Regency GCI60 Pellet Insert Help

[Lake Girl]

I do have one but use it to collect ash when emptying the ash pan on my stove. I have a free standing stove so little interference with filling the hopper so we use bigger plastic pails.

Edit: I did go through the manual and couldn't find reference to a restrictor plate in the hopper. Not an item included on parts breakdown either.

 

[smwilliamson]

Make sure the stove is on manual operation if you are not using a thermostat. It's been known for the magnet that is mounted under the sliding hopper lid to hit the tstat mode switch when the hopper draw lid closes, which pushes the switch up to auto/off and if you don't have a thermostat the fire hoes out and the unit turns off. When you open the lid back up the magnet again hits the switch down back to manual... so it looks like it was on manual the whole time and allows you to start the unit again. The first time I discovered this I was out of my mind.....close the hopper lid and then lift up on the front of it and open it back up...see if the switch stays in the auto position

 

[corkman]

Next time the stove is off open up the door and snap a pic and post it for us to see and one of the control board

 

[NYBurner]

WebGurl - the elongated firebox is to give a nice broad flame and one of the selling points for these stoves. They have a great flame. As the pot fills in with ash and the stir rod moves it the side it will quickly 'center' the flame.

once you get this sorted you will be happy...these are fantatstic stoves and work horses. Just FYI with the insert (which I have as well) our ash pans are NOT big at all so you will need to empty and clean the stove weekly depending on use. I burn mine for primary heat 24/7 so I empty and clean every week.

 

[Cleetussnow]

First, besides the facade, this stove identical to an M55. All of the parts are interchangeable. I have replaced a couple dozen parts on my gci and all of them are from enviro.

This issue you have is that the stove will start but not run as it is supposed to. First thing I would do is put the stove on 'manual' and put the pellet setting on premium. (You may never see a pellet that you can't burn on premium. Unless you are burning grass pellets or cherry pits or corn, you won't need anything but the premium setting. These are multi fuel stoves alright, but if it's a wood pellet, it's premium.)

Once here, set the heat level in the middle setting using the up and down button on the control board, and the same thing for air and feed.

I think the stove is working mechanically, but something is telling the motherboard that it needs to shut down. The flames you see from the sides are the the first pellets that dropped on start up finally burning, but the stove is going into shut down mode. A couple things can do this, including an overly hot stove, which would be impossible, a flame out, where the stove doesn't detect enough heat to continue running, or the lid to the hopper being open.

This lid can be fussy. You may think you have it shut, but it might not be. In fact, your installer may have set this stove too deep in the fireplace, relative to the frame the stove body sits in, and you actually cannot shut the lid far enough back so the stove knows it's shut. If you are able to pull the stove just 1/2 inch forward, this door might close tight enough to run. This is a big suspect.

If the stove starts, in about 10 or 15 minutes you should hear the fan kick on and start. And it should run a medium flame until it runs out of fuel.

Your installer didn't do you any favor when he left without showing you how to operate this stove. It is not a simple machine as you might think. It has 4 motors. There are several adjustments, including those on the control board. The adjustments on the control board are minimal. You would barely notice a change in the fine settings there. The bigger adjustments include the draft adjust for air, and the auger cover inside the hopper to adjust the amount of pellet fuel that can enter the auger feed. I don't believe these adjustments are related to your problem, but I would get familiar with them. I have adjusted both many times before mine runs.

If your installer didn't explain what these are, he left you essentially flying blind, and this stove can be finicky. Check out all the enviro m55 videos on YouTube and get familiar. It's an M55 in every functional way and there are resources for that stove. Not much from regency.

 

[Cleetussnow]

Make sure the stove is on manual operation if you are not using a thermostat. It's been known for the magnet that is mounted under the sliding hopper lid to hit the tstat mode switch when the hopper draw lid closes, which pushes the switch up to auto/off and if you don't have a thermostat the fire hoes out and the unit turns off. When you open the lid back up the magnet again hits the switch down back to manual... so it looks like it was on manual the whole time and allows you to start the unit again. The first time I discovered this I was out of my mind.....close the hopper lid and then lift up on the front of it and open it back up...see if the switch stays in the auto position

+1 ...the lid is finicky

 

[Webgurl]

I appreciate all the help and comments!

