Pellets piling up in firepot below 10ºF.. Tired of it!

[johneh]

Now, now Scott with a little patience, a bit of bubble gum, bailing wire, and a small piece of tin foil one can get just about any stove to burn right even the ones you don't love.

You forgot duct tape !

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

You forgot duct tape !

Bubble gum with a tin foil covering = redneck duct tape, Bubble gum = redneck sealant, Tin foil rolled into a cylinder = redneck venting.

Rednecks don't need all that fancy stuff.

 

[F4jock]

Bubble gum with a tin foil covering = redneck duct tape, Bubble gum = redneck sealant, Tin foil rolled into a cylinder = redneck venting.

Rednecks don't need all that fancy stuff.

What! No WD-40!!??

 

[Bioburner]

Bubble gum with a tin foil covering = redneck duct tape, Bubble gum = redneck sealant, Tin foil rolled into a cylinder = redneck venting.

Rednecks don't need all that fancy stuff.

Yap, dn't need notin fancy ta keep da outhouse warm

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

What! No WD-40!!??

Whatever for? That stuff is dangerous, especially if us rednecks ever get to it.

 

[Harvey Schneider]

OAK and Exhaust should be on the same wall.

And, if possible, terminate the same distance from the building. Pressure from wind rises rapidly as the wind hits an obstruction.

 

[Bobcat698]

Just an update, its still burning great. It can heat the entire house, I've not had to turn on the propane furnace once yet.
One night it was 5 degrees and with the stove maxxed out it was 71 degrees in the house the next morning. 2200 square foot bi-level.

I've burned 1.5 tons so far. This thing bothered me so bad that I'd stop using it for a week at a time because I was fed up with it, its nice to actually get some decent use out of it!

I probably have $2000-$2500 into fixing this stove.. its ridiculous. The main expense was the fresh air "scuttle" I had installed, then a high flow exhaust fan, a service call, etc. Insane.

Finally glad its working though.

 

[tjnamtiw]

Good to hear!
It's kind of like taking your BMW to the dealer. Just keep throwing money at it until you find out what was REALLY wrong with it. I hope you kept all the replaced parts for spares.

 

[Bobcat698]

So.. its acting up again. If I turn it way down, scoop out the excess pellets, and let it clean out at a low setting, it'll be good to go again.
I've even left the draft wide open (knob pulled all the way out) and it will still happen.
I'm pretty sure the ash holes are getting plugged and they can't clean out fast enough.. maybe a fuel issue? I don't know. Should I drill them out another size bigger?

Long story short... the problem isn't fixed, it will just burn better below 10 degrees, then do poorly and pile up below 0... so the problem range has moved down about 10 degrees.

Any thoughts?

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

So.. its acting up again. If I turn it way down, scoop out the excess pellets, and let it clean out at a low setting, it'll be good to go again.
I've even left the draft wide open (knob pulled all the way out) and it will still happen.
I'm pretty sure the ash holes are getting plugged and they can't clean out fast enough.. maybe a fuel issue? I don't know. Should I drill them out another size bigger?

Long story short... the problem isn't fixed, it will just burn better below 10 degrees, then do poorly and pile up below 0... so the problem range has moved down about 10 degrees.

Any thoughts?

Describe in gory detail exactly how you clean the stove.

When did you last do a deep clean and how many bags have you burned since.

There is a u shaped section in the exhaust pathway that plugs up and isn't the easiest to clean.

 

[Bioburner]

There was a factory notice of changing-increasing hole sizes.

 

[Bobcat698]

We did a deep clean on Friday evening, because I knew the cold was coming.

I pull out both slides under the firebox, pull up the two blocker plates vertically and set them outside the stove.
Remove the stirrer, firepot, and brick board.
Next, I remove the 2 circular plugs behind the brick board.
I thoroughly tap on everything and scoot as much ash to the ash pan as possible with the tool and then with my fingers.
After that I take a 6 gauge copper wire (coated) and snake it up through the two holes behind the brickboard, both up and down, on both sides, banging it around.
Then, I dump the ash pan and start in with a vacuum to get any nooks and crannies with the needle nose attachment. Once the big stuff is out, I hook a hose to the end of the vacuum and shove that through as many places as it will go to get to the nooks and crannies.
After that, I reinstall everything and light it back up.

Every second deep cleaning I also clean the 4 inch chimney.

 

[Bobcat698]

There was a factory notice of changing-increasing hole sizes.

Any suggestions on what size I should change to?

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

We did a deep clean on Friday evening, because I knew the cold was coming.

I pull out both slides under the firebox, pull up the two blocker plates vertically and set them outside the stove.
Remove the stirrer, firepot, and brick board.
Next, I remove the 2 circular plugs behind the brick board.
I thoroughly tap on everything and scoot as much ash to the ash pan as possible with the tool and then with my fingers.
After that I take a 6 gauge copper wire (coated) and snake it up through the two holes behind the brickboard, both up and down, on both sides, banging it around.
Then, I dump the ash pan and start in with a vacuum to get any nooks and crannies with the needle nose attachment. Once the big stuff is out, I hook a hose to the end of the vacuum and shove that through as many places as it will go to get to the nooks and crannies.
After that, I reinstall everything and light it back up.

