Pellet Stove Not Burning As Hot As It Used To.

[mikelo6]

Hi All:

I was wondering if you could help me with a problem.

I purchased a home last summer that has a Harman XXV and electric baseboard heat. Since pellets are so much cheaper than electricity, I try to use the pellet stove as my primary heat source and the baseboards as supplemental.

For most of of December, I was going through 2 bags of pellets a day. The home was staying nice and warm with almost no electric.

However, starting early January, the pellet stove stopped burning as many pellets. It wont burn more than one bag a day. The house is not overly warm.

I have tried setting the stove temp to 7 or room temp to 90 with high distribution blower and low distribution blower. I have tried tweaking the feeder settings. I can't get it to a roaring flame and heat like before.

The strangest thing is that the feeder light on the control panel will be on fairly often but the stove will not be feeding pellets.

Any help would be MUCH appreciated!

Thanks ,

Michael

 

[Bioburner]

Start out with the easy things first as this post looks almost identical to others. When and how well has the stove and the venting been cleaned? Fines box been emptied?

 

[alternativeheat]

Start out with the easy things first as this post looks almost identical to others. When and how well has the stove and the venting been cleaned? Fines box been emptied?

Yes I have noticed in my short stay here thus far that a pattern has emerged. People clean but don't go far enough sometimes. Problems like the OP's sometimes comes down to mechanical failure or board failure but probably 80% or more of the time they just didn't clean deep enough. Or they didn't know about some hidden ( to them) compartment in the stove that also needed cleaning along the way. Once done, yeh, my heat is back and that experience now filed in the memory banks !!

 

[Boom]

One possibility is something in the hopper is blocking the pellets. There is also a slide plate which pushes pellets into my auger slot on the Harman Advance. If that somehow became stuck or disconnected it would not push pellets into the auger? Also leaky gasket might cause the auger not to turn as much as it should. Always be careful not to crush pellets on the hopper gasket. This is from my Harman Advance manual:
FEEDER DOES NOT FEED
1. No pellets in hopper.
2. Firebox draft may be too low for low draft pressure switch in feeder circuit to operate. Check for closed doors, loose or missing gasket on doors or hopper lid, faulty pressure switch.
3. Feed motor will not run until ESP senses 165 deg. F. Maybe you did not put enough pellets in the burn pot before lighting the fire.
4. Something is restricting flow in the hopper or causing the slide plate to stick.
5. Feed motor has failed.

Do you have the manual? It should have a troubleshooting guide. You can download the manual here:
(broken link removed to http://www.harmanstoves.com/Owner-Resources/Install-and-Owners-Manuals.aspx)

Good luck and stay warm.

 

[Pellet-King]

Maybe and most likely there using a different brand of pellet, before i knew of this site i didnt know about all the heat ranges pellet's have.

 

[mikelo6]

Thanks for the replies! I have cleaned the stove pretty well multiple times. I will give it another run through. See if I missed anything.

I am pretty sure that the firebox draft is not too low. there is very good pull in the stove.

I don't think the problem is the feed motor. When I start the stove up, it feeds great! After about 10 minutes that I see it start to slow down its feed and have the light "on" but no feeding.

Could it be a faulty ESP sensor and I need to replace it?

 

[Bioburner]

But line 7 of OP is what concerns me or just your scrutiny of it has increased. Auger feed

 

[chken]

For most of of December, I was going through 2 bags of pellets a day. The home was staying nice and warm with almost no electric.

However, starting early January, the pellet stove stopped burning as many pellets. It wont burn more than one bag a day. The house is not overly warm.

So, if you burned roughly 2 bags a day in most of Dec, it sounds like you burned about a ton. With a new stove, to you, you should clean the vent after a ton to gauge how often you should clean it. Sounds like it needs vent cleaning.