Problem with Avalon Astoria pellet stove

[RaeZ]

Help! I am having a bit of a problem with my Avalon Astoria pellet stove. After having it run all winter we ran out of pellets and it sat off for about a week. We finally got more pellets and started it up only to have it start with this problem:
It starts just fine and runs for awhile then we smell smoke in the house and the auger seems to not being working because it isn't dropping pellets. This has happened twice now, it was running Thursday evening and shut down late at night. We had it off for that night, before trying to start it we cleaned out the exhaust pipe. It started with no problems and had been running until Sunday afternoon when it did the same thing. I thought maybe the problem was it was a windy day on Thursday and maybe the wind was affecting it but today is a nice calm day. I'm not sure what to do at this point and thought you guys on her might know what is happening and further steps to take.

 

[Lake Girl]

Buffalo - my old home town (actually Grand Island but close enough!). How many bags of pellets have you burned so far? Is it new or new to you (used)? If not new, how old? How is your exhaust venting set-up and do you have an OAK (outside air kit)? Do you have the manual? (broken link removed)

Unplug stove. Pages 34-36 give you the information to complete the "yearly" maintenance. If you have burned 50 bags, you need to do a thorough cleaning of the internal exhaust pathways. If these pathways become clogged with ash, temperature of the stove body will increase and cause an overheat which will shut down the auger. Clean behind firebrick, into ash traps behind the firebrick and the clean-out ports on the stove body sides (behind side panels) shown at the bottom of page 34. I normally use a dryer lint brush to brush fly ash trapped in the stove body and a tube attached to my shop vac with a drywall bag to get into all the nooks and crannies. Make sure ash is completely out... Clean combustion blower but make sure you have replacement gaskets just in case. Convection blower likely will need cleaning too - especially if you have pets.

If you've already done this, the above questions will give us a better starting point... keep us posted.

 

[stovelark]

Agree with Lakegirl. Shutting down a few days let the exhaust coagulate and settle in- now the vac switch is prob not letting be closed due to the exh blower can't push the flyash out of the way to allow the vac sw to close, to operate the auger. Prob needs a good internal cleaning. Most problems with stoves in Mar/Apr are the stoves have a "cold" and can't breathe. Good luck.

 

[RaeZ]

Buffalo - my old home town (actually Grand Island but close enough!). How many bags of pellets have you burned so far? Is it new or new to you (used)? If not new, how old? How is your exhaust venting set-up and do you have an OAK (outside air kit)? Do you have the manual? (broken link removed)

Unplug stove. Pages 34-36 give you the information to complete the "yearly" maintenance. If you have burned 50 bags, you need to do a thorough cleaning of the internal exhaust pathways. If these pathways become clogged with ash, temperature of the stove body will increase and cause an overheat which will shut down the auger. Clean behind firebrick, into ash traps behind the firebrick and the clean-out ports on the stove body sides (behind side panels) shown at the bottom of page 34. I normally use a dryer lint brush to brush fly ash trapped in the stove body and a tube attached to my shop vac with a drywall bag to get into all the nooks and crannies. Make sure ash is completely out... Clean combustion blower but make sure you have replacement gaskets just in case. Convection blower likely will need cleaning too - especially if you have pets.

If you've already done this, the above questions will give us a better starting point... keep us posted.

Thanks for helping with my problem. We ended up finding out it was the exhaust fan. It had so much dust around it that it was shutting off. Just needed to give it a good cleaning. Thanks so much

 

[Lake Girl]

What we're here for! How's Buffalo? Anything exciting going on?