Pelpro pp130. Lazy flame. Overflowing burn pot. All of sudden Only 1 ton pellets in.

[llidisky]

Hey everyone. So this year I installed the pp130 in our house. I have it vented through an exhausting flu with 4" all the way up. I also have an outside air kit installed. So first ton of pellets. It was doing awesome. We vacuum well every day or two. Near the end of that ton the convection blower started to whistle so I deep cleaned it and reinstalled as well as cleaned the flu Tee clean out, and it worked great for about 4 days. Then all of the sudden the flame got lazy. Started seeing black building on glass and inside of stove. And the burn pot seems to be overfilling often. I tried adjusting the dial on the stove that I believe adjusts the auger speed. But when I adjust it down. My flame gets really small and it doesn't put out much heat. So I'm kinda at a loss on what to do. I am including pics of the burn pot. This was vacuumed yesterday. A video of flame also

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The stove was burning about a bag to bag and a half a day. Now it's 3.5-4. Ideas??

 

[johneh]

Usually a lazy flame , black build up on glass and overflowing pellets
indicates a lake of combustion air . Check air intake (OAK) exhaust
passages in stove and clean vacuum . Check and clean combustion motor
Clean chimney . Do a leaf blower clean if you have one ,
Note ash can hide in some strange places

 

[llidisky]

So I just pulled the panels on inside of stove and the exhaust outlet did have quite a bit of ash that I couldn't see without pulling panels. Just pulled all panels and vacuumed. Fired back up. Will update in a bit.

Usually a lazy flame , black build up on glass and overflowing pellets
indicates a lake of combustion air . Check air intake (OAK) exhaust
passages in stove and clean vacuum . Check and clean combustion motor
Clean chimney . Do a leaf blower clean if you have one ,
Note ash can hide in some strange places

I

 

[pelletstoveuser]

Did you ever get this issue resolved? I have the exact same problem with one I have installed in my garage. I vacuum it out daily and pull the panels out once a week. I also clean the "T" on the back of the stove about once a month and pull the combustion fan about twice a season and clean it out. If I leave the stove on any setting above the very lowest setting on the dial it will overfill the fire pot over time. By the time it uses a full hopper of pellets or close to it, the pot will be full as well and the entire bottom of the stove will be full of unburnt pellets to the top of the fire pot. The trim dial seems to have no affect on how it operates. In my opinion they needed a combustion motor with a little more output capability, I think it is a design flaw that their ego does not allow them to remedy. I have my stove 2' off the floor with a 5' upright 3" chimney pipe coming off of a "T" on the back of the stove to a 90 on a 3' horizontal 3" pipe that takes it through the wall to the outside.

 

[Ssyko]

If you are 100% sure its clean I’d have to say theres a problem with the control board, particularly the trim pot (heat adjustment) or the prom program has been corrupted.

 

[Jeremy6500]

I agree that most of the time this behavior is due to air flow issues, but bad pellets can create a ton of ash and soot that will block air flow very quickly.

I have a PP130 that I have had this issue with occasionally. For mine it is a combination of keeping it clean (especially the exhaust venting) and the quality of pellets I burn. I got a batch of off brand pellet a little while ago since they didn't have what I usually get. They produced a bunch of ash and would fill the pot/stove/vent extremely fast. They also deposited black soot all over everything. This caused failed ignition sensing, lazy flame, etc etc.

I am now burning Lignetics hard wood pellets and no longer have this issue. I usually turn the stove off and dump the ash out of the pot every 1-2 days. I pull the interior panels and vacuum everything really well about once a week. Once a month I clean the vent piping and I pull the combustion fan to clean it about once a season.

I will say that it is fairly sensitive to pellet quality and maintenance. I currently do not have a fresh air intake on mine.

I have messed with the trim setting some, but never really saw much difference in relation to overfilling the burn pot.

For reference mine is currently using about a bag a day. So a hopper full would be about 3 bags. I usually dump the ash out of my burn pot about every 1.5-2.5 bags.

 

[pelletstoveuser]

Thanks for the feedback---I burn about what Jeremy states for pellets in a day and since mine is in a garage I also do not have a fresh air vent or combustion vent to the outside. I have been burning a softwood pellet "Black Hills Gold" MFG in Spearfish, SD that may be part of the cause. Its been a while since I have burned hard wood pellets so I may spend the extra dollar or so for some hard wood pellets on the next round of pellets I get. Indeck wood pellets are the only Hardwood pellets I have been able to find locally and I used before so I will test those out against the soft wood pellets I have used for the past year or so.

