Need Pellet Stove Help

  • 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.

tphelps1

New Member
Jan 16, 2022
4
Uncasville, CT
Evening,

My wife and I bought a house with a 1200 Classic Bay stand alone in the basement. The month I have owned this house I have did nothing but troubleshoot this stove, at first it was shutdowns continuously. It would run and then shutdown so I replaced the thermocouple. Then the stove still would not operate. I had a maintenance guy from a chimney service in CT, come out. He unplugged and plugged the machine a few times to the wall and then said I had two wires crossed on the thermocouple, so he switched them and called it good after it operated normally for him for about 30 minutes. My pellets fill up the burn pot, quickly, after four hours it’s full of black pellets to the rim. I have cleaned the exhaust blower out and it was filthy and cleaned the fire pot like a crazy person continuously, can anyone help? Any advice is appreciated. I’m defining insanity daily it seems. I have read the tech manual cover to cover as well, I have it on my phone. I do not know how old the stove, that’s my only thing. I have attached pictures of my problem and the pellets I burn.

A3EB1D68-59AD-44E1-B51B-7465ED0F0BE1.jpeg 2755F410-A58B-4667-80FB-A6FF6C2C3BA7.jpeg 3AB33805-1D9B-41C0-87EB-858BC432F665.jpeg
 
The complete exhaust path in the stove cleaned according to the manual and the exhaust pipe clean ??
Welcome to the forum. Others should be along shortly to help out..
 
  • Like
Reactions: tphelps1 and Mt Bob
Overfilling is usually dirty/restricted exhaust, from inside stove all the way to end of flue.
What happens when you set pellet feed to low?
 
  • Like
Reactions: tphelps1
I cleaned the space behind the exhaust fan where you can see the convection fan vanes but it still overfills. The chimney guy didn’t clean the whole exhaust system, but no one has cleaned the whole exhaust system as far as I know. When the feed rate is set to low it takes longer to fill up but still does.
 
How is the stove vented? Does it have a cleanout T off the back of the stove that you can get to? Do you have access to where the vent ends outside? Depending on your vent setup, there are some good tricks to getting it clean.

I have access to where my vent ends outside, so I use a leaf blower with a pvc adapter as shown below. The adapter slides inside the 3" vent and it sucks all the ash out. Definitely blows out quite an ash cloud. If you do it this way just make sure your stove door is propped open some and you may want to unhook the vacuum switch since it is possible to damage it.

LeafBLower.JPG
 
If you can't get to where the vent ends outside you can hook a leafblower to the cleanout T and blow the venting out. I have never done it this way, but have seen it in videos. I have seen where people make an insert out of Styrofoam with a hole just big enough for their shop vac to attach to that fits over the pellet stove door opening. THen they run the shop vac while they use the leaf blower on the cleanout T
 
Thank y’all for the help so far. I cleaned the exhaust system as best I could it has black vent pipes going into my chimney. It’s not a insert it just parallels on the way up and out. It wasn’t that dirty but I vacuumed it all out. Now however I have the call light, but no fan, and no auger movement when I attempted to restart.
 
Unfortunately, I do not know about the specifics of your stove.

It is weird that it would work before you cleaned the vent, but now nothing.

I am sure someone will chime in here. I would also recommend finding a technical manual (not the owners manual) for your stove. It will usually have troubleshooting steps etc to follow.
 
When you used your shop vac did you do it with door closed and the vacuum line still attached from auger to switch? If yes, its possible you damaged the vacuum switch. You can temporarily bypass this switch for testing, but change it back immediately as its a critical safety device.
 
The "chimney guy" did not clean this lady's exhaust,either. She was having many problems--
289572-ace0b75cc7daef9a4837c34363dedc18.jpg
289573-55c6fe1b2cbf427e5bd61c4b4a7b51f1.jpg
WOW! That is crazy!

I cleaned mine yesterday for the first time this season (burned 1 ton so far) and I had about 1/16th of an inch all the way around mine.