I have a Quadra Fire Santa Fe I bought used. All seems well except for 1 issue. About 70% of the time if you set it on low the fire will go out. Seems better if it is fully warmed up(burned on med or high for a while and switched to low). I went through all the troubleshooting in the manual and video. Cleaned everything. Made sure the vacuum tube was clear. When on low it will stop feeding pellets. If I notice the fire going out and click to medium it will immediately start feeding again and work fine. Is there some kind of adjustment for feed time or something. I notice there is a small hole in the control box with a potentiometer behind it. Does anyone know what the potentiometer is for?
Santa Fe fire goes out on Low
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i'll be starting my new santa fe soon, in your stove what's the feed rod set to in the hopper, is it fully open or partially open ?
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It doesn't seem to matter where I set the fuel rod as far as this situation goes. It just stops feeding pellets on low
Did you check the location of the thermocouple within the ceramic sleeve? Make sure it's pushed in far enough to make contact with the ceramic otherwise it will tell the computer to stop feeding pellets if it's not warmed up enough. Start there.
I have the same issue with my Mt. Vernon. My thermocouple is all the way to the inside of the ceramic cover. I will be interested to see what the fix ends up being.
Bkins
Bkins
Bkins said:
One of two wats...
1) If your stove has a damper on it, close it off some...
2) slow the combustion blower down, manually...
Quadrafire has no air adjustments on it, but if your stove is working ok on Medium, and High, but is going out occasionally on low, then I would just replace the thermocouple because it sounds like it isnt working 100% of the time. Sounds like its getting the proper heat on Med and High, but may be just a little flaky on Low setting. It has to have 200 degrees to tell the ignitor that all is well, and the ignitor will run 3.5 minutes longer then when thermocouple hits 600 degrees, it should keep the stove feeding normally.
Restricting the air intake isnt going to help because if you have a nice healthy flame, all you will do is make it sooty by cutting off the intake. My guess is your thermocouple is on it's way out.
My Quad Castille sometimes looks like its going to go out on the Low setting however thats because I have the feed rod in almost all the way , this causes the flame to be lower on the low setting, or runninig at its minimum ability, but mine has never gone out on the low setting it always manages to feed pellets and stays on.
If you have adjusted your feed rod according to the manual, then I suspect a thermocouple. It just might fix it and wont cost a lot either.
Restricting the air intake isnt going to help because if you have a nice healthy flame, all you will do is make it sooty by cutting off the intake. My guess is your thermocouple is on it's way out.
My Quad Castille sometimes looks like its going to go out on the Low setting however thats because I have the feed rod in almost all the way , this causes the flame to be lower on the low setting, or runninig at its minimum ability, but mine has never gone out on the low setting it always manages to feed pellets and stays on.
If you have adjusted your feed rod according to the manual, then I suspect a thermocouple. It just might fix it and wont cost a lot either.
I've narrowed it down some. It isn't the thermocouple at all. The control box is sending the signal to feed pellets but the signal isnt getting passed the vacuum switch. I cleaned out the port on the stove and all the exhaust and hose. So either the exhaust fan isn't pulling enough vacuum or the vacuum switch is getting weak. I have a vacuum gauge to test the exhaust vacuum. Does anyone know how much vacuum it is supposed to pull on low? I wish I had a small vacuum pump to test the switch to see how much vacuum it takes to trip the switch. I know on medium or high the switch is working and if you put a vacuum on the hose to the switch and hold it the switch works on low. ANyone know if the exhaust fans on these are common to failure? Or vacuum switches are common to failure. The stove was made 6/2006
Sorry I only read the last post, so if I missed something let me know.
Is it possible you have a restricted exhaust path which would cause reduced vacuum in the firebox? Also, what is the condition of the door gasket?
The vac switch should have a rating on it of when it should trip, you can test the pressure with a manometer and see if it is in range. I think its something like 0.4 inWC but I could be way off. Not very often I actually bust out the manometer and test it.
I have never seen a vac switch get weak, only flat out fail.
Is it possible you have a restricted exhaust path which would cause reduced vacuum in the firebox? Also, what is the condition of the door gasket?
The vac switch should have a rating on it of when it should trip, you can test the pressure with a manometer and see if it is in range. I think its something like 0.4 inWC but I could be way off. Not very often I actually bust out the manometer and test it.
I have never seen a vac switch get weak, only flat out fail.
I would also check the door seals and the dump plate on burn pot. Sometimes the plate will not close all the way. You will loose just a little vacuum. Check for debri
To check vacuum Use a piece of hose and a tee. See where the vacuum is on med and then check on low. I use a magnahelic gauge to check. Very sensitive readings.
jay
To check vacuum Use a piece of hose and a tee. See where the vacuum is on med and then check on low. I use a magnahelic gauge to check. Very sensitive readings.
jay
jtp10181 said:
I don't have a gauge that goes that low unfortunately. I checked and cleaned everything on the stove at this point. I guess I'll have to run a brush through all my piping and try again. I re-used some of my old piping...outside the house, it didn't look bad at all at least what I couls see of it. Door gasket looks good, seated in right spot when closed. I will have to check the firepot bottom again with a light to make sure it is closed all the way. The flame looks lively to me even when on low, doesn't appear lazy at all. Do these stoves have known exhaust blower issues? Has there been any updates or part number supercessions since 6/2006? I am in the automotive field and know there are alot of superceded part numbers because of a minor change, usually to correct an issue. Companies usually don't change a part unless they HAVE to.
You could aslo check the combustion blower for ash buildup on the fins. This will also reduce the vacuum on low.
Did you try the paper trick around the door seal??? Thin strip of paper. Close door on strip. If it pulls out without ripping. The seal has a leak area. You need to try all around the door.
Keep trying you'll get it.
jay
Did you try the paper trick around the door seal??? Thin strip of paper. Close door on strip. If it pulls out without ripping. The seal has a leak area. You need to try all around the door.
Keep trying you'll get it.
jay
It looks like I got the stove fixed. I don't know for sure what it was though. I took the exhaust fan out of the stove and scraped all the blades, scraped the inside of the exhaust chamber, ran a brush through my pipe, went over everything again. There really was no build up to speak of anywhere. So little infact that I wasn't going to scrape it.....but since I was there what the heck. Put it all together again and it seems to work every time now on low without problem. I have started it and let it cool back then started it again 5 times now without a failure. I don't know where the problem was or is, but maybe a combination of each was enough to cause the problem on low. Are these that touchy for exhaust cleanliness? I used to have a Whitfield advantage that would run and run no matter what, is the quad a little finicky by nature?
No usually they aren't that touchy. I would have though you would see the build up or near glog.
Glad you got it.
jay
Glad you got it.
jay
Keeping my fingers crossed it keeps working right. Who knows, at this point because really there wasn't any build up to speak of. Maybe it is just a fluke it worked that many times in a row.
The only other thing I can think of is maybe you had a small air leak. Just a wild guess though!
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