Quadra Fire 1000 intermittent start

[Todd Hackett]

Hi All! Hope you are well and warm!

Bought Quadrafire 1000 used 8ish years ago. Starts and runs for the most part. Every once-in-awhile it will not start and fills the burn pot about 1/2 full of pellets. Sometimes it will go for a couple of days working great, others a couple of hours before the pot fills. It gets cleaned regular. Couple of days ago, this seemed to be happening sooner than usual. I thought that I might have found the problem as I could press on the thermostat case and it would call for heat. Thermostat got pitched. Had a Honeywell and installed it. Went through a deep clean. Stove started normally, then on the next call for heat would fill the pot and not fire. WTF. Ok, time to really check stuff. Vacuum line not blocked, thermocouple looks ok, and since it would start and run, snap switches probably okiedokie. Exhaust pipe clean and door sealed proper ( put new rope in spring when we quit using for the season ). Do not have a lazy fire nor smoke and the front glass stays pretty clean. Opened the lower door and started checking there. Found the burn pot loose and could move around a bit. Tightened up the two short screws that hold the pot down. While further checking the burn pot, found one of the screws in the pix at the bottom of it. Ok, this is an issue. Further checking showed that there are two of those screws and were just sitting in the holes outside of the burn pot. There is nothing underneath that they attach to. It apparently has been this way since I got it. Guessing here, and suspect that when I vacuumed around the pot it sucked one screw up into the hose, then when I went to clean the inside of the pot, it dropped out of the hose. So the first burning question is: What the heck are those screws for?

Well, that solved the problem of filling the pot immediately. I am back to the every once-in-awhile problem now. I don't want to shotgun parts as that could get spendy. Could the vacuum sensor be having issues? Ideas please.

Thanks

 

[Ssyko]

Clean all the holes out in the pot including the igniter hole. I put a flat gasket under my burn pot in my cb1200 and it made a big difference. Did you pull the combustion blower and clean the chamber and fan petals? Now the bolts are another thing. I have gotten nuts bolt screws strange chunks of metal in my bags of pellets.

 

[Todd Hackett]

Clean all the holes out in the pot including the igniter hole. I put a flat gasket under my burn pot and it made a big difference. Did you pull the combustion blower and clean the chamber and fan petals?

Combustion blower and chamber are next, waiting for house to get too warm. Burn pot holes are squeaky clean. This pot does not have a igniter hole, it has igniter holes. Gasket under burn pot? Ok, so time to learn something new. Do you think that there is enough air leak between the burn base and the cubbyhole under it? There are holes in the burn pot into that same cubbyhole. I don't have a problem doing it - high temp RTV work?

 

[Ssyko]

Yeah I suppose if it sealed good it would work, but may be more difficult to get apart next time. I tend to be an overachiever lol

 

[Todd Hackett]

Yeah I suppose if it sealed good it would work, but may be more difficult to get apart next time. I tend to be an overachiever lol

Any ideas on those two screws? Even being in high temp, the threads have not been twisted. Go figure.

 

[Ssyko]

The only way into the pot is either components in the feed system missing screws or thy came from the pellet mill. If your auger and mounts are good then I would lean towards they came in a bag of fuel

 

[Todd Hackett]

The only way into the pot is either components in the feed system missing screws or thy came from the pellet mill. If your auger and mounts are good then I would lean towards they came in a bag of fuel

I thought that at first. To get the one screw down the auger all the planets would have to align perfectly. These screws are about 2 1/2 inches in length. Searching more, I found the other screw just sitting in the burn pot flange. The flange is set up for those two screws with beveled holes. Threads don't start until about 1 1/2 inches below the head, so putting a nut on and tightening would do nothing. I have never found parts or pieces in the bottom. My guess that something else was/is supposed to be in the cubbyhole where the igniter is. No idea of what that could be. Maybe the previous owner had some plan to add something? Oh well. Stove has been running without problems since yesterday am.

 

[Ssyko]

is your pot the EZ clean pot with the movable bottom? what holes did the screw go into?

 

[Todd Hackett]

is your pot the EZ clean pot with the movable bottom? what holes did the screw go into?

Ya, has handle on left side under the trim panel to pull the bottom thingie out of the way so stuff can drop thru. I tend to forget about it as I have never seen anything drop out. Well, not much anyway.
Note that I was wrong as to where those screw holes are/were. As you can see, they are in the bottom of the firepit. You can see the bevel with this picture. Those two screws were just setting in the holes and I just happened to vacuum one out, then it dropped into the pot which started all of this.
It almost looks like if you loosened the mounting screws you could twist the burn pot CCW a bit to align that hole upper left. There is no other hole on the right side so twisting wouldn't get ya anything for that side. Note that also there is not a mounting bolt or hole at the top of the pot ( under that insulation ). Could this burn pot be a replacement?

 

[Ssyko]

ok then you are not missing anything under the pot, so the screws came from the hopper. they may have come in a bag of pellets or somebody worked on the stove one time and they fell in the hopper. i don't know of any screws that long in a quadra fire stove. i have had my cb1200 down to its skelliton 2 times for refurb.

 

[Mt Bob]

Look like furniture screws/hardware to me.Didn't happen to buy some wood pellets that are recycled wood from a cabinet shop or furniture maker?

 

[Todd Hackett]

Look like furniture screws/hardware to me.Didn't happen to buy some wood pellets that are recycled wood from a cabinet shop or furniture maker?

Guys! Are you telling me that those two screws came down the auger and exactly fell into those screw holes on the bottom of the burn area? Really? They have been there for 8ish years as far as I can see. Were not found until I vacuumed one out of the hole, then it fell in the burn pot when I moved to vacuum that. Gonna chalk this one up as area51 stuff.

 

[Mt Bob]

LOl Who knows? You mean you have not thoroughly cleaned the pot in 8 years? If so,perhaps someone put them in to try and cure a ignition or burning issue.

 

[Todd Hackett]

LOl Who knows? You mean you have not thoroughly cleaned the pot in 8 years? If so,perhaps someone put them in to try and cure a ignition or burning issue.

Not that at all. Whole stove gets cleaned in Spring when we shut it down for the season. The other thing that bugs me is that those holes you can see in the pix are machined. I can't imagine somebody doing this after-market.

 

[Ssyko]

No those holes are drilled through the casting. But the screws are not supposed to be there that I am sure of. How they got there who knows,

 

[Todd Hackett]

Just an update ... think I found the problem. Ifn ya remember, this QF has the two windows on each side of the door. Happened to walk by early in the am the other day. It was dark and I spotted light from the fire at the top and side of the right side window. Further checking I found one screw missing and 2 others loose which allowed the window ?casing to be leaking. No, not the 2 1/2 inchers I found earlier - still bugging me about those! Been running for about 48 hours now without incident.

 

[Ssyko]

good deal Todd glad its running good now. I did some research myself and there has never been screws that go in the burn pot at all. modifications were done in the castings of the pots. so they been blocking your draft for years