 

[Jeremy6500]

When you say no combustion vent, do you mean it is dumping exhaust into the garage? I wouldn’t think that would be safe. As far as softwood vs hardwood. Good softwood pellets are supposed to burn hotter and cleaner than hardwood. Do you have access to any other brand of softwood pellets to try? I use hardwood because they are what is available in my area and are less expensive here.

 

[Dataman]

Wow vent Pellet Stove inside. I hope he's Ok and not dead

 

[pelletstoveuser]

When you say no combustion vent, do you mean it is dumping exhaust into the garage? I wouldn’t think that would be safe. As far as softwood vs hardwood. Good softwood pellets are supposed to burn hotter and cleaner than hardwood. Do you have access to any other brand of softwood pellets to try? I use hardwood because they are what is available in my area and are less expensive here.

No I am speaking of your combustion fresh air vent that sucks in the air to supply the actual fire not being ducted to the outside of the exterior wall. The other is what we call a Chimney or Exhaust vent as it may be referred to in some regions which is set up as I described in my original post to this topic.
I agree the soft wood pellets do appear to burn hotter which is why I chose those and the hard wood pellets here as I stated are about a dollar higher than the soft wood pellets. However, Spearfish, SD is only about 3 hours from my area so the trucking may be why the hard wood pellets from Wisconsin are a little higher. I have also tried Purcell pellets that come out of Idaho but they really have no advantage over either of the two types I have access to locally.

 

[FixedGearFlyer]

We have 2 PP130s that we put in this year. One has been amazing since day 1 and the other has been a challenge, but we finally have it figured out.

The trim doesn't adjust the pellet feed - it adjusts the amount of combustion air from the variable speed combustion blower. Try turning it up to a higher trim number to get more combustion air into your burn pot. The more difficult PP130 we have needs a +3 trim setting to burn cleanly, while the other burns like a champ at -1/2.

Also, you mention vacuuming. Do you also scrape the burn pot and ream the air holes at least weekly? If not, you may have carbon deposits blocking the air holes in your burn pot, which would also cause the lazy burn and unburned pellets.

 

[pelletstoveuser]

In the manual it states that if you have a lazy flame or soot build up to turn the dial counter clockwise. I have tried adjusting it both directions but only once in the clockwise direction as I figured they are indicating that would slow down air flow. For this particular problem with pellets piling up should I in fact be making adjustments in the clockwise direction off of zero? I appreciate the advise and find this to be a good site to read and ask questions about theses pellet stoves.....

 

[FixedGearFlyer]

In the manual it states that if you have a lazy flame or soot build up to turn the dial counter clockwise. I have tried adjusting it both directions but only once in the clockwise direction as I figured they are indicating that would slow down air flow. For this particular problem with pellets piling up should I in fact be making adjustments in the clockwise direction off of zero? I appreciate the advise and find this to be a good site to read and ask questions about theses pellet stoves.....

I know that's what it says, but it also says if the fire goes out, turn it clockwise. The trim adjustment isn't very well described.

On both of ours, turning clockwise increases combustion air. On the one in the shop, going too far goes to blowtorch and the tall lazy flames, so it's just counter clockwise of zero.

On the one in the house (exact same install, including pipe size and length), a neutral trim setting is such low combustion air that the vac switch trips and stops the pellet feed when it's running on low. That one needs a trim of about +3 to run like the one in the shop.

I don't know if it's a difference in the combustion blower or the trim pot, but it's not the vacuum switch - I've swapped them between stoves with no change in behavior.

 

[guatamican eye fake]

Thanks for the feedback---I burn about what Jeremy states for pellets in a day and since mine is in a garage I also do not have a fresh air vent or combustion vent to the outside. I have been burning a softwood pellet "Black Hills Gold" MFG in Spearfish, SD that may be part of the cause. Its been a while since I have burned hard wood pellets so I may spend the extra dollar or so for some hard wood pellets on the next round of pellets I get. Indeck wood pellets are the only Hardwood pellets I have been able to find locally and I used before so I will test those out against the soft wood pellets I have used for the past year or so.

Ive been burning black hills gold this winter and I thought they were a good pellet. Probably one of the best softwoods I've burned. Not alot of choices for softwoods locally here though

 

[pelletstoveuser]

I like the black hills for the most part as they seem to burn hotter, the Purcel brand out of Idaho is about the same with the exception of they seem to have a little less saw dust in them. I did have some build up in the transition area between the exhaust blower and the chimney and I dialed up the trim adjustment to +1 in the clockwise direction and so far it has been doing quite well. As I stated before from reading the manual I understood it to be that if you wanted more air flow you turned the trim counterclockwise. It states in part that if you have heavy soot or lazy flame to turn it counterclockwise, which to me would indicate you are not getting enough air so I assumed turning the trim counterclockwise would either increase air flow or decrease auger feed......Anyway thanks again for all the advise and suggestions and I have to state this is one of the better message boards I have ever interacted with.