I do agree that Lowe's pellets are the better ones but they ran out and haven't restocked yet. It is still cold here in NH and I've been running the stove every day but was forced to buy Hoam Deepough (spelling incorrect on purpose) pellets which are marked premium but look lesser quality. The eastern seaboard is expecting snow this week! Can you imagine? Other than one 88º day we had in April, it's been cold, damp and rainy here.

What happens is I usually run it with feed trim on 3, and blower on 4 to get the most heat. It nicely heats up my family room and some of the heat actually gets into the long 30' kitchen where it is the coldest in my house due to less space with baseboards heaters, etc. But these large fires in the pan UNDER the burn pot, that shoot out from the side, are what has me concerned. I guess from your comments this is OK?

Last week I had an unnerving thing happen when the stove went into shut down mode for unknown reasons. I was sure it wasn't out of fuel as I had just dumped a bunch in. Of course I knew I should not have just restarted it against the warnings in the manual which said it could cause smoke. And oh boy was there ever smoke! The whole interior of the stove filled up so much with smoke you could not see a flame... but suddenly one large one appeared and poof! The smoke was gone. However the pellets seemed to be too much and overflowing and the fire was so big it scared me so I shut it down. Thankfully NO smoke escaped into the room although it smelled more than usual like burnt ash. (Probably from my repeated vacc'ing)

Once it cooled I vacc'd the whole interior 'til it was spotless, and emptied the ash pan. More pellets than usual had gotten into the ash pan during this episode. There always seemed to be a few when I used the Lowe's but frankly, even after I burned four bags of Lowes, the ash pan was only a smidgen full, that tells me how clean burning they are.

I have since restarted it using #1 for feed trim and #3 for blower. This has kept the fire pretty low, I will raise it to #2. I know pellets are continually being put in the burn pot because I hear them falling and also see the sparks since this brand of pellets is VERY dusty.

I have no idea how to adjust the flue/damper so I am having someone come and do that Monday. He's already been here once to make sure the lid is not loose on the sliders... he had to tighten those up. I try to slide it out straight and not aggravate the condition, but I fear it's going to be like a toilet seat that you have to keep tightening just because of the pressure put on it that makes it wiggle from side to side.

I do have it on Manual and the switch doesn't get affected by the lid, but wonder if I should change the pellet quality to the mid grade seeing as I can see they are not as clean as the Lowe's?

 

[Webgurl]

First thing I would do is put the stove on 'manual' and put the pellet setting on premium. (You may never see a pellet that you can't burn on premium. Unless you are burning grass pellets or cherry pits or corn, you won't need anything but the premium setting. These are multi fuel stoves alright, but if it's a wood pellet, it's premium.)

Yep those are my current settings... Manual, Premium. I'm learning how to adjust the feed trim and blower to control the size of the fire.
But as long as it's OK that the fire spits out from the sides of the second level pot, I guess it's OK.

 

[UpStateNY]

Okay It sounds like you have pellets that spilled out of the burn pot into the ash pan probably during startup. Eventually these pellets in the ash pan caught fire. Is this what happened? If so never ever let pellets burn in the ash pan. During start up you need to adjust the feed rate so pellets do not spill into the ash pan. The burn pot is the only place you should have a fire.

As for that time when you had a lot of smoke during startup that you could not see the flame and then all of sudden the smoke is gone. This happens sometimes and is nothing to be concerned with.

BTW hardwood pellets are harder to start than softwood pellets. During startup the feed rate has to be lower for hardwood versus softwood pellets.

 

[Sootmaster1990]

Your regency is a m55 in a different shell if you run the stove on premium the agitator runs once every hour you need to run it on regular or medium grade which will run that agitator everytime the stove feeds which will keep it a lot cleaner and prevent pile ups the damper/air control is on the left side of the unit when you take the decrotive side off. This is usually set at the time on installation and should not be tampered with

 

[Don2222]

I had a similar problem with that stove so I pulled it out and took the big hopper cover off the inside, bailed out the pellets and found a torn piece of pellet bag covering half of the auger chute!
However when running on low fire 1-2 heat level the damper should be closed in a bit. The damper should never be closed all the way! The damper rod is on the left side and is hard to get at!