Every second deep cleaning I also clean the 4 inch chimney.

Chances are that you didn't get all of the mess out of that u location and might have pushed ash into it.

It normally takes a high air flow device to really get to it.

Don2222 has posted several threads on the AES stoves including one on getting that area clean.

If the factory modification biobunner is talking about applies to your stove and the burn pot you have in it by all means make the change.

But something tells me that will not be the end of it.

 

[Bobcat698]

Which location, the one behind the brickboard?

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Which location, the one behind the brickboard?

It is at the top of the stove IIRC Don had a video of how he was cleaning that area.

 

[Bioburner]

It is at the top of the stove IIRC Don had a video of how he was cleaning that area.

Wasn't that for the baby magnum?

 

[Bioburner]

I usually get behind the wall with a piece of coat hanger and really dig in and use the leaf blower to get things cleaned out well too. I once had to use a air hose too ,but that's a file from "what I need to clean it? "

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

I don't pay much attention to ity bitty differences in models.

I am not one to just use a scraping or pushing motion when cleaning things that must end up going into other parts of the exhaust channels.

A good case on point is that the same basic exhaust path setup seems to be in use across the entire St. Croix line and there is a hard to clean area down low and between the ash trap clean out ports that in new incarnations they placed a third clean out port.

Xena always maintained that she got to those through the exhaust blower cavity with a shop vacuum.

MSmith66 was always trying to find the cutout diagram of that particular exhaust channel system.

Scraping and using a small length of hose and brushes and thumping moves the mess, then the questions are where did it all go and did I get it out of the stove?

If the mess was left in the stove over the summer and any moisture got to it is can really be stuck and by now after all the preaching that goes on here everyone should know that a good dosage of high air flow along with reapplication of elbow grease and all the devices of stove torture may be required.

 

[tjnamtiw]

''There is a fresh air inlet pulling air from outside, and the damper works off the furnace blower..'' '' I cannot burn the stove at 3 or higher when the temperature is below 10 degrees''

These two statements from the initial post make no sense to me. We have the OAK somehow being controlled by the furnace blower???? WHAT??
The second statement just goes against my common sense (debatable as far as my wife goes). Saying that the outside temperature somehow controls the stove's burn quality INSIDE the house makes no sense UNLESS that OUTSIDE temperature is controlling the incoming air volume. That leads back to this mystery damper. Is it somehow being closed and choking off the supply of incoming air? OR is there a fine mesh screen on the inlet of the OAK that is getting coated with ice as the temperature drops?

The stove, sitting in the house, shouldn't give a crap what temperature is outside! From the very beginning, this thread was missing one thing - LOGIC.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

.

 

[Bobcat698]

''There is a fresh air inlet pulling air from outside, and the damper works off the furnace blower..'' '' I cannot burn the stove at 3 or higher when the temperature is below 10 degrees''

These two statements from the initial post make no sense to me. We have the OAK somehow being controlled by the furnace blower???? WHAT??
The second statement just goes against my common sense (debatable as far as my wife goes). Saying that the outside temperature somehow controls the stove's burn quality INSIDE the house makes no sense UNLESS that OUTSIDE temperature is controlling the incoming air volume. That leads back to this mystery damper. Is it somehow being closed and choking off the supply of incoming air? OR is there a fine mesh screen on the inlet of the OAK that is getting coated with ice as the temperature drops?

The stove, sitting in the house, shouldn't give a crap what temperature is outside! From the very beginning, this thread was missing one thing - LOGIC.

The first post is a bit confusing, my apologies. However, it is clarified pretty well in post number 17 to show you how my fresh air "skuttle" is set up (separately from anything to do with the stove)

There is a fresh air inlet, for the stove alone. It has a mesh outside. It is not icing up. Two nights ago I removed the outside air hose from the back of the stove, to see if anything was affected. It didn't make much difference. I had to stuff a rag in it to keep the cold air from coming in. The stove damper has a slide that blocks more of the exhaust outlet when you push it in, and as you pull it out it, it increases the airflow pushed out the exhaust.

It will burn for days on end at 10 degrees plus. As soon as the temp drops, it has issues. No way around it. I don't no why, that's why I'm asking here. It doesn't seem logical.. but it does it!

 

[Bobcat698]

Here is what my burn pot looks like after just 3-4 days in very cold weather. Bigger holes needed or something else?

 

[Bioburner]

That's not a OEM pot. Could be the problem. Heres picture of one out of stove that's OEM

 

[Bobcat698]

It's OEM.
In a stroke of brilliance a couple years ago I drilled some extra holes in the back piece under the pellet diverter to try to alleviate this issue. I purchased a brand new burn pot, compared it to the one I had, then returned it, as it was identical other than my custom holes.