Should I get a better stove?

[Sqf1]

we currently have a Hudson West Point 70k stove. It was in the house when we bought it three years ago. I've replaced the intake blower and ignitor in the past two years. I'm very disappointed with the performance but not sure if im being unrealistic.

Our home is a 3200sqft cobblestone built in 1805. The house is actually more insulated and efficient than you might think. The main house is heated by a 93% efficient boiler/cast iron system. All but our family room is heated by the propane boiler and that bill isn't crazy. The pellet stove is in our family room which is about 400sqft and has no radiators. Once it dips below 40deg outside the pellet stove runs 24/7 on low and uses about 1 40lb bag a day. The room is still chilly.

One of the things I don't like with this stove is I can't select the fan speed for the circulator independent from auger speed. I'd hate to buy a Harmon or newer stove and experience the same results and be out cash! I wouldn't mind spending $800 in pellets for the year if it actually kept the room warm but this one does not. I'm spending 5% of my winter heating costs just to hear one room and that seems wrong to me.

Thoughts?

 

[chken]

So, a 70k btu stove can't heat a 400sqft room? Something sounds wrong.

Okay, 40lbs in 24 hrs is just 1.7lbs an hour. That's just about as low as you can go on a typical stove. Why don't you turn it up if you want to be warmer?

As for the blower speed not being independent of the augur feed rate, that might be the case where the mfr does not want you to turn the blower up too much, when on low feed, thus lowering the exhaust temps too low leading to higher emissions. My stove lets me adjust my blower speed when on low, but I also check my exhaust temps to make sure it doesn't get too low.

As for thoughts, is there a reason why the radiant baseboards don't go into your family room? You'd think extending your baseboard loop would be the easiest and cheapest thing to do.

Okay, last thought, you say the family room is 5% of your heating cost, and you spend $800 on pellets? Does that mean your winter heat cost is $16,000?!?

 

[IHATEPROPANE]

we currently have a Hudson West Point 70k stove. It was in the house when we bought it three years ago. I've replaced the intake blower and ignitor in the past two years. I'm very disappointed with the performance but not sure if im being unrealistic.

Our home is a 3200sqft cobblestone built in 1805. The house is actually more insulated and efficient than you might think. The main house is heated by a 93% efficient boiler/cast iron system. All but our family room is heated by the propane boiler and that bill isn't crazy. The pellet stove is in our family room which is about 400sqft and has no radiators. Once it dips below 40deg outside the pellet stove runs 24/7 on low and uses about 1 40lb bag a day. The room is still chilly.

One of the things I don't like with this stove is I can't select the fan speed for the circulator independent from auger speed. I'd hate to buy a Harmon or newer stove and experience the same results and be out cash! I wouldn't mind spending $800 in pellets for the year if it actually kept the room warm but this one does not. I'm spending 5% of my winter heating costs just to hear one room and that seems wrong to me.

Thoughts?

Something is definitely wrong. I have this stove. My house is a moderately insulated 2,000 as foot two story with a crawl space (cold) basement. I cannot leave my stove on low all day unless it is under 35 degrees. It runs in on/off mode if it's warmer than that out side.
Also, you should be able to adjust the fan speed. It is capable of running on the speed predetermined for the heat level selected, or high. I always run mine on high. My feeling is you are sending a lot of heat outside. What is you vent set up? Do you have an Oak?

Ps, on low my stove burns just under 1.5 bags per day. On high it would be about 4 and you would not want to go near it, the AIR temp would be over 400 degrees F

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Most stove brands do not allow the convection blower to be set independent of the feed rate except for the case where you are allowed to go to high fan. Such as your Westpoint.

Some stoves allow the convection fan to go above what is required for the current firing rate. Such as England Stove Works units.

Some stoves take 100% control of the convection fan speed you can't even set it higher.

How clean do you keep the heat exchanger?