 

[smwilliamson]

Sherwood Industries makes both the GCI60 and the M55, they are identical except for castings and the controller skin.
About the controller
Pellet type must be selected when the stove is cool and off. Feed and air trim selections can be moved once the power is on. The red light on your says premium pellets, green is for regular pellets and yellow is utility pellets. With the unit off, set fuel type to premium. This slows the agitator to one rotation every 30 minutes, green and yellow turns the agitator every time the feed cycle comes on. During start up if you are on green or yellow the agitator can sniff out the flame and push the pellets (and fire) left and right. Additionally, if you are running the stove on low or have a weak pellet the fire can be hard to observe in that deep pot. Dont t worry of the fire laps out the sides, it's designed to. Running the fire on premium will serve you best so long as you use premium grade pellets. Once the unit is running and the fan is on, you can lower your draft trim (less air) and raise your feed trim (more fuel) and your fire will rise up taller on lower heat levels. Read the owners manual for the M55, it's very informative.

 

[Don2222]

Hello
I found another similar problem the other day. The hopper lid has a magnetic contact switch that must be aligned when the hopper lid is closed properly. The hopper lid has 2 brackets bolted into the underside of the lid. These brackets slip into the drawer slides that allow the lid to slide open and slide closed. The nuts used on the bracket to hold the bracket to the hopper lid became very loose so when the lid closed the magnet switch did not engage and stopped power flowing to the auger motor after the initial fire up! I not only tightened these nuts but installed lock washers so it will never happen again,

 

[Webgurl]

Here I am 6 months later and I think I've mastered this stove thing.

I am truly pleased at how easy the window cleans with cook-top stove wax and if you have a nice hot fire, it STAYS clean for a lot longer than you might think.

Also, my little vac they recommended cleans it up nicely, no more traipsing through the house with the ash pan -- I simply vac that up too.

I keep the feed trim on #2, and adjust the blower to #2-#4 as needed. We had some pretty cold below zero nights this winter and I can't tell you how much this stove heated up my room with the vaulted ceiling that never feels warm even when the thermostat is set at 70º. I get temps of 80º plus! It heats up the coolest part of my house nicely.

I do see how the wobbly cover might contribute to the error messages I get half the time.. I have to wait until after the stove starts because sometimes it will seem to start shutting down and that's when I look and find the blinking light which will go out and clear if you press the red button. (I wish these controls were not tucked so far under and that the panel was decaled on with brighter colors as they are sometimes hard to see)

In any case, I am able to clear the error and then the stove runs for hours.

There is NO chance of plastic or anything foreign in the hopper because I cannot lift a 40lb bag of pellets alone, (neither can he) so I usually just bring in one or two "hods" full at a time.

Lowe's no longer has "Greene Team" but something similar that are slightly lighter in color but seem hardwood and low ash.

As for the damper adjustment and loose nuts, once I'm not using the stove as much this spring, I will get a professional clean out and adjustment. He has already had to tighten up that looseness before. I try hard to slide the cover back easy, but firmly into place so that it makes the connection.


Considering I arranged for the switchover from the wood stove to the pellet all by myself, I'm pretty happy. I did make sure he came and measured first to make sure it fit, the fireplace was made to hold this type of thing from the beginning.... so it was perfect.

 

[Webgurl]

Sherwood Industries makes both the GCI60 and the M55, they are identical except for castings and the controller skin.
About the controller
Pellet type must be selected when the stove is cool and off. Feed and air trim selections can be moved once the power is on. The red light on your says premium pellets, green is for regular pellets and yellow is utility pellets. With the unit off, set fuel type to premium. This slows the agitator to one rotation every 30 minutes, green and yellow turns the agitator every time the feed cycle comes on. During start up if you are on green or yellow the agitator can sniff out the flame and push the pellets (and fire) left and right. Additionally, if you are running the stove on low or have a weak pellet the fire can be hard to observe in that deep pot. Dont t worry of the fire laps out the sides, it's designed to. Running the fire on premium will serve you best so long as you use premium grade pellets. Once the unit is running and the fan is on, you can lower your draft trim (less air) and raise your feed trim (more fuel) and your fire will rise up taller on lower heat levels. Read the owners manual for the M55, it's very informative.

