Santa Fe problems!

[LanielDang]

Greetings all! Long time lurker over here for most of my stove needs however this issue has me stumped and I can’t pinpoint it. Not to mention we got a foot of snow in NJ yesterday and are going to be in the 20°s for the week so any help is welcomed. With more snow next weekend.

I have a free standing Santa Fe stove in my living room. The unit has been an absolute tank for the 10-12 years we have had it. Recently it started acting up on me. First it would run thru its start up like normal. Start a nice fire but it would stop feeding pellets and quickly shut it self down. New thermocouple fixed that problem, back up and running. I changed the igniter while I was at it just for piece of mind since the other was the original. However now I have an occasional/ intermittent problem. Stove will run for hours/days without problem, might kick off if the room warms up enough to turn off thermostat, kicks back on when the temp drops. Sometimes if it’s really cold and the room can’t reach thermostat temp, it will run fine all day/ night.

My problem is that on a handful of occasions now, and usually in the middle of the night, the stove reaches temp set on the thermostat (I think), stops dropping pellets, and goes into its cooldown. The ambient room temp drops, so the stove seems to want to restart itself. Begins start up sequence but never lights, just keeps dropping pellets into the burn pot but they stay unburnt/unlit and the stove will continue to drop fresh pellets until the pot is completely full to the brim. If I catch it and take some pellets out by hand, unplug the stove and plug it back in, it will fire right up like normal and begin running. It only seems to happen once the room reaches the temp on the thermostat, goes into shut down but then has trouble restarting. My wife thinks the stove is still in shut down mode and then trying to fire itself back up and kinda glitching itself out and getting stuck, but I’m stumped so any direction would be fantastic. Thanks in advance guys and gals

Standing by- Dan

 

[Whitenuckler]

Greetings all! Long time lurker over here for most of my stove needs however this issue has me stumped and I can’t pinpoint it. Not to mention we got a foot of snow in NJ yesterday and are going to be in the 20°s for the week so any help is welcomed. With more snow next weekend.

I have a free standing Santa Fe stove in my living room. The unit has been an absolute tank for the 10-12 years we have had it. Recently it started acting up on me. First it would run thru its start up like normal. Start a nice fire but it would stop feeding pellets and quickly shut it self down. New thermocouple fixed that problem, back up and running. I changed the igniter while I was at it just for piece of mind since the other was the original. However now I have an occasional/ intermittent problem. Stove will run for hours/days without problem, might kick off if the room warms up enough to turn off thermostat, kicks back on when the temp drops. Sometimes if it’s really cold and the room can’t reach thermostat temp, it will run fine all day/ night.

My problem is that on a handful of occasions now, and usually in the middle of the night, the stove reaches temp set on the thermostat (I think), stops dropping pellets, and goes into its cooldown. The ambient room temp drops, so the stove seems to want to restart itself. Begins start up sequence but never lights, just keeps dropping pellets into the burn pot but they stay unburnt/unlit and the stove will continue to drop fresh pellets until the pot is completely full to the brim. If I catch it and take some pellets out by hand, unplug the stove and plug it back in, it will fire right up like normal and begin running. It only seems to happen once the room reaches the temp on the thermostat, goes into shut down but then has trouble restarting. My wife thinks the stove is still in shut down mode and then trying to fire itself back up and kinda glitching itself out and getting stuck, but I’m stumped so any direction would be fantastic. Thanks in advance guys and gals

Standing by- Dan

https://downloads.hearthnhome.com/installmanuals/SANTA_FE_C_PELLET_STOVE_OWNER_7050_802.pdf

G. General Operating Information1. Thermostat Calls For HeatThe appliance is like most modern furnaces; when the thermostat calls for heat, your appliance will automatically light and deliver heat. When the room is up to temperature and the thermostat is satisfied, the red call light will go off and the appliance will shut down.2. Heat Output ControlsThis appliance is equipped with a heat output control switch that has three settings or burn rates; low, medium and high. The appliance will turn on and off as the thermostat demands. When the thermostat calls for heat, the appliance will start up at the burn rate for which it is set. If the appliance is set at one of the lower settings, it will run quieter but take longer to heat up an area than if it were set at a higher burn rate. Regardless of the burn rate, when the area is warm enough to satisfy the thermostat, the appliance will shut off

From what I read, there is no mode where it will keep running (on low) once the temperature is reached. I would run it on a mode that will make it keep running ie Low or Med until you figure it out. Your issue could be soot around the igniter, igniter location, or blocked air channels.