I was a wondering if you were going to show up IHP

 

[IHATEPROPANE]

Most stove brands do not allow the convection blower to be set independent of the feed rate except for the case where you are allowed to go to high fan. Such as your Westpoint.

Some stoves allow the convection fan to go above what is required for the current firing rate. Such as England Stove Works units.

Some stoves take 100% control of the convection fan speed you can't even set it higher.

How clean do you keep the heat exchanger?

I was a wondering if you were going to show up IHP

Always looking to help out my fellow West Point owners. I know where I would be if I didn't get the help I needed a few years back. Which I should thank you for again Smokey!

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

The heat going into the room depends upon a clean heat exchanger and a clean convection blower squirrel cage One gets loaded up with ash and the other with dust and pet fur, etc...

The ash reduces the amount of heat going into the exchanger to get transferred to the air that the convection blower pumps through the exchanger and into the room.

Heat that is produced and doesn't get transferred goes up the vent and out of the house. If not enough air gets pumped through the convection blower there is a lower transfer of heat and even more goes up the vent. It does go somewhere.

We have not even got to the point about if your actual fire in the stove is correct as less than an ideal burn can result in what would normally be producing heat to exit through excess ash and or up that wonderful vent.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

There is also a jumper setting on the controller that can influence how the stove burns.

However you need to provide some information on the controller, the jumper setting, and ideally talk to someone who has the information to set it correctly.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

So, a 70k btu stove can't heat a 400sqft room? Something sounds wrong.

Okay, 40lbs in 24 hrs is just 1.7lbs an hour. That's just about as low as you can go on a typical stove. Why don't you turn it up if you want to be warmer?

As for the blower speed not being independent of the augur feed rate, that might be the case where the mfr does not want you to turn the blower up too much, when on low feed, thus lowering the exhaust temps too low leading to higher emissions. My stove lets me adjust my blower speed when on low, but I also check my exhaust temps to make sure it doesn't get too low.

As for thoughts, is there a reason why the radiant baseboards don't go into your family room? You'd think extending your baseboard loop would be the easiest and cheapest thing to do.

Okay, last thought, you say the family room is 5% of your heating cost, and you spend $800 on pellets? Does that mean your winter heat cost is $16,000?!?

If that room is open to any part of the rest of the house the stove isn't just heating that one room, most houses have very poor to nonexistent insulation or air transfer blockages to adjoining rooms

In that vein could the original poster please provide a floor diagram with doors, windows, and any fireplace positions noted. I

Insulation is not the only factor in room heat loss.

Heating system efficiency says nothing about the house envelope.

 

[bogieb]

If that room is open to any part of the rest of the house the stove isn't just heating that one room, most houses have very poor to nonexistent insulation or air transfer blockages to adjoining rooms

In that vein could the original poster pleas provide a floor diagram with doors, windows, and any fireplace positions noted. I

Insulation is not the only factor in room heat loss.

Heating system efficiency says nothing about the house envelope.

Smokey has very good observations.

I don't know very many stoves, but my Harman will allow me to have the fan on high or low (as well as room temp or stove temp). If you aren't getting any heat out of the stove, something is definitely out of whack. even my little St. Croix has been keeping 950 s/ft of very cut up house at 75 in the room it is in, and 70-73 in the other rooms. And that is on the lowest setting. If the stove itself is getting warm, then either your blower is shot, your pipes are insulated from ash, or something really funky is going on.

If somehow everything is hunky dory, then you could try placing a small fan behind the stove and blowing air over it to help circulate the heat from the mass. I don't think that would affect your exhaust temp, but could be wrong.

One more thought, if your family room is on a slab, and not underground, and it isn't well insulated below the floor treatment (carpet or whatever), you are pulling cold directly from the ground. That will give the stove fits trying to heat up the area on low. If that is the situation, you can try turning it up for several hours until the floor feels warm, then turn it back down. You may have to do that once a day (depending on ground temp), but may be helpful - or not.

 

[Sqf1]

Thanks all for the replies. I will try and hit them all.

