Quadra-fire Trekker Insert ash collection and dust?

[C17fxr]

Looking for some help with my Trekker insert. I've had this installed since 8 Nov. Love the way it heats the main floor of my house.
One issue I'm having is NONE if hardly any of the ash is going down into the catch pan, I would say 95% goes up onto the floor around the burn pot. I've attached a picture to show you what it looked like after one week and just one 40lbs bag of Turman pellets.
Second issue I noticed since getting this installed is a large amount of dust collecting in the house since we had the Trekker installed, is this normal?

This is my first time running a pellet stove, had wood burning inserts in my last house and pulled a wood burner out of this fireplace. Never had this much dust before the Trekker so figure its coming from the stove.

Any helpful suggestions or comments appreciated.

 

[Mt Bob]

Looks like you have not pulled the lever to empty the ash into the pan. Have you read the manual?

 

[maraakate]

Regarding dust could be from convection blower. How have you figured there is more dust?

 

[C17fxr]

Looking for some help with my Trekker insert. I've had this installed since 8 Nov. Love the way it heats the main floor of my house.
One issue I'm having is NONE if hardly any of the ash is going down into the catch pan, I would say 95% goes up onto the floor around the burn pot. I've attached a picture to show you what it looked like after one week and just one 40lbs bag of Turman pellets.
Second issue I noticed since getting this installed is a large amount of dust collecting in the house since we had the Trekker installed, is this normal?

This is my first time running a pellet stove, had wood burning inserts in my last house and pulled a wood burner out of this fireplace. Never had this much dust before the Trekker so figure its coming from the stove.

Any helpful suggestions or comments appreciated.

View attachment 287339

Looks like you have not pulled the lever to empty the ash into the pan. Have you read the manual?

Mt Bob
Funny you should mention that, pulled that handle a couple times, even with nothing in the bottom of the burn pot. Had to put the handle back together during the first week's cleaning when it came apart.
What you see in the bottom the was after pulling the handle.

 

[Mt Bob]

My mistake,I was under the assumption the lever would also open a dump plate in floor of stove.
I do not know where the passages are for the ash,but are they open? Anyway, a Quad owner should show up here to help.

 

[C17fxr]

Regarding dust could be from convection blower. How have you figured there is more dust?

We've gone from having to dust every other weekend to dusting twice a week.
The faint coating of dust on everything was the tell-tale sign.
We thought it was from the install at first but after it kept happening we figured it was coming from the stove.
Got a damp towel draped over the from slightly in the path of the air coming out of the front, that should be a good indicator.

 

[C17fxr]

My mistake,I was under the assumption the lever would also open a dump plate in floor of stove.
I do not know where the passages are for the ash,but are they open? Anyway, a Quad owner should show up here to help.

Here is the bottom of the burn pot when it was new, the left side of the picture is the back of the burn pot that you can see from the front of the stove.
Looking at it I'm not certain where the ashes can go.
I do know the evacuation feature the comes one about every 30 minutes pretty much clears out the burn pot.

 

[maraakate]

According to the book the lever is just empty additional ash and large pieces of carbon/clinkers leftover in the burn pot only. The ashes on the floor of the firebox you have to remove yourself with a vacuum (!) At least from what I can tell.

If you haven't read the maintenance section, do so. You also are supposed to vacuum the heat exchanger monthly or every ton of fuel. You'll need to keep an eye on it to see how often you need to do so. It could be as frequent as every week depending on the quality of the fuel.

If you don't stay on top of the maintenance and just rely on a service tech to come out once or twice a year you will be disappointed.

 

[Mt Bob]

Ah,yes, yours does have the automatic clean,as other quadrafires. I would say it is not working properly, or you ave something else wrong, like too much combustion air.

 

[Mt Bob]

Try turning your trim adjustment all the way down= -4.

 

[maraakate]

Ah,yes, yours does have the automatic clean,as other quadrafires. I would say it is not working properly, or you ave something else wrong, like too much combustion air.

Slightly off topic but newer quads are foreign to me. How does the autoclean work and how well does it actually work? I glossed over the trekker insert manual but I must have missed something about the autoclean. The only mention I recall is that every 30 minutes it does something to clean the firepot.

 

[Mt Bob]

Slightly off topic but newer quads are foreign to me. How does the autoclean work and how well does it actually work? I glossed over the trekker insert manual but I must have missed something about the autoclean. The only mention I recall is that every 30 minutes it does something to clean the firepot.

Every so often, part of the bottom of the pot opens up, and ashes fall down.

 

[maraakate]

Every so often, part of the bottom of the pot opens up, and ashes fall down.

I'm not sure if the door opens, as the manual states

"The frequency of the purge cycle is once every 30 minutes while the unit is burning. During the firepot purge, the feed is reduced to the lowest setting and the exhaust blower ramps up to a very high setting. The purge cycle lasts 99 seconds."

So it sounds like it reduces the feed rate as low as it can go without burning out then the exhaust fan blows at max for about a minute and a half. I'm assuming this helps to burn off some residual and also to help move some of the ashes around, but I don't believe the door itself is controlled by a motor that opens and closes it automatically.

If this is all it does, sounds like it could be trivial to adapt via a microcontroller for older units for those who don't mind wiring up some additional things to the control box.

 

[maraakate]

Also, just wanted to comment on congrats with the Trekker. I'd love to own a high efficiency unit, but out of my price range at the moment.

With that said, I do find it interesting, and potential deal breakers for me. It looks like there is no slide out like the older Quads to dump the excess ash in the firebox into the pan. The heat exchanger requires more work to clean as well. I'm wondering if the slides were removed to reduce potential points of additional air getting in so the burn can be controlled better for more efficiency? Did not realize the newer Quads were like this.

