Quad Castile question

[smalltown]

I've just burnt 1 1/2 bags on my Castile. It's been running very good. So far we have just been taking the edge of off the cold nights running it on low.
Last evening while watching TV I thought I heard a noise a sort of a grinding noise just a momentary one almost like someone very quickly clearing their throat. I looked toward the stove everything seemed to be ok and chaulked it up to some noise in the television show.
A little later the stove shut down and I thought it must have reached the required temp for the external thermostat and shut down for a while. When it seemed to be off for too long I took a look.
The red call light was on and nothing was happening. I moved the temp control up and down on the standard Quad themostat the dealer had installed and the stove acted like it was going to start running. A cycle seemed to start I thought I heard a few pelletes drop I had a small fire then nothing.
I checked my operaters manual, but didn't see my problem in the troubleshooting section nor while searching the forum database.
I decided to try pressing the reset button and voila everything started to work just fine. I had a good fire and normal operation. Later I shut it down for the night.
This morning everything is still ok.

My question is:For that sake of my understanding how this Castile operates would the stove have shut down in this manner if say a pellet had jammed and now the jamb is cleared?

Well to amend my question I just checked tthe stove and it's doing it again I can hear the exhust fan running as if it was in cool down mode, the red call light is on and not a pellet in the burn pot, and now the exhaust fan has apparently finished it's cycle and shut off.

 

[Former Farmer]

Sounds like something might be in the feed tube. You may want to clean out as many pellets as you can and then reset your unit to start another fire. Run your stove until it runs out of pellets. Check the feed tube to see if you can see anything in there. Vacuum out what you can and I would dump your pellets back into the hopper, watching the entire time to make sure there are not any foreign objects in with the pellets. Try the unit again and see if works okay.

These are all just guesses. I have not run into this problem with my castile.

Keep us posted with your results.

 

[zinfit]

Sounds like the one I used to qwn. Hope you have better luck with this clunker then I had.

 

[slls]

Time to call the dealer, Quad has a good warranty.

 

[Shortstuff]

smalltown, I just found an older post that I made about a problem I had with my Castile. If you read it you may see that it may be a problem you may or have had, but the simplest solution is to keep about a 12" length of coat hanger handy with a 90° bend at one end for a handle and you can leave the other end straight or put about a 1/2" loop in such a way that it won't hang up or get caught on anything. You can use this to put up into the pellet drop shoot when the stove is not running and poke it around a bit to clear an obstruction that may be there. When you read my other post, you'll see how one single pellet caused my stove to shut down.

You can read my other post here.

Steve

 

[smalltown]

Everybody thanks for your comments. Shortstuff thanks also I had already read you existing post after finding it via a search while looking for a solution.
After my last post I reset it once again and it ran from 11:50 AM until about 2PM without incident. I let it cool down, pulled the firepot cleaning rod (not much there, not a clinker yet just a black powder sometimes soft clumps of it in the ash pan). Started it up again and it ran it ok until the end of Sunday night football I guess about 11:45PM.

I should have said in an earlier post that being unfamiliar with the Castile (or any pellet stove) on the low heat position my fire cycles up and down. On the down side I thought it was to low and adjusted the feed rate up a very small amount thinking it would help to level out the cycle.
While watching the game I was reading the manual. It states to put the heat control on high and the flames shoud be approx 4" from the top of the firepot. Well mine were quite high, but had no black tails and was far from lazy. It was really going so I moved the feed rate slowly about three times after giving it a chance each time to settle in to the new lower rate. Later I went on low heat again and the fire still cycles more than I thought it would, but maybe that's the way they run. In the low heat position and when I am at a low in the cycle from my chair I sometimes wonder if my fire is going out. Going over to the stove and looking down into the firepot there are red hot pellets and the flames are maybe about an 1" to 1 1/2" tall. A short time later pellets begin to drop and the fire builds to a high point filling the firepot with flame and the cycle repeats. Is that how yous functions?

I have not cleaned the stove yet (I just finished my second bag last night). I was waiting for the heating season to start and am headed to the dealer today to buy mine.
I'll give it a good methodical cleaning today going slow learning for the first time how things come apart and more importantly how they go back together . I know I should remove the brick and clean behind there. Do I remove the baffel for cleaning behind it or is that just for repair access?

 

[moralleper]

I have a santafe and this is how my stove burns on low. Once you set your feed control on high you should not need to adjust it again on the other settings. Even on Medium the fire cycles up and down during the burn.

 

[freeburn]

The quad stoves cycle high low, it's actually the pellets dropping into the fire causing this. It's just the way they burn. It's much more noticeable on low. I rarely use it on low, too much build up on glass. Yes, by all means read the manual, if you do something wrong or neglect to do something (i.e. cleaning), it could void your warranty. Happy burning, this stove is usually trouble free.

 

[Nicholas440]

My Quad came with a video on how to clean, adjust it, and so on, it shows you exactly how to do it. I empty the burn pot daily, and I use an ash vacuum to vacuum off the burn chamber floor every few days. Once a week I remove the back plates, and I vacuum behind those plates as shown in the owners manual and the video. I also have a stiff brush, and I reach up inside and brush off the heat exchanger tubes, and also what you can do is take a short piece of hanger wire, and bend it slightly so you can slip it between the heat exchanger tubes and scrape the tops of them off. There are two pull rods that are supposed to clean off the heat tubes, but they only cover like 4 tubes, and there are like 10 tubes up there so additional scraping is needed once you get enough ash built up on them. Also when you have all the plates removed you can see on the lower right hand side the opening that exits the stove to the blower, and you can reach in there with a thin paint brush and brush out any fly ash that collected in there.

Its always a good idea to give it a real good cleaning every couple of weeks especially if you're running it almost 24 hours a day in very cold weather. I was amazed at how much fly ash collects behind the cast back plates after only 2 weeks of burning. The book says once a month, but I give it a complete clean up every couple of weeks. Daily clean the burn pot though or you might end up with too many clunkers in the bottom and it will cut off the air a bit and give you a sooty flame.

My Quad also cycles up and down even on medium, the flame will go down very low, then it picks up again its normal cycling.

 

[smalltown]

Nicholas440 Thanks for the heads up on the DVD. I saw the DVD in the package the dealer left, but thought it was just a copy of the paper manual on DVD. I started to watch it earlier, but the commercial power went out. I'll take a look again tomorrow. I am glad that at least my Castile is operating like everybody elses. I'll chock it up to my prior experience with wood stoves.
As far as cleaning I did purchase my ash vacum. I bought a Loveless Company Cheetah vacum and added the extra tools. I imagine I paid a little more by buying it from the dealer, but they have really treated me well and I wanted to support their business. Using the paper manual I managed to get the top baffel off and the right hand brick panel to get to see the exhaust blower. I vacumed everything I saw. There was a small amount of ash, but I have only burnt 2 bags of pellets so far.
I was able to button it all up ok and ran it on low for the evening while I comforatbly watched a great Monday Night Football game. My unit throws a fair abount of heat on low and only a very small amount of ash on the upper corners of the glass.
Thanks again.

 

[freeburn]

FYI - If you continue to do low burns, your glass will get dirty faster, that's all. Happy burning!