Serenity - cold days and no much heat!

[Talegas]

So guys, I am not sure what is going on. I don't recall last winter having so many cold days like these, not sure even if my recollection is accurate. But I know that I used to just let the stove on Stall 1 and that would pretty much keep the basement and the floor above it between 76-72 degrees.

Now these past days that we had below ~10 degrees nights the stove just could not hold 70 degrees in the basement where it is located.

I have placed already a pipe to take combustion air from "outside" (actually from the ash cleanout of the fireplace) and the stove runs fine. What I have seen is that at stall 1 there is barely a flame on the bottom of the pot. There is no constant flame I mean.

Even if set it to stall 2, there are times a huge flame is seen , but then sort of does not stay and goes away. I am thinking there is a lot of popcorn activity and that once the flame is high enough it gets killed by the next set of pellets that thrown in by the auger, that makes them move a bit and the blowing air just blasts them out of the pot.

Now, I have tried the air intake wide open, I have tried it completely "closed".. and in between obviously and still a lot of popcorn not letting the flame stay high up.

any ideas? I even thought of building like a feeding cage that would hold any attempt of escapee to be hold up in the burning pot, but that is way too much.

Maybe I am being too naïve and thinking that I don't have to use higher stall levels than 1 and 2? (last year at 3 the house was very uncomfortable)

 

[mikkeeh]

I have no idea how much space you’re trying to heat...or what insulation is involved. But...stall 1 on a Serenity, according to the literature, is about 10k btus. If the wall are uninsulated..they absorb a lot of the heat..... If you’re heating very many sqft. You’re asking a lot from 10k btus. My basement is uninsulated and proximity 1000 sqft. When the outside temp is in the single digits, the Serenity will keep the basement at about 65 degrees. Now...that being said, Ive never been able to get the stove to “idle down” to the level that the manufacturer states. On stall 1, I avaerge about 15hrs run time which equates to about 12.5k btus/hr...or almost 50% advertised output...on level 1.

 

[Talegas]

basement is around 500 sqft, total house is ~1500 sqft... I was looking at historical data in terms of temperature last year, and for sure there were much less days below average (average being low 20's) than this year. Still, I thought that at least the basement would stay close to 70 the whole night since I experienced a different situation last winter and the house is pretty good in terms of insulation.

do you get a lot of popcorns regardless of the air vent opening? what is the exhaust blower voltage at the lower stall?

 

[mikkeeh]

basement is around 500 sqft, total house is ~1500 sqft... I was looking at historical data in terms of temperature last year, and for sure there were much less days below average (average being low 20's) than this year. Still, I thought that at least the basement would stay close to 70 the whole night since I experienced a different situation last winter and the house is pretty good in terms of insulation.

do you get a lot of popcorns regardless of the air vent opening? what is the exhaust blower voltage at the lower stall?

Exhaust blower is advance 1 level at lower stall. I think 95?. Still playing with it. Pellets dance, but not excessively. Still playing with the settings. I get a clinker that occluded the air opening in about 10hrs, which makes the flame lazy and blackens the glass. Still working on that issue. I tried increasing the room blower to extract more heat...but I’m convinced that increasing the voltage to the blower also increases the auger speed. Ardisam says not....but I need to get the meter out and check.

 

[rich2500]

try backing down the exhaust blower voltage this will stop the pellets from blowing out of the pot, it will slow down the burn and it will also keep more heat in the stove.

 

[Deezl Smoke]

This could also be the pellets. I had experimented with as many pellets as I could find locally when I first got the stoves in the house. But now that I have become accustomed to one local, and then this year trying another, I am amazed at the difference that can be seen. The new pellet brand I am using right now, does spark a bitt more at times when the auger drops in a new load, and the clinker ash in the bottom of the burn pot is quadrupled over the previous pellet brand. However, I do seem to get a bit more heat out of a bag with the new brand.
The flame with these new pellets is different as well. Leaving the stoves set the same as the other brand, there are times when the flame will disappear and all I can see is a glow in the bottom of the pot. This, after considering the size difference of the pellets, is because now and then the auger will have a short void of pellets. I have yet to have the stove shut down, but the flame has disappeared for a short bit.

Pretty much any time you make any changes in the stove's inlet or exhaust piping, you will need to make settings changes to match.

While reading the owners manual for the Pelpro stoves as the local Wilco farm stores had them on super sale and a few friends were asking about them compared to the Serenity, I notice the manual actually mentions when possible, buy multiple pallets of the same pellets. I was surprised to see such insight in a owners manual, but it went on to explain it is due to manufacturing variables.

 

[Talegas]

Thank you guys. I'll clean up the stove today in an hour or so and do some changes then.

@mikkeeh ,
I was also told by Ardisam that the auger has a single "speed". That means it always rotate at the same speed, but what makes it feed faster is how often the switch is on and off. I would be surprised if they have a controller of some sort tied to both the Stall setting AND the voltage of the room blower. I don't think the electronics in these machines are as complex as that
Related to the clinker and the darkening of the window.. mine goes dark in much less than that and I have no idea if is a clinker or not. I have to say that last time I cleaned it up, all holes in the firepot were free of obstruction. Do you mean to say a clinker in the actual small sliding door that lets air in? Why would my window gets so dark so fast? it never lasted that long before it was all hazy. Someone mentioned that it was lack of "fresh air",well, now that I do have an outside air duct going into the stove, that does not seem to make any difference.

