Pellets filling up pot on new englander PAH. Need assistance

[bucknuckle]

I have a new englander PAH stove that has been recently installed. It's been running great but recently I noticed the blower has been turning off and on. The temp in the room is about 3-4 deg. Colder than what I have the thermo set at. And I believe the pellets are overflowing the pot. What causes this? I have my stove set on 1 and blower speed on 3. ( forgive me I am new to pellets stoves , this is my first one) I am burning stove chow from Home Depot and my 3 factory settings are set to 1-4-1. Any help with this I would be greatly appriciative. Thank you for your time

 

[mithesaint]

Poor heat and pellets overflowing the burnpot are usually the result of a dirty stove. When did you clean the venting/combustion blower/behind the back wall/ash traps last? Was the stove new? How much have you burned so far? Have you checked your gaskets?

 

[bucknuckle]

The stove is approx 3 months old and I have burned 1 1/4 ton in it. I have been cleaning out the burn pot and ash pan about once a week but I have not cleaned out by the blower. I forgot to mention that lately after I clean and relight I usually have to do it twice. I get a code that said failure to light.

 

[bucknuckle]

I took the 2 covers off the sides for the blower and the blower for the chimney. They both seemed pretty clean. However I have not brushed my chimney yet. Could this be my problem? It takes quite a while (overnight) to build up pellets in the pot.

 

[acammer]

Sounds like a loaded up heat exchanger to me. You've typically got to clean the heat exchanger every ton or so, for me that's about once every 4 weeks. This stove is pretty particular about how you clean it out, especially if you burn it dirty and load up the heat exchanger. I've found that the best technique is to clean out the entire fire box area first. Then I remove the clean out plates (one on either side of the fire box on the back wall, secured with two 5/16ths bolts) and vacuum out what's inside. Then, I take a wooden mallet and beat all around on the heat exchanger wall (back of the fire-box - wall where the pellets drop out). I don't beat it like I'm trying to break it, but you need to be fairly vigorous. Keep beating until stuff stops falling down into the clean-out ports. Vacuum it up, and then bang on it some more - it usually takes several minutes of beating and vacuuming to really get it cleaned out right, especially if you let it burn dirty. I usually get 3-4x more material out than what is laying there when the covers first come off. You also may need to pull the combustion blower and clean that as well - there are really good video instructions on Englander's website on how to do this. Before you start - you may need to replace the combustion blower gasket, so make sure you have a spare, or a suitable gasket making material to replace it.

Cleaning the burn pot 1x a week may not be frequently enough to prevent the burn from getting dirty, and a dirty burn is a quick way to load up that heat exchanger and vent piping. I would start with a full cleaning on everything (including the vent pipe) and then report back on how it's running. From there we can look at tweaking settings if we have to, although the 1/4/1 usually yields a really clean burn.

 

[bucknuckle]

Thank you very much. I will try that

 

[bucknuckle]

Ok I cleaned the stove out really good. I cleaned the holes out in the burn pot,took the 2 covers off on the inside and cleaned it out. There was a lot of buildup in there. The. I cleaned the chimney. I did get a lot of ash by the time I was done. I did not however clean out the inside of the blower for the chimney as I do not have another gasket on hand. I must say that my stove is back up and running for the past 24 hours flawlessly. I'm hardly getting any ash buildup on the window either. Whatever ash buildup on the glass is white. Is that a sign of burning properly? Again thanks for the help.

 

[OhioBurner©]

Have you heard of the leaf blower trick? Hook up a leaf blower (suction side) to the exit of your exhaust piping outside, leave the door ajar, and suck out all the ash built up in the stove that you normally can't see. Also, this helps while banging on the back of the firebox... leave the leaf blower going so it will suck it all out instead of making a dust cloud in the house. Last time I did a thorough cleaning I used an air compressor and blow gun into the exhaust ports on the bottom corners of the firebox, also plugged in a small hose to it which I fed all around in there. I banged on the back to just to check and no ash fell down after the blow out.

I've never let my PAH go more than 3 days without cleaning out the burn pot, then again mine has never burned right. Hope I finally fixed my problem, should be able to tell in about a week (2 weeks was about as long as it could run without clogging itself up).

 

[bucknuckle]

I did hear of the leaf blower trick but I never tried it. I will do that next time and I want to attach some type of smaller Hose to my vac a. Can get into right places.

 

[acammer]

Ok I cleaned the stove out really good. I cleaned the holes out in the burn pot,took the 2 covers off on the inside and cleaned it out. There was a lot of buildup in there. The. I cleaned the chimney. I did get a lot of ash by the time I was done. I did not however clean out the inside of the blower for the chimney as I do not have another gasket on hand. I must say that my stove is back up and running for the past 24 hours flawlessly. I'm hardly getting any ash buildup on the window either. Whatever ash buildup on the glass is white. Is that a sign of burning properly? Again thanks for the help.

Sounds like you got her running right, that's awesome. White ash buildup on the glass is perfectly normal - this stove has a pretty weak air-wash and just doesn't keep it's glass very clean. It's amazing how much builds up in that heat exchanger, and the profound effect it has on the stoves performance. Mine runs flat out between 18-24hrs a day with the LFF cranked up to 5 for maximum fueling (and maximum heat) and at that rate I'm doing a heat exchanger cleaning every ton - like every 3-5wks. Nature of the beast I suppose, it's really not that bad to do. Some day I gotta try the leaf blower, but for now a good beating on the heat exchanger seems to shake everything loose. I do keep the vacuum cleaner running with the hose laying in the fire box while I'm beating - this seems to control the ash cloud pretty decently.