Hi all -
What a great resource this is. I found many answers on here last January when I moved to Vermont with a home with both a pellet stove and wood stove.
Now for my first of two questions here - I have a 2006 Quadrafire Santa Fe insert.
1. The auger motor squeals like a chipmunk every time it feeds pellets. I'm going to order a replacement motor but - this being an insert - there's side panels to remove that are the width of my arm, but there's no real "rear access" without pulling the stove out of the wall.
Which I suppose is my real question: how do I pull the stove out so I can service it? Or otherwise, how do I access the auger motor to remove it and the auger itself?
I figured while I'm back there it's time to check and replace snap disks.
Safety is the major concern here in a house with kids. The exhaust blower failed last year and apparently the vacuum switch was bad as the stove didn't shut down even as pellets had filled the entire pot. It's hard to have "warm" feelings about a well-maintained appliance (service and safety check had been done previous summer) that could've caused great injury to my family.
2. What sort of annual chimney maintenance is necessary as far as cleaning and blowing out? I'm aware with the woodstove creosote is a concern and have already scheduled to have that cleaned, but what is good maintenance here? The pellet stove outlet is an old fireplace chimney. No clue if it's lined with stainless steel or is the old flue from the 1950's.
I'm loathe to pay the local company $200 to come clean the stove as well as I can in a half hour, nor do I trust that they will safety check the stove (as they had last year, whether they actually did or not) - and truly I could see a repair bill nearing $1000 here if they have to do all this work I'm trying to do myself. They wanted $500 to replace the blower motor last year and gave me some attitude about it (they installed stove and are only Quad service tech in area).
As a digression, I have to say that I'm not impressed with the economy of pellet stoves so far - I just am not convinced it saves us any money, with maintenance, yearly service, break downs, worry of more dangerous failures, not to mention pellet prices and delivery fees/tips and a garage bay used as storage, not to mention the daily haulings of 40 pound bags into the house, the daily cleanings of ash from the stove even with premium pellets, especially when the stove in question at best could be considered a space heater that possibly could bring the house to 70 degrees on a 50 degree day, and especially as we no longer trust it to operate at night.
At this point, it surely hasn't saved us money or made life any easier - and yet, it's here and paid for, and is nice to light up a dreary winter morning here and will be useful to us in late fall and early spring to take the chill out of the air.
Anyway - thanks for reading and for any replies. Wishing you all a safe and warm winter.
What a great resource this is. I found many answers on here last January when I moved to Vermont with a home with both a pellet stove and wood stove.
Now for my first of two questions here - I have a 2006 Quadrafire Santa Fe insert.
1. The auger motor squeals like a chipmunk every time it feeds pellets. I'm going to order a replacement motor but - this being an insert - there's side panels to remove that are the width of my arm, but there's no real "rear access" without pulling the stove out of the wall.
Which I suppose is my real question: how do I pull the stove out so I can service it? Or otherwise, how do I access the auger motor to remove it and the auger itself?
I figured while I'm back there it's time to check and replace snap disks.
Safety is the major concern here in a house with kids. The exhaust blower failed last year and apparently the vacuum switch was bad as the stove didn't shut down even as pellets had filled the entire pot. It's hard to have "warm" feelings about a well-maintained appliance (service and safety check had been done previous summer) that could've caused great injury to my family.
2. What sort of annual chimney maintenance is necessary as far as cleaning and blowing out? I'm aware with the woodstove creosote is a concern and have already scheduled to have that cleaned, but what is good maintenance here? The pellet stove outlet is an old fireplace chimney. No clue if it's lined with stainless steel or is the old flue from the 1950's.
I'm loathe to pay the local company $200 to come clean the stove as well as I can in a half hour, nor do I trust that they will safety check the stove (as they had last year, whether they actually did or not) - and truly I could see a repair bill nearing $1000 here if they have to do all this work I'm trying to do myself. They wanted $500 to replace the blower motor last year and gave me some attitude about it (they installed stove and are only Quad service tech in area).
As a digression, I have to say that I'm not impressed with the economy of pellet stoves so far - I just am not convinced it saves us any money, with maintenance, yearly service, break downs, worry of more dangerous failures, not to mention pellet prices and delivery fees/tips and a garage bay used as storage, not to mention the daily haulings of 40 pound bags into the house, the daily cleanings of ash from the stove even with premium pellets, especially when the stove in question at best could be considered a space heater that possibly could bring the house to 70 degrees on a 50 degree day, and especially as we no longer trust it to operate at night.
At this point, it surely hasn't saved us money or made life any easier - and yet, it's here and paid for, and is nice to light up a dreary winter morning here and will be useful to us in late fall and early spring to take the chill out of the air.
Anyway - thanks for reading and for any replies. Wishing you all a safe and warm winter.