It is not that the stove can not heat the room, I hear people saying that they can heat a 2k sqft room using 2 bags a day. I can turn the stove up but then I will be using even more pellets than I am now.

I did math wrong (math is hard), my propane last year which was wicked cold forever was about $4,000. I spent an additional $800 on pellets so that was more like 19% of my heating costs.

I disassembled the stove as much as I could over the summer and cleaned it. I brought it out to my shop and took all the motors, hopper, exchange tubes and the like apart, blew it clean with the compressor. It has only been on 24/7 for about a week or so and I know its not clogged up at all. I also took apart the entire chimney and did the same cleaning.

The vent is (I apologize for the lack of familiarity of the terms) direct vent where the intake and exhaust share the same b vent looking pipe that vents out of the wall.

The family room is built in what used to be the cow milking room. The floor joists are 24" above a concrete slab. The bottom of the floor joists and the entire crawlspace is insulated with R30 closed cell polyurethane, the entire space under the floor is unventilated.

The attic is R50 cellulose and the rest of the house is stone, 50" thick in the basement (10ft high ceilings in every floor including basement). We had the blower door test done over the summer and the numbers were good. I do not recall exactly what they were but my contractor said air leakage was not an issue and that he only recommended adding the closed cell poly (that was put in this past summer) to help with the family room.

The stove gets very hot even on low, hot enough that you can not touch the top for more than a second or two without burning your hand. I am glad someone here is familiar with the stove! I can put the exhaust fan on high to cool the stove down and fill the room up but after about ten minutes the stove cools down and blows luke warm air out, not to mention the noise created by the fan on high makes it hard to watch television.

What information about the board would be relevant? I can provide that.

I know the stove can get very hot, hot enough that it some point in its past someone had it hot enough that the plastic handle to open the handle is partially melted and mis shapen. I am sure if I cranked it up to high it would get even hotter but then I would go through so much pellet fuel it would cost even more.

I do not have baseboard heat, it is cast iron radiators that were added in 1917 so adding a new loop to the existing system would be very costly.

The room is open to the kitchen but by trying to eliminate the heat transfer I built a temporary divider to close it off and it made a slight difference but not anything huge.

I guess what doesn't click for me is if people can heat a 2000sqft home with pellet fuel alone then I feel as though I should be able to keep this one room warmer even if heat is going into the rest of the house. I may be mistaken about that. I'm glad I found a group here that may be able to help me out!

I think I hit all of the responses in this post. I will try and draw up a floor plan and post it here.

Oh and about getting someone to come out and look at it, I called two of the local stove places (one of which sold the previous owners this stove) and they both told me not to waste my time, it was an "off brand" stove that wasn't ever going to perform as well as a new stove, just come on by the store and we will gladly sell you a stove that will solve all of your problems......

 

[IHATEPROPANE]

My feeling is that you are trying to heat a pretty good space without enough btu's. It's not the stove, its that the stove needs to be allowed to burn more pellets. 10 foot ceilings in every room, stone and 3,000 as feet, even if well insulated is a lot of space to heat.
You spent 4,000 on propane and 800 on pellets (3 Tons?). I would spend about 3,500 on propane alone to hear my 2000 sq feet. To heat with just pellets I use 5-6 Tons. So if you were to go just pellets I would guess you are around 9-10 Tons Now I am just approximating, but my point is I think you need to burn a LOT of pellets to heat your house because you need a LOT of BTU's regardless of where they come from.

 

[bags]

I recently bought a used PC43 and it was hardly blowing heat lazy flame and all. I sort of wrote it off to him burning pellets in 100% corn set up and a routine cleaning needed. Long drive so I wanted to verify all components did work, load it, and go for the drive home.