Thanks for all the tips, I have been discovering these things myself. I am still not sure why I get blinking lights at times, but they are easy to clear. I will ask the pro when he comes to do a yearly adjustment later this spring.

Thank you all!

 

[stovelark]

Hi webgurl- When you do get a flashing light, take note of what it is. With the M55/GCI60 inserts, you will get #3 prob the most often, espec if it clears. That 3 means the Proof of fire switch did not close when it was supposed to, or it has opened during a shutdown. What it normally means is the stove ran out of pellets. Then when you put pellets back in and start it up, the auger tube has to refill so not enough pellets drop initially for proper ignition to occur and the unit shuts down again, flashing the 3. Hitting start again starts the cycle over, the auger tube now is full so a full charge of fuel is dropped initially and ignition and normal run occurs, stove is happy. Try not to run out of pellets- also make sure in the spring that your maint guy cleans that POF switch (tell him its the switch forward of the exh blower, has brown wires going to it, he'll chuckle). Good luck with it.

 

[Webgurl]

Hi webgurl- When you do get a flashing light, take note of what it is. With the M55/GCI60 inserts, you will get #3 prob the most often, espec if it clears. That 3 means the Proof of fire switch did not close when it was supposed to, or it has opened during a shutdown. What it normally means is the stove ran out of pellets. Then when you put pellets back in and start it up, the auger tube has to refill so not enough pellets drop initially for proper ignition to occur and the unit shuts down again, flashing the 3. Hitting start again starts the cycle over, the auger tube now is full so a full charge of fuel is dropped initially and ignition and normal run occurs, stove is happy. Try not to run out of pellets- also make sure in the spring that your maint guy cleans that POF switch (tell him its the switch forward of the exh blower, has brown wires going to it, he'll chuckle). Good luck with it.

Well this happens when I have just filled the hopper with a full bucket of pellets, which I do each time, so it's probably a crooked cover that is not making the connection. I do think it's a flashing #3.... I NEVER let the stove run out of pellets. In fact at night, I make sure to shut it down by pressing the button about 30 minutes before heading to bed, so that I can make sure it did shut down. Then in the morning, I can start it up, and go get more pellets right away.

I find if you let the stove just burn itself out, you will get a lot of dust dirty burning and a smell... otherwise there is little odor from the stove when it burns clean.

Also I will ask about the POF switch... thanks!

 

[stovelark]

oh so whats happening is when you are filling the stove up with pellets and having the hopper open, that interrupts the feeding of the auger, its the magnetic switch opening, ok. If you take more than a minute or two, I can see it shutting down. You don't run your stove overnight? I guess you just run the stove for supplemental heat? ok..

 

[Webgurl]

oh so whats happening is when you are filling the stove up with pellets and having the hopper open, that interrupts the feeding of the auger, its the magnetic switch opening, ok. If you take more than a minute or two, I can see it shutting down. You don't run your stove overnight? I guess you just run the stove for supplemental heat? ok..

I always fill the stove BEFORE I start it, and, when I open it to refill while it's running, I never leave it open more than 2 minutes as I realize that would mean it would start the shutdown phase. I never let it run out of pellets either.

My stove does a great job however it's way on the end of the house in the attached family room to a regular style colonial, so the heat may travel into the kitchen but it doesn't really get upstairs. In my other house, I had a vent cut into the bottom of the bedroom wall so that the heat did rise up into the upstairs, but did not do that in this house. I suppose if this stove were more centrally located, the heat would be appreciated upstairs.

Yes it is supplemental... even with the thermostat on 72, when you sit still in a room like that with a vaulted ceiling and it's -20º outside, you can feel very cold! This set up brings the temp up to 80º at times depending on how I have the blower set.