Problem/Question Quad. Pellet Castille Insert

[dbchris]

As some of you know, I'm a new owner of a Quadradfire Castille Instert Pellet Stove. I'm now getting a chance to run it through it's cycles cause the weather has cooled down. I have had the following problem with the stove since it's installation. When ever I start my stove, it goes through a start up cycle. I start the stove by moving the thermostat up. It goes through it's 5-10 min. start up where it feeds pellets and gets the stove going. No problems so far... However, when the fan kicks on it no longer feeds pellets and the stove goes out even though the red call light is on. To correct this I move the thermostat to off and back on -- then no problems from there on until it reaches it's thermostat temp. Once the stove goes off because of reaching the thermostat temp. and cools down, it starts up only to fail agian when the fan goes on. Then I have to put the thermostat to off and on again. Then the stove runs great! Yes the red call light is still on. Yes the fire pot is closed & clean. The fire pot is a tricky thing to get closed! This has happened every time the stove has cooled down. It starts, but will not continue once the fan goes on. I tested it this past weekend if it would re-start if the stove was warm. Yes it does. The room met the thermostat reading, and the stove shut down. I then opened the outside door to to cool the room. The stove started with no problem. Again the stove was still warm, although it did go through it's shut down cycle and was completly off. If I am not clear on this please let me know. I'm not really savy with all the terminology yet. I'm hoping someone else has had this and found a solution because the marketing materials say it should come on when the thermostat calls for heat. I do appreciate your thoughts!
Thanks!
Beth

 

[begreen]

Yes as long as the thermostat is calling for heat, the stove should keep running assuming that there is flame present and it's keeping the thermocouple hot, that the feed rate is set correctly and the stove hasn't overheated. I'll have to read up a little on the Castille as I don't understand what is meant by closing the pot?

Just a guess, but it sounds like the stove might be kicking off due to the high-heat sensor overheating. It could be that the high heat sensor is the wrong range. If someone installed a pair of the lower temp fan on/off sensors instead of installing the correct high-temp shut off snap switch, it would kick off early. Or it could just be that the high-limit snap switch is defective. Your dealer should be able to tell this and fix in a jiffy.

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

Yea, this is a odd problem. You definatly need to have a tech out and check some voltages. The nuber two snap disk closing and turning on the fan should have nothing to do with the auger motor. Its possible that the thermocople cover is full of ash and its not getting the thermocouple quite hot enough, but not likey. If i had to guess, either the control board is set on the wrong program or its bad.

Surely you have called your dealer by now.

 

[begreen]

By the schematic it looks like snap disk number 1 turns the convection fan on and off. Snap disk number 2 is the high heat switch in series with the vacuum switch + auger motor. If it opens, it will turn off the feed motor. So would a leaky or marginal vacuum switch.

Just a guess, but is there is also a remote possibilty that the door is not tight enough and when the stove heats up, too much air is getting by the gasket to maintain a good vacuum? If this was the case though, I would expect the air sound to be audible.

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

still, snap 1 has nothing to do with the auger motor, at least i dont think it does.

 

[begreen]

Correct, it's snap 2 that can break the auger circuit. Sorry, I didn't have the schematic out when I posted last night.

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

I would agree about the vacume switch, but why does the convection blower kick off the auger? If the vacume switch was bad or flakey, it would be intermentantly bad, not consistantly bad in this case. What do you think?

 

[dbchris]

Hi Folks, I just called the Stove Shop & left a message. I'll keep you posted on what happens.

Thanks!
Beth

 

[begreen]

The convection blower circuit (and snap switch 1) doesn't affect the auger. The High Limit snap switch (#2) is not in the same circuit as the convection blower snap switch. The high limit (overheat) snap switch, vacuum switch and auger are in series so that if the stove overheats or loses it's vacuum, the auger stops feeding pellets.

My wondering aloud about the vacuum switch is just hypothetical. What I was thinking was that as the stove heated up, metal expansion might increase a door gasket leak just enough to cause the vacuum switch to open up. If the door latch tension was marginal when cold, maybe it became unacceptible when hot? I guessed this because when I first ran the 1200i, the door wasn't very tight and as it warmed up, it started to whistle via the air getting by the gasket. All it took was a couple screw turns on the door latch tensioner to fix and it never reoccurred.