I found out why yesterday and last night. It was filthy everywhere inside and in the back. Looked like a new stove on the outside or anywhere visible and the sellers wife kept that pristine. She was trying to clean the thing after we unhooked it. Obviously hubby didn't clean the inside much if ever. More like never. The house was very clean but he did build it and I think at some point it was hooked up while construction was still underway. Looked like drywall dust stuck to stuff. The blower fans look like caked up Fred Flintstone mag rock wheels. Probe was a mess. It was all a mess and not running correctly when we started it right before I bought it but it did work so I knew I had something to work with for the right price.

When these folks here rant over and over about a clean stove................... Take that seriously! It applies to every pellet stove ever made. It means life or death to your stove. Stoves usually contract the dirty disease before the get listed for sale and dirty stoves are the majority of people having problems other than a component being old, worn, and crapping out which a dirty stove shortens the life of exponentially.

The exhaust fan and blower was so caked up I am surprised it still ran. Same for the heat exchange blower. I had to take them out and apart to clean they were so nasty. Beyond a dirty pig filthy. I was shocked at how nice everything else was and how dirty the innards were. Everything looked like a Shop Vac filter that had never been cleaned after years of use sucking up a bunch of drywall dust and anything and everything along the way including some liquid spills while at it.

After an excessive clean it operates and functions like a new stove. Night and day. All I did was clean it. Now it pumps out some serious heat, burns right, and functions like my new stove. Have you ever thoroughly cleaned your stove?

That is much cheaper (free if you do it) than buying another. Break it down and cleaning would be my first step. It is not difficult but a little messy. I would be willing to bet the 2006 PC43 I bought recently had never had an annual cleaning and surprisingly it still all worked but not like it should. I estimate it was running at about 40% tops. I think the guy never cleaned and just replaced or had parts replaced when they went south. He handed me a box of 6 burn pots and a bunch of various other parts. Some new and some used. Some people never do required and suggested maintenance. Then they wonder why their car broke down or runs crappy with 40K on the ODO.

Sorry for the long winded txt but a good clean solved all of my issues. Issues just like you are having.

 

[bogieb]

You mentioned ceiling and floor insulation (sounds like plenty), but does the room have outside walls and are they well insulated? This is going to sound stupid, but trust me I have experienced this - are you sure the plywood for the outer shell goes all the way up to the ceiling? I opened up my exterior walls this summer and found that there was a good 9" open to the eave - all the way around the house. Okay, that probably isn't your issue, but I can imagine that a whole lot of heating dollars went straight into my attic last year, with me blissfully (actually freezingly) unaware!

 

[bags]

Hey Sqf1,
I can not type so I saw where you cleaned and stuff after my post. My second stove was doing stuff like yours and the clean reversed everything. Let these others who are familiar with your stove walk you thru stuff. Good luck!

 

[Sqf1]

You mentioned ceiling and floor insulation (sounds like plenty), but does the room have outside walls and are they well insulated? This is going to sound stupid, but trust me I have experienced this - are you sure the plywood for the outer shell goes all the way up to the ceiling? I opened up my exterior walls this summer and found that there was a good 9" open to the eave - all the way around the house. Okay, that probably isn't your issue, but I can imagine that a whole lot of heating dollars went straight into my attic last year, with me blissfully (actually freezingly) unaware!

The house is cobblestone, the stone is 50" at the base of the house and runs all the way up to the eave where it slims down to 24" along the way. There are two air gaps and a rubble layer inside the stone (remember the house is over 200 years old). The familyroom however is wood construction with stucco covering on the exterior which was added around 1870.

It looks more like the stove may be working fine, I just hate spending so much on pellets and additional money on propane. I considered buying another stove and moving this one to the second floor but I wouldn't be anymore ahead than just cranking the thermostat for the boiler up a little more.

When I say chilly the rest of the house is 68 degrees right now, the family room where the stove is located is 63. That does not make sense to me.

 

[bags]

Something is up. A 70K BTU should cook you out of a room that size. I am doing 2 levels at 2,350 SQ FT with a single 68K BTU stove keeping everything very warm and comfy and so far using 2 bags per day tops on average. When it was 8-9 at night and highs in the mid to upper twenties barely any more.