 

[stovelark]

Give the wife some credit, I think she is correct. Its called a short cycle. The stove will reach room temperature, and go into shutdown mode, which takes some 20-25 mins to full shut down. Meanwhile at time 15-20 the temp has fell back low enough to start up again, but the burnpot temp is still above 200 deg on the thermocouple, and the control board is not turning on the ignitor because of the TC reading.
Do you come back and the burn pot will have pellets, and be shut down? If so, this is usually the reason. The solution is normally let the stove run continually in low (if that keeps house warm enough) or medium while having the thermostat up high enough to always be calling for heat. I typically did that for my Castille (the cast sister stove to your santa fe), I also did not like the cycling of the ignitor many times a day. The only other culprit could be the control board, but if you take most of the pellets out and it starts up normally, then the short cycle is likely the culprit. In warmer normal winter temps, the shutdowns are long enough to fully shut down the unit and it cool down before the next call for heat cycle. Stay warm, gonna be cold the next few days here it CT, then possibly (please God not) another round of snow.

 

[LanielDang]

That’s the work around we have been resorting to at night or when we are out of the house to keep it functioning and heating the downstairs. The igniter only has one position it can be mounted in so I don’t thing that’s the issue. And it’s soot/ash free bc I popped it out to make sure and gave it a good brush. I also took a wire old bore brush from my gun cleaning kit and really went to town on all the holes in the burn pot, including the igniter slit on the front side of the pot. But no luck.

I’m pretty good about full cleans on the stove. The pot dump gets pulled and scraped daily or every other day. I vac out the main area twice a week and at least once a week take the back panels and top panel off and brush all the ash outta the heat exchanger tubes up there. I pull the fan out of the back once a year usually and wire brush that clean, and then disconnect the exhaust pipes and give them a good bang out/brush/blow.

I hate throwing parts at the machine but that’s kinda where I’m at because I can’t make it make sense on why it’s only doing it every once in a while and it consistently.

 

[stovelark]

Forgot to ask you an important question- did it do this before this super cold weather? When the call for heat cycles were longer than now with this super cold? Super cold is when the short cycles normally presents itself. I'm not sure any part is not behaving correctly, its just a timing issue. Running it in continuous operation is a good work around, and after super cold subsides, go back to thermostat control.

 

[Whitenuckler]

Give the wife some credit, I think she is correct. Its called a short cycle. The stove will reach room temperature, and go into shutdown mode, which takes some 20-25 mins to full shut down. Meanwhile at time 15-20 the temp has fell back low enough to start up again, but the burnpot temp is still above 200 deg on the thermocouple, and the control board is not turning on the ignitor because of the TC reading.
Do you come back and the burn pot will have pellets, and be shut down? If so, this is usually the reason. The solution is normally let the stove run continually in low (if that keeps house warm enough) or medium while having the thermostat up high enough to always be calling for heat. I typically did that for my Castille (the cast sister stove to your santa fe), I also did not like the cycling of the ignitor many times a day. The only other culprit could be the control board, but if you take most of the pellets out and it starts up normally, then the short cycle is likely the culprit. In warmer normal winter temps, the shutdowns are long enough to fully shut down the unit and it cool down before the next call for heat cycle. Stay warm, gonna be cold the next few days here it CT, then possibly (please God not) another round of snow.

