St Croix Auburn pellets overload on 3 and higher

[corngirl]

We have had a St. Croix Auburn stove for about 4 years now. It was cleaned by the dealer in October. We do weekly and now twice a week cleaning on it. It burns fine the first 12 or 18 hours on the higher settings. After that, the pellets start to overload. It never puts itself out. It has a lazy flame and a lot of unburned pellets on the sides of the stove. We have cleaned all the little chambers and nooks and crannies. Nothing seems to solve this problem. It just started doing this around Christmas. So before this it was fine. We have adjusted the damper every which way without any success. Is there a way to adjust the feed rate of the auger on the higher settings?

We love our little stove, but nothing is more frustrating when its not running right.

 

[mkmh]

Greetings corngirl, and welcome to the forum.
I would suggest reading through this thread
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/29123/

I had very, very similar symptoms earlier this season and resolved by thoroughly sucking out the exhaust chamber. By the time I finally took the advice of others in the thread I had already gone through multiple deep end of season cleeaning. Exhaust was STILL plugged. I'd be willing to bet this is your issue

 

[corngirl]

We were thinking that cleaning it was the problem until tonight. Today I forgot to fill it with pellets and it went out. My husband decided instead of cleaning it again to start it back up. Its running fine right now. Its running like after we clean it. So I really think there may be another problem. Its like the burnpot fills up with ash and unburned pellets over time causing the pot to overload. Any suggestions? Could it be the pellets? We have been using Somerset.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Clean the entire exhaust system from outside through to the burn pot and then to the air intake. This includes your combustion fan blades. Be particularly careful not to refoul areas you have already cleaned. Make certain that all trap covers and/or baffles are properly seated etc...

Make sure all of the air ports on your grate are also clean.

When was the last time you checked all of your gaskets?

Some dirt caused issues cause a slow build up as the system is no longer efficient in removing the ash from the burn pot. The dirt can be anywhere from the air intake through to the outside exhaust.

 

[Xena]

I think that can be a symptom of the versa grate not doing it's thing.

 

[mkmh]

We were thinking that cleaning it was the problem until tonight. Today I forgot to fill it with pellets and it went out. My husband decided instead of cleaning it again to start it back up. Its running fine right now. Its running like after we clean it. So I really think there may be another problem. Its like the burnpot fills up with ash and unburned pellets over time causing the pot to overload. Any suggestions? Could it be the pellets? We have been using Somerset.

I had the exact same symptoms and it wound up being plugged exhaust.
When you clean the stove do you pull the exhaust fan and fully clean the chamber? How about the ports that run behind the brick panel? I had to snake mine out with a plumbing snake and I got about 10 cups of ash that came out.
The key to getting it running right though was using a strong shop vac to suck out the entire exhaust. Some people use a leaf blower.

Could be your pellets, could be the versa grate. Should be very easy to check if it is those. I really don't think so.

 

[tj11]

I recently had the exact same problem with my St Croix Prescott EXL. Lazy flame, unburned pellets, etc.
Did a full cleaning, which included snaking the exhaust clean out ports in the burn chamber, and used a shop vac on the exhaust. Stove is now running like new again. mkmh had a similar issue and got his running again after a deep cleaning (including the exhaust). Keep us posted on your progress.

 

[corngirl]

My husband did clean in the exhaust fan last week. Are the exhaust clean out ports on the sides of the burn pot. Our manual has them listed as ash traps. If thats the same thing, we always just take the shop vac to that area. Is this where the we should take the plumbing snake to?

Last week when my husband cleaned the exhaust fan, he did take an air compressor and blow air up into the ash traps.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

My husband did clean in the exhaust fan last week. Are the exhaust clean out ports on the sides of the burn pot. Our manual has them listed as ash traps. If thats the same thing, we always just take the shop vac to that area. Is this where the we should take the plumbing snake to?

Last week when my husband cleaned the exhaust fan, he did take an air compressor and blow air up into the ash traps.

I think the other poster would respond yes.

 

[mnkywrnch]

I had the auburn at first and had the same problem my dealer ended up swaping my stove for the prescott as they couldnt find what was wrong,the auburn is a corn stove that can burn wood pellets with the optional burn pot, the auburn doesnt use the versa grate motor.have you tried tapping the back wall with a hammer I bet you got alot of ash stuck in there.It also sounds like the auger could be over runnig feeding more pellets than it should.BTW Ive read alot of threads on this issue with the auburn on iburncorn.com check that site out might be alittle more help.

 

[mkmh]

My husband did clean in the exhaust fan last week. Are the exhaust clean out ports on the sides of the burn pot. Our manual has them listed as ash traps. If thats the same thing, we always just take the shop vac to that area. Is this where the we should take the plumbing snake to?

Last week when my husband cleaned the exhaust fan, he did take an air compressor and blow air up into the ash traps.

Yes, I meant the ash traps actually. I go in with the snake through the ash pan drawer and into each ash trap and let out several feet of snake. It is amazing how much ash comes out after only burning 25 or 30 bags. Simply vacuuming the traps (as per manual) is not enough.
Pull the exhaust fan is a good start too, but what has really helps some is rigging up a shop vac (my method) or leaf blower to the exhaust pipe and sucking all the crap out of the hidden areas of the axhaust chamber. Some people have had good luck hitting this area with a coat hanger, but I wasn't able to get it to get me stove working properly until I applied the shop vac suction to the pipe (with duct tape).

I feel for you. This is a frustrating problem. Hopefully you'll get it resolved.

 

[corngirl]

My husband took off the two round knobs around the burn pot and the ash traps. He put an 18" flexible cable in a drill and put it up the ports and ash traps. He turned the drill on and loosened up all the junk that was stuck in the tubes. So far its running great. Its been about a day now and just a little bit of gray on the door. We haven't had any overloading of the burnpot or black on the door. He had taken the fan apart last week, but said it wasn't really that dirty. So we are hoping this did the trick. Its about 20 outside, but 72 inside with the setting on 3. I wish we had fixed this problem when it started. It might have saved us some on pellets. We had been running it on 4 when it was around 20 outside and it would be aorund 69 inside. So this is a great improvement. If we have anymore problems our next action is the leaf blower trick. Thanks all for all your help. This is a great place to get questions answered. We really appreciate it.

 

[krooser]

You've got the problem solved... a dirty stove. We've all been there. MKMH and I have been big proponenets of cleaning those ash traps as we have found out that's the trick to keeping your stove working well. leafblower, hammer or shop-vac on the exhaust... all will improve your stoves performance to varying degrees.

I recommend cleaning them THROUGHLY after every ton or when you start getting soot on your door glass or get a lazy flame.

A clean stove is a happy stove.

Good luck.