 

[chken]

Thanks all for the replies. I will try and hit them all.

It is not that the stove can not heat the room, I hear people saying that they can heat a 2k sqft room using 2 bags a day. I can turn the stove up but then I will be using even more pellets than I am now.

I did math wrong (math is hard), my propane last year which was wicked cold forever was about $4,000. I spent an additional $800 on pellets so that was more like 19% of my heating costs.

I disassembled the stove as much as I could over the summer and cleaned it. I brought it out to my shop and took all the motors, hopper, exchange tubes and the like apart, blew it clean with the compressor. It has only been on 24/7 for about a week or so and I know its not clogged up at all. I also took apart the entire chimney and did the same cleaning.

The vent is (I apologize for the lack of familiarity of the terms) direct vent where the intake and exhaust share the same b vent looking pipe that vents out of the wall.

The family room is built in what used to be the cow milking room. The floor joists are 24" above a concrete slab. The bottom of the floor joists and the entire crawlspace is insulated with R30 closed cell polyurethane, the entire space under the floor is unventilated.

The attic is R50 cellulose and the rest of the house is stone, 50" thick in the basement (10ft high ceilings in every floor including basement). We had the blower door test done over the summer and the numbers were good. I do not recall exactly what they were but my contractor said air leakage was not an issue and that he only recommended adding the closed cell poly (that was put in this past summer) to help with the family room.

The stove gets very hot even on low, hot enough that you can not touch the top for more than a second or two without burning your hand. I am glad someone here is familiar with the stove! I can put the exhaust fan on high to cool the stove down and fill the room up but after about ten minutes the stove cools down and blows luke warm air out, not to mention the noise created by the fan on high makes it hard to watch television.

What information about the board would be relevant? I can provide that.

I know the stove can get very hot, hot enough that it some point in its past someone had it hot enough that the plastic handle to open the handle is partially melted and mis shapen. I am sure if I cranked it up to high it would get even hotter but then I would go through so much pellet fuel it would cost even more.

I do not have baseboard heat, it is cast iron radiators that were added in 1917 so adding a new loop to the existing system would be very costly.

The room is open to the kitchen but by trying to eliminate the heat transfer I built a temporary divider to close it off and it made a slight difference but not anything huge.

I guess what doesn't click for me is if people can heat a 2000sqft home with pellet fuel alone then I feel as though I should be able to keep this one room warmer even if heat is going into the rest of the house. I may be mistaken about that. I'm glad I found a group here that may be able to help me out!

I think I hit all of the responses in this post. I will try and draw up a floor plan and post it here.

Oh and about getting someone to come out and look at it, I called two of the local stove places (one of which sold the previous owners this stove) and they both told me not to waste my time, it was an "off brand" stove that wasn't ever going to perform as well as a new stove, just come on by the store and we will gladly sell you a stove that will solve all of your problems......

I think your house sounds well insulated, with R30 under the floor and R50 in the ceiling, and you've had a blower test so it's tight. The one question mark is of course the walls which are cobblestone, but once you've got the house heated, keeping it at that heat should be easier with all that thermal mass.

If your stove is getting that hot, it's starting to sound like a wood stove, then perhaps the folks who have the same stove can chip in, but that doesn't sound right. I'm starting to think that perhaps you're sending most of that heat you're making out the vent.

 

[IHATEPROPANE]

I think your house sounds well insulated, with R30 under the floor and R50 in the ceiling, and you've had a blower test so it's tight. The one question mark is of course the walls which are cobblestone, but once you've got the house heated, keeping it at that heat should be easier with all that thermal mass.

If your stove is getting that hot, it's starting to sound like a wood stove, then perhaps the folks who have the same stove can chip in, but that doesn't sound right. I'm starting to think that perhaps you're sending most of that heat you're making out the vent.

I have that stove and with the convection fan on low it will get hot. How hot I don't remember, I always run it with the fan on high, much better heat distribution in my opinion. With the fan on high and lowest feed rate I get 145 degree air coming out as tested with a thermocouple 1" from the center tube.

