Blah, Blah.....bought a new house that came with a pellet stove. Year: 2000, Model: Enviro EF-4 insert with a 20' 4" conduit up to a capped chimney vent. Called the local chimney sweep company to clean the exhaust vent (seriously needed it) and learned how to do it myself in the future. When I pulled out the stove, I can see that is all they did, the inner workings are packed full of dust bunnies and old dropped pellets. The pellet stove had about half a bag of unknowns left over from the previous owner that I have been using to test and configure the settings. They are between 3/4" - 1 1/2" long and burn rather well.
So onto the issues I am having. I did some research and my unit has the 1 second auger control, in order to keep a fire going, the dial-a-fire control has to be set at 12:00 minimum. Any less (towards the blue zone) and the feed rate cannot keep up with the burn rate and she slowly whittles down to nothing - not too big of a deal, may replace with the 3 second auger control unit in the future. However, the amount of air this unit receives while burning is enough to not just blow the ashes out of the burn pot, but also makes the burning pellets dance around. Some will flicker around the pot and blow out and into the stove (there is no ash try - bottom of stove catches all material). When looking through the online manuals, it states the damper control is behind the "left side panel" of the unit and is secured with a 5/16" hex screw. I have been playing "Where's Waldo" and cannot find this screw for the life of me. Any input? I believe if I close down the damper, I can slow down the blow torch flame and keep just the ashes out of the burn pot, not all the burning fuel.
Also, I am having trouble with the convection blower (distribution). As I stated earlier, the whole backside of the unit is packed with dust bunnies and the blower is no exception. It works just fine on "Max" all the way down to about 7, any lower and it begins to get loud and then just cuts out. I have the replacement motor information and the local garden center has some in stock, but I am planning on removing it, blowing/vacuuming out all the dust, and adding a few drops of motor lube (3-in-1) to the oil injection ports to see if I can revive it. From the symptoms I described, does this sound like a waste of time? Does it sound like dust/lack of oil would let it rotate on max, then cut out as I dial it back down, or is this a symptom of the bushings gone bad?
Thanks for any information - this is my first pellet stove and I am trying to gather as much information as I can before coming to the experts here for help.
So onto the issues I am having. I did some research and my unit has the 1 second auger control, in order to keep a fire going, the dial-a-fire control has to be set at 12:00 minimum. Any less (towards the blue zone) and the feed rate cannot keep up with the burn rate and she slowly whittles down to nothing - not too big of a deal, may replace with the 3 second auger control unit in the future. However, the amount of air this unit receives while burning is enough to not just blow the ashes out of the burn pot, but also makes the burning pellets dance around. Some will flicker around the pot and blow out and into the stove (there is no ash try - bottom of stove catches all material). When looking through the online manuals, it states the damper control is behind the "left side panel" of the unit and is secured with a 5/16" hex screw. I have been playing "Where's Waldo" and cannot find this screw for the life of me. Any input? I believe if I close down the damper, I can slow down the blow torch flame and keep just the ashes out of the burn pot, not all the burning fuel.
Also, I am having trouble with the convection blower (distribution). As I stated earlier, the whole backside of the unit is packed with dust bunnies and the blower is no exception. It works just fine on "Max" all the way down to about 7, any lower and it begins to get loud and then just cuts out. I have the replacement motor information and the local garden center has some in stock, but I am planning on removing it, blowing/vacuuming out all the dust, and adding a few drops of motor lube (3-in-1) to the oil injection ports to see if I can revive it. From the symptoms I described, does this sound like a waste of time? Does it sound like dust/lack of oil would let it rotate on max, then cut out as I dial it back down, or is this a symptom of the bushings gone bad?
Thanks for any information - this is my first pellet stove and I am trying to gather as much information as I can before coming to the experts here for help.
