire got too hot? Would that permanently damage the blower and cause it to longer function? Not that I think I did but I am curious.
In any case, all help is appreciated as I fumble through my first woodstove. Thanks in advance.