 

[Sqf1]

I just put the fan on high for the last hour. It is warming the room better but I'll give it a few days to see if I notice a long term improvement. I put a thermometer about 1" away from the tube and it leveled out at about 117 degrees.

Does your ignitor remain on continuously? Mine does, I found that odd because it seems like a waste of energy to keep it powered once the stove is lit.

It also takes three resets to get the stove started. I start it and the burn pot fills with pellets before the ignitor gets warm enough to start the pellets burning. So my process is start it and wait for it to shut off. Once it shuts off dump out the full burn pot and restart.

Replace burnpot and restart stove. Generally on the second start the pellets will light but the stove will be too cold to actually start. I wait for the stove to turn off a second time.

Restart a third time and after a few minutes the blower will kick on and it runs by itself from then on.

Thanks to everyone for the help. I've never had any stove or fireplace before.

My wife hates the stove because every time it has broken (induction fan once and ignitor last year) has been while I am out of town and she has "touched" it.

My mother in-law is convinced we should replace it with a conventional wood burning stove, even though she has never had either and has no frame of reference other than she thinks it is way better......

 

[IHATEPROPANE]

I just put the fan on high for the last hour. It is warming the room better but I'll give it a few days to see if I notice a long term improvement. I put a thermometer about 1" away from the tube and it leveled out at about 117 degrees.

Does your ignitor remain on continuously? Mine does, I found that odd because it seems like a waste of energy to keep it powered once the stove is lit.

It also takes three resets to get the stove started. I start it and the burn pot fills with pellets before the ignitor gets warm enough to start the pellets burning. So my process is start it and wait for it to shut off. Once it shuts off dump out the full burn pot and restart.

Replace burnpot and restart stove. Generally on the second start the pellets will light but the stove will be too cold to actually start. I wait for the stove to turn off a second time.

Restart a third time and after a few minutes the blower will kick on and it runs by itself from then on.

Thanks to everyone for the help. I've never had any stove or fireplace before.

My wife hates the stove because every time it has broken (induction fan once and ignitor last year) has been while I am out of town and she has "touched" it.

My mother in-law is convinced we should replace it with a conventional wood burning stove, even though she has never had either and has no frame of reference other than she thinks it is way better......

No, my igniter certainly does not stay on. Probably why it takes you three restarts to get the stove going, your igniter is probably in need of replacement. You can get them on Amazon for like 30 bucks. It sounds like you have a bad control board if the igniter never turns off. There is a member here that sells replacement parts, Don222, I have bought stuff from him before.
Do you get any build up in your burn pot? How well does you pot sit in the receptacle? I had a lot of air by pass initially and a little rope gasket fixed the issue. If you are getting build up do a search on this forum and you will find the thread in which I showed pics to help some one else out.

 

[IHATEPROPANE]

Also, can you take a pic of your control board? It may be the older version. I have an upgraded board, I got it free from Hudson River because the original did not have the on/off function, which it advertised at the time. So they sent me the newer version .

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Something is up. A 70K BTU should cook you out of a room that size. I am doing 2 levels at 2,350 SQ FT with a single 68K BTU stove keeping everything very warm and comfy and so far using 2 bags per day tops on average. When it was 8-9 at night and highs in the mid to upper twenties barely any more.

