Power failure last night caused no issues for Invincible

[Tim_M]

Two hours after lighting my 24-year old Harman Invincible last night the power went out. I had gone out to visit my parents and wasn't able to get back home until almost an hour later. In my 5 years with this stove this had never happened, and I was worried about smoke filling the house or even burn-back through the auger tube. But thankfully there were no problems at all - no smell of smoke and just a faint glow of coals in the burn pot. When the power came back 30 minutes after returning home the stove kicked back on and within seconds it was burning normally like nothing had happened. Not sure if things would have been any different had I not been burning on the lowest possible setting. Anyway I just thought some of you might be interested in a real life power failure experience.

 

[womaus]

Two hours after lighting my 24-year old Harman Invincible last night the power went out. I had gone out to visit my parents and wasn't able to get back home until almost an hour later. In my 5 years with this stove this had never happened, and I was worried about smoke filling the house or even burn-back through the auger tube. But thankfully there were no problems at all - no smell of smoke and just a faint glow of coals in the burn pot. When the power came back 30 minutes after returning home the stove kicked back on and within seconds it was burning normally like nothing had happened. Not sure if things would have been any different had I not been burning on the lowest possible setting. Anyway I just thought some of you might be interested in a real life power failure experience.

Chances are even at the lowest settings you would have seen the same results. Sounds like you had it running long enough to get the vent heated up, getting a nice draft going.

You do have some sort o protection for the electronics though, right? A power surge can cause all sorts of problems.

 

[fedtime]

I self installed a pellet stove a few years ago and had it WET inspected - my insurance company required it and I wanted to be sure I'd done it correctly.

The inspector told me that most insurance companies here in Nova Scotia require a 5' vertical rise (more than the NBC requires) for exactly the circumstances you experienced. The rise provides sufficient draft to pull hot gasses from the stove and cool it properly should the power go out.

And I second the surge protection. A few years ago a power failure followed by a few spikes fried basically everything in our house that had a transformer.

 

[velvetfoot]

I put a whole house surge protector in years ago. I have no idea if it works, thankfully and knock on wood.

 

[Tim_M]

I hadn't heard about that requirement for a 5' vertical rise but it makes sense. Both of my stoves are vented into a 25' chimney and I've never had any drafting issues.

My stoves are plugged into surge protector power bars, not sure how much protection they would provide in the event of a spike. In hindsight I probably should've unplugged them when I got home, before the power came back.

 

[velvetfoot]

I usually turn off the main breaker in a power outage. I have a doo hickey that beeps when power comes back on.