 

[pelletstoveuser]

I talked to Pelpro tech support today and they told me the trim dial adjusts or changes the auger feed rate as well as the amount of combustion air. They told me the negative side of the zero setting slows both down and the positive side speeds both up. I timed the off cycle time of the auger with the dial at -4 and +4 and there is about a 3/4 to full a full second difference, the -4 it was off for about 4.5 seconds and +4 it cycles off for about 3.5 seconds. I was just using a stop watch so about a 1/4 second variance is what I was seeing between results. This design probably works well when all factors are a constant but in the case of pellet stoves sold nation wide probably not such a good idea. Since they cannot control the altitude or name brand of pellet being used you would have to set you air to fuel mixture differently for different geographical locations as well as fuel, you won't have much luck just having some canned settings that turn both up or down linearly. Basically what they have on what they call a trim dial is actually a gain dial where as they can turn up or down the output of the stove in reference to the thermostat dial. I know something about fuel to air ratios because I work on duel fuel oil/gas boilers in the northern plains and rocky mountains areas and none of them are set the same on the fuel air settings to get the same desired emissions results. And all of the boilers I work on are identical name brand and size.
So now what the question is has any one wired one of these stoves so you can adjust the feed rate or air flow independently of the stove control board? If anyone has done a mod or knows about upgrading these to have independent adjustments or even if you can plug in to the control board and fine tune those adjustments on there would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Jeremy6500]

I talked to Pelpro tech support today and they told me the trim dial adjusts or changes the auger feed rate as well as the amount of combustion air. They told me the negative side of the zero setting slows both down and the positive side speeds both up. I timed the off cycle time of the auger with the dial at -4 and +4 and there is about a 3/4 to full a full second difference, the -4 it was off for about 4.5 seconds and +4 it cycles off for about 3.5 seconds. I was just using a stop watch so about a 1/4 second variance is what I was seeing between results. This design probably works well when all factors are a constant but in the case of pellet stoves sold nation wide probably not such a good idea. Since they cannot control the altitude or name brand of pellet being used you would have to set you air to fuel mixture differently for different geographical locations as well as fuel, you won't have much luck just having some canned settings that turn both up or down linearly. Basically what they have on what they call a trim dial is actually a gain dial where as they can turn up or down the output of the stove in reference to the thermostat dial. I know something about fuel to air ratios because I work on duel fuel oil/gas boilers in the northern plains and rocky mountains areas and none of them are set the same on the fuel air settings to get the same desired emissions results. And all of the boilers I work on are identical name brand and size.
So now what the question is has any one wired one of these stoves so you can adjust the feed rate or air flow independently of the stove control board? If anyone has done a mod or knows about upgrading these to have independent adjustments or even if you can plug in to the control board and fine tune those adjustments on there would be greatly appreciated.

It would be nice if you adjust them separately. It makes no sense that they would increase both or decrease both. I would think that for the adjustment to be worth anything it should be the inverse. One way should increase the air and decrease the fuel, while the other way should increase the fuel and decrease the air. That way you could find the sweet spot for the air/fuel ratio to give you a good clean burn.

 

[Mt Bob]

They are a cheap stove.However, they are designed and tested, to provide durability,ease of use and meeting emissions. They know their designs will not suit all locations/installs, and are very good about taking a stove back and refunding your cash. To add in more features/usability can make the price jump immensely. Their market is the people that buy a home heating device at a farm/ranch/big box store, and can install it and use it easily.

 

[pelletstoveuser]

It would be nice if you adjust them separately. It makes no sense that they would increase both or decrease both. I would think that for the adjustment to be worth anything it should be the inverse. One way should increase the air and decrease the fuel, while the other way should increase the fuel and decrease the air. That way you could find the sweet spot for the air/fuel ratio to give you a good clean burn.

