Quadrafire Explorer 1 not heating up like it was before

[Craddock]

We moved into our new house last year and it has a quadrafire explorer 1 wood stove. We had a fireplace at our old house but never a wood stove, this is my first time having one. Up until last week everything was going great with it.

So last week I was at work and my wife text me to say the blower and all of the outlets on the same circuit as the blower for the wood stove kicked the breaker. She went and reset them, but ever since then we aren't getting half the heat out of our stove. For example, before it would heat up the living room 8-10 degrees in an hour. Now it struggles to go over 4 degrees more in 3 hours of runtime.

I thought maybe it was the convection fan because the fan has been making more noise than usual, so today I took it off and cleaned it. More air blows out, same result for the house heating though.

I'm fairly mechanically and electronically inclined, just never had a wood stove before. Could any of you share some wisdom to point me in the right direction to fix this? We have backup propane heat, but it's incredibly expensive compared to the wood stove when it's working correctly.

 

[kennyp2339]

Pull the blower from the unit, open up the squirrel cage and take a look at the fan, multiple things can be going on, from melted blade tips, dust build up, to one motor only working if its a dual system.

 

[savageactor7]

I take ours off every year, just 2 screws, and blow compressed air in it to clean it out. Then, stand it on its side and spray pb blaster with lithium grease on the sealed bearings and let them both sit while I do something else. I know they are sealed but surprisingly The blower when installed, runs quieter.

Same blower since 08 when I signed up here to learn how to use this new to us, used stove.

 

[Craddock]

So with my symptoms with the wood stove, it shouldn't be anything except the blower/convection fan?

I ask because the people I bought my house from didn't believe in home maintenance, even though the guy was a diesel mechanic. From the looks of the blower it was never removed or cleaned before I took it off yesterday. It was also missing a screw at the snap ring to turn on the blower and you could hear something loose in the box with the snap ring. This might be irrelevant, but my neighbor told me the previous homeowner burnt anything and everything in the stove and it would smoke black a lot of the time.

If the only thing that makes sense is the blower unit, considering that it has been making noise when the fan blows lately, I'll just buy a complete replacement unit.

 

[stoveliker]

Given that history and the assertion of your neighbors, I hope you have had it (chimney and insert) inspected by a professional before you lit a fire?

 

[Craddock]

Given that history and the assertion of your neighbors, I hope you have had it (chimney and insert) inspected by a professional before you lit a fire?

We didn't know the situation until a few months after we moved in. We moved in during winter and didn't get to know the neighbors until the weather warmed up.

 

[Craddock]

Incase someone ends up here later in a Google search, it was the blower unit. Bought a whole new one and now the stove is heating the house up better than ever before. I think one of the sides of the blower went out and it was only blowing half before replacement.