Quadra fire Santa Fe Pellet stove inconsistent flame, large flame top of fire box

[Boulder Creek SC]

Hello. This is my first post on here, but I have been reading this forum for 5 years now. Tons of great info and lots of helpful folks.
My current stove is a two year old Santa FE. No oak. The flue is 3" dia, 1 foot horizontal section to a tee, then 10 feet straight up.

I throughly cleaned the stove this fall, removed all the baffles from the back and vacuumed out all corners. I could only clean out the exhaust fan from the front.
I cleaned out the flue with a nylon brush from the top. No residue in the pipe.

Adjustments made in the last few days, closed the feed adjustment by a few millimeters.

I have only run golden fire pellets in the stove since it was new.

Last year, no issues. Cleaned weekly, burn pot cleaned every other day.

A few days ago, I woke up to a huge roaring fire in the burn pot. Loud reverberating sound.
Flames to top of the cabinet.
I unplugged the stove and waited till it cooled down.

I had waited a few days during Christmas to clean the burn pot. I think this lead to a lack of air, which caused the pellets to burn poorly, then build up. This ignited at once and lead to the huge flames.
I cleaned out the whole stove, cleaned up the pipes again.

The only modification I have is a 1/4" steel plate on the bottom of the burn pot to help in build up on the bottom of the pot.

The current bags of pellets I have look a bit different. There are very long pieces and tiny little bits mixed in. Some of the pellets also have very dark, burned sections that I have not noticed before. I put a few photos of the pellets below.

I am not sure if the pellets are to blame or the stove maintenance.
Any advice would be helpful.

 

[tbear853]

Gotta have air and fuel for flame

 

[Ssyko]

Hello. This is my first post on here, but I have been reading this forum for 5 years now. Tons of great info and lots of helpful folks.
My current stove is a two year old Santa FE. No oak. The flue is 3" dia, 1 foot horizontal section to a tee, then 10 feet straight up.

I throughly cleaned the stove this fall, removed all the baffles from the back and vacuumed out all corners. I could only clean out the exhaust fan from the front.
I cleaned out the flue with a nylon brush from the top. No residue in the pipe.

The only modification I have is a 1/4" steel plate on the bottom of the burn pot to help in build up on the bottom of

how long ago was "this fall"? how many bags of pellets since this fall? ash builds up inside the combustion blower chamber and before it actually hits the vent pipe that needs to be checked.
What is this mod you did to the pot can you post a pic?

 

[Boulder Creek SC]

Thank you for the suggestions. Very much appreciated.

Here is the steel plate. It sits on the bottom of the burn pot. This is one of two I cut. I cut notches where the lower holes in the burn pot are close as to not impede air flow. It is 3/16" thick. When I open the firepot clean out, the excess carbon is on the steel plate, not the floor of the burnpot, so no scraping. The first year I had some hard carbon buildup, it felt like I was going to break the hinge on the firepot.

I cleaned the stove per the manual in early November. I have burned about 25 bags this year. Usual usage is a 40 pound bag every other day. All the baffle panels out and cleaned, removed the auger and shaft, cleaned all the fins out, cleaned the vacuum tube between the auger and sensor, removed and cleaned the room blower, sucked up as much dust and loose fines inside the cabinet as I could.

The only thing that was not cleaned in November is the pipe between the back of the stove and the Tee. It was so hard to eliminate all the smoke leaks with the dura-vent piping. I have quite a bit of silicon and high temp tamp over the section. Removing it is going to be a pain.

The flame is just inconsistent while burning goes from below the rim of the burn pot to touching the top of the box.
here's the low flame.

"ash builds up inside the combustion blower chamber and before it actually hits the vent pipe that needs to be checked."

I will look into opening up the back of the stove and removing the pipe.

I do know restrictions and air leaks are a potential issue, so I will start with the blower.

Also, the glass is dirty in the photos. That is the result from about 4 days of burning. Is that normal? Starting to think maybe an air leak or blockage causing my issues.

Thanks for all the help so far.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Though I have a different unit than you have, I've never 'scraped' carbon from my burn pot in 15+ years. I take it out when I clean the unit and toss it in a pail of hot water and let it soak while I clean the stove and when I'm done cleaning, I take the pot out of the water and all the hard carbon falls right off. A little scrub with coarse scotchbrite removes the rest, dry the pot put it back in and off you go. No carbon, no scraping.

Easiest way to clean the glass (can be done when running) is open the door and use a small NATURAL BRISTLE paintbrush to clean the glass. Takes a minute at most.

 

[Jens]

Thank you for the suggestions. Very much appreciated.

Here is the steel plate. It sits on the bottom of the burn pot. This is one of two I cut. I cut notches where the lower holes in the burn pot are close as to not impede air flow. It is 3/16" thick. When I open the firepot clean out, the excess carbon is on the steel plate, not the floor of the burnpot, so no scraping. The first year I had some hard carbon buildup, it felt like I was going to break the hinge on the firepot.

View attachment 271433

I cleaned the stove per the manual in early November. I have burned about 25 bags this year. Usual usage is a 40 pound bag every other day. All the baffle panels out and cleaned, removed the auger and shaft, cleaned all the fins out, cleaned the vacuum tube between the auger and sensor, removed and cleaned the room blower, sucked up as much dust and loose fines inside the cabinet as I could.

The only thing that was not cleaned in November is the pipe between the back of the stove and the Tee. It was so hard to eliminate all the smoke leaks with the dura-vent piping. I have quite a bit of silicon and high temp tamp over the section. Removing it is going to be a pain.