I agree

 

[pelletstoveuser]

I have had other pellet stoves in past and the one thing I noticed between the Pelpro pp130 and others is a stark difference in the burn pots design. The thing about this stove also is the design of the pot lends itself to filling up fairly quickly with ash, as it states on the placard to clean out after one bag but it also has a pictoral indicating to dump it daily as to what I would assume every 24 hours. Well I do dump mine daily as it does get fairly filled up after a days worth of running whether on low or turned up. So a while back I decided to get a new burn pot as the OEM one started to get a hole burned through the side of it, this stove is about six years old. After getting my new burn pot I took the old one and did a little repair work to and then modified it to be similar to some of the other styles I have seen. I have ran if for five days now with this burn pot. I ran one bag through it initially and when it ran out there where just few pellets in the bottom that came in after the fire extinguished due to running out of pellets in the hopper. Other than those few pellets there was no ash or clinkers to speak of in the burn pot and all the ash was in the bottom of the stove outside of the burn pot. Then I ran three bags through it over a three day span and same results except I turned it off to clean it and there were no residual pellets in the burn pot. I run it on the -4 setting on the trim and it still burns a little rich regardless of the trim setting but it always has, which is why I wish you could either regulate the auger feed or combustion air independently.
Little update: I turned the setting up to +1 and it burns about the same in regards to flame size, color and richness.

 

[sweaty]

I have had other pellet stoves in past and the one thing I noticed between the Pelpro pp130 and others is a stark difference in the burn pots design. The thing about this stove also is the design of the pot lends itself to filling up fairly quickly with ash, as it states on the placard to clean out after one bag but it also has a pictoral indicating to dump it daily as to what I would assume every 24 hours. Well I do dump mine daily as it does get fairly filled up after a days worth of running whether on low or turned up. So a while back I decided to get a new burn pot as the OEM one started to get a hole burned through the side of it, this stove is about six years old. After getting my new burn pot I took the old one and did a little repair work to and then modified it to be similar to some of the other styles I have seen. I have ran if for five days now with this burn pot. I ran one bag through it initially and when it ran out there where just few pellets in the bottom that came in after the fire extinguished due to running out of pellets in the hopper. Other than those few pellets there was no ash or clinkers to speak of in the burn pot and all the ash was in the bottom of the stove outside of the burn pot. Then I ran three bags through it over a three day span and same results except I turned it off to clean it and there were no residual pellets in the burn pot. I run it on the -4 setting on the trim and it still burns a little rich regardless of the trim setting but it always has, which is why I wish you could either regulate the auger feed or combustion air independently.
Little update: I turned the setting up to +1 and it burns about the same in regards to flame size, color and richness.

Interesting. So what kind of modification did you do? The factory pot was two metal pieces inter locked with some holes drilled if I remember correctly. Did you enlarge the holes or make more holes?

 

[pelletstoveuser]

Well looking at most of the other brands I noticed they all basically had the same design as each other but much different than pelpro. They have the majority of holes, slots or otherwise air access on the bottom of their burn pot not all from the sides or above pointed downward. So I welded all the holes up, cut off the angled piece on the removable front and plated off the two oval holes on that. Then I welded up all the other holes. Next I set the base up in my mill and had it drill .150" holes spaced the same a part to end up with a grate that looks similar to a meet grider die, pellet mill die or concave in a combine. I figured I would see how that ran and close up some or add some to the sides as needed. I thought about maybe adding one row on the sides close to the bottom to get a little cross combustion air action but I haven't yet and may not. My stove runs all winter and as I stated I have to shut it down every day to clean the burn pot. Since i did this I wait until I see the ash start to pile up on the bottom of the window and then shut it down and vacuum out the ash all around the pot but have not had any build up in or under it.

One other think of note that I have noticed, along with not getting any build up of ash and clinkers in the burn pot I also haven't been getting any residual partially burnt or un-burnt pellets out side of the burn pot like I used to. What I vacuum up now is ALL very fine ash

 

[pelletstoveuser]

Well today I did a little more tuning on the burn pot. As I mentioned previously, after I had made my changes, it still kind of ran a little rich. So I added some holes around the sides just above at the base and that seems to have gotten it to burn a little leaner now from what I can tell. I figured since the bottom never fills up with ash any more I could add some cross air action to fan the burn the a little more and that made a noticeable difference. I had been using the new Stainless steel pot I got but after about a day it ends up filling up with ash, clinkers and such and it got cold here again and so I figured I would use my upgraded burn pot so I could leave it run and not worry about it filling up with ash and the fire going out.

 

[pelletstoveuser]

To give you an idea of how well the modified burn pot keeps the ashes out of the fire pot, take a look at the two pictures. This was after about 4 bags over two days. The OEM pot will fill up in about a day after about a bag and a half. It also does not get black sooted up like it does with the OEM pot either, which may somewhat occur from when it is shut down but at any rate it does not get the black soot all over inside between cleanings. It is more brown like the color of the ash it leaves

 

[Gtobrian1977]

Ours did the same after the first 10 bags or so. Every so often it still does. I vacuum it then crank it all the way up for 2 hours. Seems to burn all build up out of it. Burn it hot then adjust to liking