Snap disk tripping

[sammypoodle]

HI, My Hudson River pellet insert will trip the snap disk every 2 months or so. It is usually on low heat so I do not suspect any overheat conditions. I know these are supposed to open up when an overheat temp is found. It is a real pain to reset as I have to move the stove out and the location of the snap disk is in a bad location. I would like to replace with a new snap disk. Are some better than others? Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated. If a new disk is in order where do I buy one it is out of warranty.

 

[tjnamtiw]

I'll bump this up for you. http://www.spaplaceinc.com/categories.php?cat=10

http://www.kinsmanstoves.com/
http://woodheatstoves.com/

 

[Doocrew]

HI, My Hudson River pellet insert will trip the snap disk every 2 months or so. It is usually on low heat so I do not suspect any overheat conditions. I know these are supposed to open up when an overheat temp is found. It is a real pain to reset as I have to move the stove out and the location of the snap disk is in a bad location. I would like to replace with a new snap disk. Are some better than others? Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated. If a new disk is in order where do I buy one it is out of warranty.

Have not heard from you for so long I thought you may have defected from the pellet kingdom. Are you running the convection fan in conjunction with your heat setting or are you by passing it to run on high all the time? Smokey will probably chime in as well, but I solved a lot of problems by running mine on high fan all the time. Smokey is doing the same thing. I was having the same issues and it would only happen every once in a while like yours. The disc has not snapped once since I changed my fan setting. Every once in a while when the temp warms up outside and the high fan is too hot, i kick it back down to its normal settings and I have had no problems. By using the high fan on the low setting, you save a lot of pellets by not turning the stove rate up to 2 or 3 when it gets colder. Mine gives me the perfect amount of heat on setting one with the fan turned up. Second question is have you replaced or checked the disc that came with the stove? They are supposed to have (pretty sure) a 250 degree switch and many were shipped from the factory with ones that were 25 degrees lower. Check that the next time you pull the insert out for maintenance.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Depending on the pellet you are burning that high limit switch will trip if you let the fan follow (float) the heat range setting. This will be even worse if you got one of the stoves with the wrong high limit switch installed on it.

It is also possible that your convection fan is dirty and needs to be cleaned, the convection fan also must be oiled regularly. If the fan is not kept clean or oiled it will shutdown because it is thermally protected.

Once the fan shuts down unless the stove is on heat range 1 it will pop the high limit. There is enough thermal mass in the heat exchanger that it can function in heat range one without the convection blower.

There is a snorkel that goes on the FS stoves and perhaps applies to the insert that places the convection blower further back in the stove, this slows down the loss of lubricant in the blowers bearings.

What it all boils down to is the the convection blower doesn't put enough air through the heat exchanger (when floating with the heat range) to reliably keep the high limit from tripping.

I have a blower that I picked up that I'm going to install when the season is about over to test my theory (my theory is very simple , the convection blower is too small for the stove). Until then I run my stove with the blower on high and it gets oiled every ton of pellets. I also don't run the stove on heat range 3 and above with one brand of pellets or 4 and above on the other two brands. Yes, I'm also saying that pellets are not all the same.

Hope this helps.

ETA: http://www.stonewelltradingcompany.com/Heating-Heating_Parts_and_ACC.html

 

[sammypoodle]

Great ideas. I like the fan being on a higher setting all the time. Makes sense...The stove has been pretty much rock solid. My only issues are the hopper is too small, it says holds 50lbs, on a good day maybe 30 lbs of pellets. My burn pot has melted a bit. The bottom of it is bent and wavy from the heat but works. Staying warm.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Sammy,

I have no trouble getting more than 40 pound of pellets in the hopper of my stove, but they have to be really dense ones to make it to 50.

The hoppers hold a certain volume of pellets the weight actually held will depend upon pellet density.

Such is life in Pellet World.

 

[Doocrew]

No problems for me either Sammy. When you load it you need to push the pellets back by hand to reach the back part of the hopper. If you are running on setting one the stove is not too hot and you can reach your hands in there to push them back. Above that, you can burn yourself pretty easy if you dont have a long sleeve shirt on. You can either use gloves with a long sleeve shirt or some sort of paddle to push it back. A ping-pong paddle works great. After you push it back, you can easily fit another 10-15 pounds in.