 

[C17fxr]

Yes I read that as well. I was just thinking that at least some of the ashes should be going into the ash pan, but after looking back at the photo I posted of the burn pot it doesn't look like it was designed to do that

As far as the maintenance, I do the monthly cleaning on a weekly basis as it only take a couple more minutes to clean the the heat exchanger as it does to clean the rest of the unit.
Plus remember the more dust builds up on the heat exchanger the less it will conduct heat, so the cleaner it is the better your heat exchanger works. The more efficient the heat exchange, the more heat being pumped into the home.

As far as the fuel I'm burning Turman's, from what I have been reading that seems to be a pretty good fuel.

Keep the recommendations coming cause I don't know everything you know.

 

[maraakate]

I'm new to pellet stove ownership myself, but from working in the automotive industry and IT world you kind of learn that it's best to follow what they say in the book and even more so if you're serious about using it frequently.

That's good you're keeping up on vacuuming the exchanger frequently. I suppose if you got the vac and its nearby it's not a big deal. I don't have a nice mini-ash vac yet so I've been using my shopvac about once a week and the heat exchanger design is more primitive to what you have. Just simple tubes and you run a slider to clean loose ash. Remove the firebricks, and then get rid of excess ash.

I wish I had better advice for you, but I've been through quite a bit of older threads here for fun and haven't seen too many threads on the Trekker as it's a newer unit and I'd assume most problems at this point would be going through the dealer rather than a forum since it's new enough to be in warranty status. So, I guess you really just have to vacuum out that firebox every few days. It works best when you have the exhaust fan running at the same time while cleaning the stove so you don't spread ash out into your living room. Just turn the thermostat on briefly to call for heat. When you hear the relay click, then shut the thermostat off again. Takes about 5 seconds, but the fan will continue to run for about 10 minutes which is usually plenty of time to clean the stove.

I'm unsure about the dust output. I'm assuming you already tried vacuuming the convection blowers fan shrouds themselves? Only other thing I can think of is that you're putting out a lot of heat, often, and the air is dryer and therefore dust is accumulating because of dry air/static electricity effect. If that's the case maybe you can run a humidifier on low and see if this helps.

Turmans are supposed to be pretty good. Don't have them where I live, but I see a lot of people on here seem to enjoy them so you're probably doing OK brand-wise.

Did you buy your unit new from the dealer? If yes, then if you're still having all these problems after checking out what's been stated I'd be giving them a call.

 

[C17fxr]

Try turning your trim adjustment all the way down= -4.

Got this worked out over the past month to keep from burning through a bag a day just to provide supplemental heat. Ended up with it set at -3 and the flame control at 1.5, depending on the outside temps I can go about 3 to 5 days.

 

[Mt Bob]

I'm not sure if the door opens, as the manual states

"The frequency of the purge cycle is once every 30 minutes while the unit is burning. During the firepot purge, the feed is reduced to the lowest setting and the exhaust blower ramps up to a very high setting. The purge cycle lasts 99 seconds."

So it sounds like it reduces the feed rate as low as it can go without burning out then the exhaust fan blows at max for about a minute and a half. I'm assuming this helps to burn off some residual and also to help move some of the ashes around, but I don't believe the door itself is controlled by a motor that opens and closes it automatically.

If this is all it does, sounds like it could be trivial to adapt via a microcontroller for older units for those who don't mind wiring up some additional things to the control box.

Yes, it was late,and I was tired. They have what you said, sometimes called a purge cycle. Austroglamms,Rikas, Quads, Italian stoves use it. Others may,I just don't keep up on all things.

 

[WarrenZ.]

Looking for some help with my Trekker insert. I've had this installed since 8 Nov. Love the way it heats the main floor of my house.
One issue I'm having is NONE if hardly any of the ash is going down into the catch pan, I would say 95% goes up onto the floor around the burn pot. I've attached a picture to show you what it looked like after one week and just one 40lbs bag of Turman pellets.
Second issue I noticed since getting this installed is a large amount of dust collecting in the house since we had the Trekker installed, is this normal?

This is my first time running a pellet stove, had wood burning inserts in my last house and pulled a wood burner out of this fireplace. Never had this much dust before the Trekker so figure its coming from the stove.

Any helpful suggestions or comments appreciated.

View attachment 287339

Totally normal The ash accumulates around the firebox as intended. This is the function of the "purge" cycle - it keeps the firebox clean so the combustion air can ignite the pellets. We call it the "popcorn" cycle. Combustion air comes UP through the holes in the bottom of the firebox. The holes are not there to allow ash to fall into the ash pan. Pulling the arm that slides the bottom of the firebox to the right will allow large clinkers or large unburned pellets to drop into the pan that aren't removed by the purge cycle. If you use a good pellet you may never see a clinker! It's one of the features of the Trekker - it self-cleans the firebox.

The ash in the stove is very fine and may be getting into the house when you open the glass door to vacuum out the ash and when you remove the baffle to vacuum the heat exchanger.

Good luck with the Trekker. It seems to be working fine.

 

[WarrenZ.]

Slightly off topic but newer quads are foreign to me. How does the autoclean work and how well does it actually work? I glossed over the trekker insert manual but I must have missed something about the autoclean. The only mention I recall is that every 30 minutes it does something to clean the firepot.

The "purge" is the auto-clean. The lever that slides the bottom of the firebox has to be operated manually. That feature ended with the Mt Vernon E2s I think, which shares a lot of parts with the Trekker. I don't slide it each time because nothing accumulates there as long as your combustion settings are correct. I just hit it with the vac to ensure nothings in there.