Opps I thought you were the OP.........
It should be able to run in thermostat mode on high, but depending on the outside temp ect it may have to shut off and restart too much. My Harman has a "special" mode called Room Mode, Igniter OFF/Manual. In this mode, my stove will idle back the heat. It's great, as in winter I know I always need some heat in the basement. It allows me to keep the temperature exactly the same all the time (in the winter).

 

[LanielDang]

Give the wife some credit, I think she is correct. Its called a short cycle. The stove will reach room temperature, and go into shutdown mode, which takes some 20-25 mins to full shut down. Meanwhile at time 15-20 the temp has fell back low enough to start up again, but the burnpot temp is still above 200 deg on the thermocouple, and the control board is not turning on the ignitor because of the TC reading.
Do you come back and the burn pot will have pellets, and be shut down? If so, this is usually the reason. The solution is normally let the stove run continually in low (if that keeps house warm enough) or medium while having the thermostat up high enough to always be calling for heat. I typically did that for my Castille (the cast sister stove to your santa fe), I also did not like the cycling of the ignitor many times a day. The only other culprit could be the control board, but if you take most of the pellets out and it starts up normally, then the short cycle is likely the culprit. In warmer normal winter temps, the shutdowns are long enough to fully shut down the unit and it cool down before the next call for heat cycle. Stay warm, gonna be cold the next few days here it CT, then possibly (please God not) another round of snow

Give the wife some credit, I think she is correct. Its called a short cycle. The stove will reach room temperature, and go into shutdown mode, which takes some 20-25 mins to full shut down. Meanwhile at time 15-20 the temp has fell back low enough to start up again, but the burnpot temp is still above 200 deg on the thermocouple, and the control board is not turning on the ignitor because of the TC reading.
Do you come back and the burn pot will have pellets, and be shut down? If so, this is usually the reason. The solution is normally let the stove run continually in low (if that keeps house warm enough) or medium while having the thermostat up high enough to always be calling for heat. I typically did that for my Castille (the cast sister stove to your santa fe), I also did not like the cycling of the ignitor many times a day. The only other culprit could be the control board, but if you take most of the pellets out and it starts up normally, then the short cycle is likely the culprit. In warmer normal winter temps, the shutdowns are long enough to fully shut down the unit and it cool down before the next call for heat cycle. Stay warm, gonna be cold the next few days here it CT, then possibly (please God not) another round of snow.

Exactly. I’ll come down around 4:15 am for work and the stove will be full off, stone cold, and the burn pot is 3/4 full, sometimes filled to the brim.
We have had the stove running on high for the past couple days since it’s been very cold here so that seems to explain it. I’ll try bumping it down to med or low and letting it run continually, so it never really reaches thermostat temp and keeps chugging.

Also, while I was in there a bit ago I notice the burn pot gasket had a piece hanging from the bottom side into the ash pan. I clipped it off and ordered a new one that will be here tomorrow for replacement. And I am gonna do the exhaust fan gasket too when I pull it since they are both original. Any chance them being kinda beat up are contributing? Maybe sucking air from places it shouldn’t be? Just a thought but either way replacing them won’t hurt and give me some piece of mind.
Thanks again- Dan

 

[stovelark]

Hey Dan- very normal for the burnpot gasket and exh gasket to be worn, replacing them a good idea, makes air flow through the stove more complete, no losses through open gasket spots. Quads KISS system worked great, still works great, keep things simple. I just turned up t-stat and ran on low or medium depending on heat needed in the house. Many stoves have the thermostat mode of HI/LO version, the stove will ramp up to the heat level selected (2-5 typically) when thermostat calls for heat, then switches to LO when thermostat not calling for heat, this saves ignitor from cycling. Remember too, pretty sure QUAD has the first self lighting pellet stove back in early 90's.
Lots of the early pellet stoves were manual lighting (fire gel starter was invented for that need). Good luck with her.

 

[LanielDang]

Thanks all. By the way, the wife really enjoyed me telling her that she was right as per the forum guys. So thanks for the brownie points too!