She isn't burning enough pellets to produce 70K, the stove is capable of three different burn rates on level 1 there is level 1 trimmed to -10% and to +10%. in addition to just level 1 stock. Depending on the actual controller in the machine it is possible that there is a total of 9 level 1 settings, three level 2, three level 3, three level 4, and three level 5 settings (yeah, I know IHP is saying hey what?). But the long and short of it is there are more heat settings and if you have 10 foot ceilings you are heating a larger volume of air and that is the long and short of it with that larger volume of air comes the need for more air handling ability. Also the convection heat loops are going to place a lot of the heat at the ceiling level which is not where you'll feel it. At 2500 square foot house with 8 foot ceilings is a far cry from a 3200 square foot house with 10 foot ceilings. 20000 cubic feet versus 32000 qubic feet, a 400 square foot room would go from 3200 cubic feet to 4000 cubic feet with a 200 CFM blower (your stove on high fan) you are talking 20 minutes to fill that room if there was no other area for the hot air to go which there is. I have no idea about how well the air/fuel mixture is in your stove but your best burn is likely on higher than level 1. In addition if your stove is not on an OAK the stove is taking its air from the room, some of that air you will have already heated a bit and it is sending it right up the stove vent.

This information applies no matter what you put in that room for heating if it uses a flame and draws inside air. If your guy says the air infiltration is fine I won't argue, however I would want to double check that, that was one reason I specificity wanted any fireplaces in that room noted. Heat loss figures usually have infiltration first, fallowed by window glass area, followed by ceiling, then walls, and floors. In order to hold temperature in a building you have to produce at least the BTUs you loose. To raise the temperature you have to produce more than the BTUs lost.

Your igniter should go off when the combustion blower starts, there have been igniters on stoves fail to shut down, if that is the case the control board is the problem and needs to be repaired or replaced as a triac and/or associated optoisolator has failed.

If i was running your stove in that room I'd set it on a t-stat in hi/lo mode with the high range being level 2 and level 1 not trimmed. And let it run for a while.

Well it is encouraging to see that someone has gotten the message about a clean stove and yes we harp on that for a very good reason, a clean stove is a happy, warm, and safe stove. The stove being happy isn't always what the owner is thinking about, the warm part is what they really want, and the safe part is what really counts.

 

[Sqf1]

I have to empty the burnpot once a day. It gets about 1/2 buildup all across the bottom. The ash builds up more in front of the burn pot, behind the pot and on the little ledge on the door right on top of the gasket. That annoys me because the ash on the door lip always falls on the floor as soon as I open the door.

The ignitor was replaced last February, I cross referenced the ignitor from Hudson Valley that was over $100 to the same one on Grainger that was about $35. The old ignitor always stayed on too.

I use a paint stirrer to clear the ash around the burnpot. I just checked and it will fit in the gap on the side and front of the burnpot. Not easily but it will slide in there so that is how much of a gap I have.

The control board is T200808 ver 1.1

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

The ash build up in the pot should not be happening that fast at that firing rate, likely you have a combustion air bypass. Is there a rim around your burn pot that has a space under it, a dense gasket under that rim that is is high enough to fill the height of the rim plus just a little bit more and the width of the area under the rim. Will seal any bypasses at the burn pot. Then as the pellet level goes down in the hopper is there a gap between the auger flight cover and the end cap so you can see the end of the auger turn? If so this should be closed with a bit of flat self sticking window gasket. The ash is going to land where the combustion air sends it and it is not likely we can do much for that.

I don't recognize that control board will need to do some searching. Tomorrow sometime.

 

[Sqf1]

The ash build up in the pot should not be happening that fast at that firing rate, likely you have a combustion air bypass. Is there a rim around your burn pot that has a space under it, a dense gasket under that rim that is is high enough to fill the height of the rim plus just a little bit more and the width of the area under the rim. Will seal any bypasses at the burn pot. Then as the pellet level goes down in the hopper is there a gap between the auger flight cover and the end cap so you can see the end of the auger turn? If so this should be closed with a bit of flat self sticking window gasket. The ash is going to land where the combustion air sends it and it is not likely we can do much for that.

I don't recognize that control board will need to do some searching. Tomorrow sometime.

There is no gasket or rim around the burnpot if I am understanding what you're saying. I will search what IHP mentioned about adding this.

If the gap in the end cap you are talking about is at the top of the auger right where they fall down the chute then there is definately a large one there, I think the previous owner even pried it open wider as there are pry marks and I can put a pellet through the gap if I wanted.