@rich2500
I'll do this today. I'll lower the voltage one level down if available. I don't think I touched it as the manual states that it should sort of be the last thing you touch. Which goes very well with Deezl's comment on the other manufacturer of stoves whom actually points out the nuisance of the pellets and their manufacturing process. It should also talk about the different brands. I'll go through the manual again to see if there is any mentioning of the pellets being blown out of the pot, and how they suggest it can be fixed. I tried closing the air intake (caused to pellets to be more agitated) and opening it all the way. I could not notice a reduction on pellets jumping ship (closed intake they just kept moving within the pot until the next set of pellets were delivered by the auger).

@Deezl Smoke
Yup.. I am leaning towards this is the pellets fault. Before I was burning hardwood pellets (blackstone, logik-e hw were the favorites) and I did not see this situation of the bottom pot being just ambers..there was always at least a small fire going. Now I am burning the softwood okies platinum (that are not the same okies it seems since they were purchased by American biomass) and I am seeing all of this. I'll buy a few bags of the blackstone and see if they make any difference.

 

[mikkeeh]

Thank you guys. I'll clean up the stove today in an hour or so and do some changes then.

@mikkeeh ,
I was also told by Ardisam that the auger has a single "speed". That means it always rotate at the same speed, but what makes it feed faster is how often the switch is on and off. I would be surprised if they have a controller of some sort tied to both the Stall setting AND the voltage of the room blower. I don't think the electronics in these machines are as complex as that
Related to the clinker and the darkening of the window.. mine goes dark in much less than that and I have no idea if is a clinker or not. I have to say that last time I cleaned it up, all holes in the firepot were free of obstruction. Do you mean to say a clinker in the actual small sliding door that lets air in? Why would my window gets so dark so fast? it never lasted that long before it was all hazy. Someone mentioned that it was lack of "fresh air",well, now that I do have an outside air duct going into the stove, that does not seem to make any difference.

@rich2500
I'll do this today. I'll lower the voltage one level down if available. I don't think I touched it as the manual states that it should sort of be the last thing you touch. Which goes very well with Deezl's comment on the other manufacturer of stoves whom actually points out the nuisance of the pellets and their manufacturing process. It should also talk about the different brands. I'll go through the manual again to see if there is any mentioning of the pellets being blown out of the pot, and how they suggest it can be fixed. I tried closing the air intake (caused to pellets to be more agitated) and opening it all the way. I could not notice a reduction on pellets jumping ship (closed intake they just kept moving within the pot until the next set of pellets were delivered by the auger).

@Deezl Smoke
Yup.. I am leaning towards this is the pellets fault. Before I was burning hardwood pellets (blackstone, logik-e hw were the favorites) and I did not see this situation of the bottom pot being just ambers..there was always at least a small fire going. Now I am burning the softwood okies platinum (that are not the same okies it seems since they were purchased by American biomass) and I am seeing all of this. I'll buy a few bags of the blackstone and see if they make any difference.

Talegas: By “clinker” I’m referring to a hard ash buildup in the bottom of the burn pot. Comes out in a clump..usually about 1 inch thick. When it starts to buildup, it occluded the air intake...the flame gets yellow and lazy, and the glass soots up. I believe its a combination of pellet composition/brand, and air intake.

 

[Talegas]

Talegas: By “clinker” I’m referring to a hard ash buildup in the bottom of the burn pot. Comes out in a clump..usually about 1 inch thick. When it starts to buildup, it occluded the air intake...the flame gets yellow and lazy, and the glass soots up. I believe its a combination of pellet composition/brand, and air intake.

Oh yeah.. that. With these new pellets I don't see any build up. When I was burning the Inferno Gold I bought from Big Y and Lowes, the build up was really think. Like really deep, like an inch deep and I think it was because they had a lot of moisture in them. About to clean up the stove, and will check if there is any of that in the burning pot.. i'll share a picture of the window so you see what I am dealing with.

 

[mudeprived]

It has been alot colder this year than last and my stove has been riding on level 2 more often. Setting 1 just cannot seem to keep up and i find it sticking in the mid-70's (stove temp). I also have to kick it up to setting 2 in order to get the room heated up fast enough to turn on my room fans, otherwise it will struggle for half the day to reach my desired temp. Seems to be this way when temps are 10 or below.

 

[Talegas]

Yup, that seems to be the case for when the temp drops (at least for me since the stove in in the basement) below 20. I have changed the set up and now the lower 2 stalls have an exhaust fan voltage of 80 (minimal). This way you can always see a fire in the pot.. I'll clean it up this weekend ot figure out if there are lots of clinkers, but does not seem to be, so that might have helped keep the temperature even in cold days.

Stall 2 is how I keep it overnight so the desired temperature is kept... stall 3 will be used for when is really cold (windchill included). I'll post some videos of the fire after the changes I made.. I will still test once again with hardwood pellets (blackstone) which were the ones I used last year and see if that makes any difference.