I fired up the 25PDVC, that I rebuilt this summer, for the first time last night. I was waiting for the building inspector to give his okay on the installation before firing it up. (That might seem excessively cautious, but it has to do with insurance liability. Homeowners insurance will not cover a loss due to an uninspected installation.)
A few things bothered me about its behavior and I am hoping that someone here with more experience could tell me if this is normal or if there is something wrong.
When I hit the "on" button, it takes about two minutes before I see burning fly ash. So far so good. It took another ten minutes before I saw an actual flame. Comparing the startup time to my Mt Vernon, a ten minute delay seems wrong.
By the time there is an actual flame, the fire pot is half full and proceeds to a very satisfying blaze. Being an engineer, I can't be satisfied with just the fact that it burns, so I got out my infrared thermometer and scaned the outside of the stove. I found that the front right corner of the stove is at 375 degrees F and the left front corner is at 265 degrees F. That seems like a big differential and I wonder if it indicates a blocked passage or an air leak.
When I was rebuilding this stove, I used a shop vac to forcefully evacuate all of the ash, rust and deposits that I could through the flue port. All of the accessible areas were brushed and the small holes at the burn pot were cleared. The impingement plate and the plate at the bottom of the burn pot were replaced. The surface of the igniter was lightly sandpapered to remove scale and it was re-installed back about 1/16" from the aperture to the burn pot. I thoroughly cleaned both blowers, tightened their bearing plates where the crimps had loosened, and installed new gaskets. I didn't touch the augers since they have new bearings and the motors appear to be running okay.
I checked the flue exterior temperature and it is at about 100-120 degrees F.
So, did I miss something or am I just being obsessive?
One additional issue. There is what appears to be a choke plate at the bottom of the hopper. The plate has a slot so that the opening to the top auger can be adjusted. How does one decide on the proper opening?
A few things bothered me about its behavior and I am hoping that someone here with more experience could tell me if this is normal or if there is something wrong.
When I hit the "on" button, it takes about two minutes before I see burning fly ash. So far so good. It took another ten minutes before I saw an actual flame. Comparing the startup time to my Mt Vernon, a ten minute delay seems wrong.
By the time there is an actual flame, the fire pot is half full and proceeds to a very satisfying blaze. Being an engineer, I can't be satisfied with just the fact that it burns, so I got out my infrared thermometer and scaned the outside of the stove. I found that the front right corner of the stove is at 375 degrees F and the left front corner is at 265 degrees F. That seems like a big differential and I wonder if it indicates a blocked passage or an air leak.
When I was rebuilding this stove, I used a shop vac to forcefully evacuate all of the ash, rust and deposits that I could through the flue port. All of the accessible areas were brushed and the small holes at the burn pot were cleared. The impingement plate and the plate at the bottom of the burn pot were replaced. The surface of the igniter was lightly sandpapered to remove scale and it was re-installed back about 1/16" from the aperture to the burn pot. I thoroughly cleaned both blowers, tightened their bearing plates where the crimps had loosened, and installed new gaskets. I didn't touch the augers since they have new bearings and the motors appear to be running okay.
I checked the flue exterior temperature and it is at about 100-120 degrees F.
So, did I miss something or am I just being obsessive?
One additional issue. There is what appears to be a choke plate at the bottom of the hopper. The plate has a slot so that the opening to the top auger can be adjusted. How does one decide on the proper opening?
You may have to take the collar off the old one and put it on your new one.