Like you said, this is an odd case. It will be interesting to see what they find.

 

[dbchris]

I just talked to service at the stove shop. They feel it's a control box issue and have scheduled a service call to come out to look at it. Guess I'll know more after 11/2 appt. I'll let you know more after the call.

Thanks!
Beth

 

[dbchris]

Update. The stove shop was here to check out our problem of stove not firing up properly. Was an easy fix. The thermocouple was misadjusted by the factory. The installers did not know to check for this. Simple fix, the thermocouple cover was removed and the thermocouple was moved about 3/4 of an inch more into the burn pot. Now the thermocouple sits about 2 inches into the pot. Sure hope that's all it was!

A couple of things that the service man mentioned that I thought were very useful:

Put your stove on a surge protector.
Clean your glass with ceramic stove top cleaner, never windex
If burn pot does not close easily, use a toothbrush to brush the bolt that is used to pivot the bottom plate. also you can loosen the bolt a little to make it close easier.
Always ground yourself when cleaning near or around the control box
Never remove the control box while cleaning dust could get in
If you have to remove the control box, unplug the unit first
When cold, bring in bags of pellets about a week prior to using so any condensation leaves the bag.

Thanks!
Beth

 

[begreen]

Good to hear it was a simple fix and good advice. FWIW, I never removed the control box except to replace. For the most part, I can't see why a user would need to do this. (Yikes I used Windex for 5 years, seemed fine.)

At a bag a day, I didn't have room inside for a week's worth, so we only kept a couple bags ahead stored in the house. Condensation was never an issue by staying a day or two ahead. And when hot, I wasn't burning pellets. ;-)

 

[Czech]

Windex? Ahhhggg! Did they say why? Did they say anything about orange glo to clean the outside of the stove? Oyster shell? I knew I'd screw up somehow...

Good to hear you figured it out Beth.

 

[dbchris]

Windex? Ahhhggg! Did they say why? Did they say anything about orange glo to clean the outside of the stove? Oyster shell? I knew I'd screw up somehow...

Good to hear you figured it out Beth.

Gotz, I do not know why he said NO WINDEX. I have a feeling it is the amonia residue. However, he had left our house after the service call and a minute later came back and rang my door bell to tell me about this. He did mention that a glass ceramic cooktop cleaner would "condition the glass, the glass needs conditioning." I asked where to buy such a product and he mentioned walmart. I went to Agway today and bought CookTop Magic. It seems to be the same thing he described. I cleaned the glass with it. No problems so far, but to new to determine the outcome.

He did not mention cleaning the outside of the stove at all. RATS, wish I had asked!! I also want to ask why the installer said we are "not set up for corn." When I hear every one is doing it. Hmmmm.

Hey isn't it your folks stove/insert that had problems? Did they get a new one?

Hope this helps!
Beth

 

[dbchris]

Good to hear it was a simple fix and good advice. FWIW, I never removed the control box except to replace. For the most part, I can't see why a user would need to do this. (Yikes I used Windex for 5 years, seemed fine.)

At a bag a day, I didn't have room inside for a week's worth, so we only kept a couple bags ahead stored in the house. Condensation was never an issue by staying a day or two ahead. And when hot, I wasn't burning pellets. ;-)

BeGreen, sorry you had to replace your control box. Is this something I should plan on budget wise every xxx years? Or do a lot of other things go wrong like augers, blowers etc.

I am just trying to get a handle an expenses I may encounter yearly.

Thanks!
Beth

 

[begreen]

My stove had the earlier generation control box. From what I could tell the triac for the exhaust motor burned out. Now I'm not sure if this was because they were running too close to spec, or if it was because I left it plugged in all year round (no need to do this in summer). We have a fair amount of power outages and it could have been a spike that did it. I'll never know, but the new control box seemed a bit more sophisticated and never gave us an issue after that. I would just unplug the unit during the non-use months and not worry about it.