The flame is just inconsistent while burning goes from below the rim of the burn pot to touching the top of the box.
here's the low flame.
View attachment 271434

"ash builds up inside the combustion blower chamber and before it actually hits the vent pipe that needs to be checked."

I will look into opening up the back of the stove and removing the pipe.

I do know restrictions and air leaks are a potential issue, so I will start with the blower.

Also, the glass is dirty in the photos. That is the result from about 4 days of burning. Is that normal? Starting to think maybe an air leak or blockage causing my issues.

Thanks for all the help so far.

I have the same stove, 2 years old. My glass looks like that after 24 hours. I clean the stove daily and scrape the carbon out from the burn pot then. Weekly I take out the back and top plates and clean behind those. To remove the back cover from the stove to access the top blower, you need to remove the top of the stove, look at the diagram in the manual it will show you that there is a lip on the back cover that is holding it on the top. This isn't explained in the manual, that shows you only need to take out screws on the back cover. I am selling my stove after this year, worst purchase I have made in a long time. There is fine ash blown all over my house. It's really loud when it ignites. I went to the place where I bought my stove telling them the back cover wouldn't come off at the top, they called Quadra Fire, they had no answer. I looked at the diagram and figured that out myself, that it was attached to the top of the stove, so basically I have no support for this stove. Sometimes it doesn't ignite so I have to use the reset button. They replaced the brain box for that problem and it still does it. The igniter went out and I had to replace it myself, the repair person was on vacation that week, no big deal, except it was under warranty and I had to travel 40 miles to get the part. I paid $3.50 for pellets last year, $4.50 this year, so the price is rising and are hard to come by in my area. So no more pellet stoves for me.

 

[SidecarFlip]

I always get a kick out of reading comments like yours in as much as I've been running a biomass (pellet multifuel appliance) for more than 20 years now with very little issues. First off you state that pellets are hard to come by in your area, but where is that? The United States is a big area last time I checked and pellet availability most anywhere is pretty good so where are you?

Secondly NONE of them are 'plug and play', despite what they are advertised to be. They all require frequent and CONSISTENT maintenance, so more so than others, some even daily, depending on what fuel used. In my case because I burn corn, daily maintenance is required. DAILY.

Sadly, we live in a plug and play society today and adopting a plug and play attitude with any solid fuel / biomass stove will result in disappointment on the part of the owner, which appears to be you.

You made a comment about your viewing glass getting black quickly. The only reason that happens is because your air to fuel ratio is incorrect. I takes X amount of air to properly combust x amount of fuel, be it pellets or corn or pelletized anything (switchgrass or corn stover or wheat straw), If the air to fuel ratio is incorrect, your view glass gets black. fact of operation. Also, excessive fly ash will alter the a/f ratio. Clean it lately? Have you ever cleaned it? Have you ever cleaned not only the interior but the venting and all the exhaust passages inside?

Furthermore, if you don't provide consistent maintenance and rely on an outside party to maintain it, maybe you should go back to conventional fuels and your central furnace.

The more complex solid fuel stoves become the more important the frequency of maintenance becomes.

Like we all say on here... Did you clean it and did you read the owners manual before lighting that first fire? I'd say, in your case, the answer is no on both counts.

I rest my case. 20+ years for me and minimal upkeep, but in my case consistent upkeep.

 

[Boulder Creek SC]

Thank you for the information. I double checked the blower and I put on a reusable gasket last year. I am going to take the blower off and clean the back of the exhaust this weekend.

As for maintenance, I fully understand this is a daily routine, like brushing your teeth. You forget once or twice and then you start to have issues.

I have read over the manual. I had to download one as it was not in the packet (or lost by me)
I see how to remove the blower 6 screws that allow motor to twist and be removed easily.

As for the flame height, I've reduced the feed, moved the adjustment plate on the hopper by 4 mm. I do see a reduction in the flame height and output.
The Santa Fe has very limited controls. 3 fan speeds and an automatic adjustment for fuel.

I have a small house 600 sq ft but no insulation. I have the stove on a thermostat.
So on high, it would heat up the set point, go into shut down mode. By the time the unit shut down completely, the temp in my house would fall by 4 degrees and the thermostat would turn the unit right back on.

On medium, the house heats more slowly and the heat is retained in the surfaces for longer.

Is there a good way to optimize the flame on medium. I think with the pellet sizes from this batch of golden fire pellets, it's just so varied that the augar can't keep a steady supply. Sometimes is a regular dumps pattern, sometimes the burnpot nearly goes out before the augar dumps a huge pile of pellets, which then leads to a huge flame height till it burns down.

I have switched to cleaning the burnpot twice a day now, morning and night. I sweep up the ashes daily or every other day depending on ash level.
I still clean the vent pipe once a month as a precaution.

Side note, I also sealed many of the air leaks in the house this summer. I will be adding a OAK this month. I have a suspension that the stove is having a hard time pulling in air than it did before.

I'll update the thread this weekend with what the blower looks like and runs like after 1.5 tons of fuel since last cleaning.

Thank you for the input.

 

[Boulder Creek SC]

Update on the combustion blower. I pulled off the blower and cleaned the fan and housing. There was a thin layer of fine ash on the blades and housing.

Cleaned and put back together. Next step is adding outside air to the stove so it has the least amount of restriction.

I will update once the outside air is attached.

 

[Ssyko]

Looks like it’s burning great, no black ash or soot. The flare ups are normal on a quad. My glass would get dirty in a matter of a few hours kinda goes with burning wood.