Update on Hudson River Saranac Stove

[jed12674]

Well I have burned up 1 ton of pellets so far and everything seems to be good. 19 days averaging 2.6 bags a day. (we like it warm in our house, lol) I have taken the fake logs out, seems I can make it 3 days before I have to clean the stove out that way. The stove is nice and quiet in my opinion. No creaks or groans, blowers are quiet even on high. Ocassionally you hear a pellet get crunched by the auger, but not that often. When the outside temp is above 35 degrees we run the stove on setting #3. Outside temp below 30 degrees we run it on high #5 setting. This keeps the living room just under 80 and the rest of the house between 65 and 70. Not to impressed by the door latch at first, before we started it for the first time I had to file a little rounded groove in the hook to get it to latch on the pin but it works fine now. The glass has some spots that when cleaned still show a slight bit of fog on it, not really a big deal doesn't affect the operation of the stove just the looks. Other than that I can't really complain at all. I am planning to buy another ton of pellets this weekend. I was told to try the Dry Creek brand, alot of people tell me they have good luck with them(less ash). Cleaning the stove only takes about 15 to 20 minutes and is pretty easy. One thing I wish was different is the handle for cleaning the heat exchanger is inside the fire box. Have to open the front door to clean the heat exchanger. I noticed other stoves have that feature out on the front of the stove so the door can stay closed to clean the exchanger (preventing the ash from coming out into the room or on the floor infront of the stove). Oh well, can't have everything for $2200.00. lol Nice stove in my opinion though. So far it was well worth the money. I'll keep you all posted after the next ton is burned up. Probably a little after Christmas. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all of you.

 

[Xena]

Nice looking stove! Glad you're keeping warm.
80 certainly is warm. One little tip that most
stove owners use that seems to work well is to run a
humidifier. It helps to make it feel warmer
so low to mid 70's will feel much warmer
without having to burn up as many pellets.
Ya might want to give it a shot.


Happy Holidays back at ya!

 

[jed12674]

Thank you zeta. Yes we do run a humidifier, actually 2 of them. They run constantly, lol. Even then the humidity level is between 30 and 40%. I think running the stove on high is a little excessive so I am looking into installing a wall thermostat this weekend. The stove has auto and t-stat modes on it. Probably running it on the t-stat mode with a wall thermostat will save us some pellets and save on the ignition components. On cold nights we have been running it on high due to the second story of our house has no insulation(under construction) so we have alot of heat loss. And its hard to keep the bedroom down the hall warm otherwise. But suprisingly this stove seems to keep it warm in here on those cold days and nights. I know 1 thing I would like to try is the manual states that the maximum size pellets that will work in this stove are 3/8" diameter by 1-1/2" long. Not sure if such a pellet exists though. I bet i'd get more heat on a lower setting with bigger pellets.

 

[Kenny1]

Thanks for the update - I don't think anyone else here has one of those stoves.

Enjoy!


Kenny

 

[Afuel Driver]

Hi All,
I have owned one of these stoves since the beginning of November and so far am pretty pleased with it. The only issue I had was that the blower on the low speed would start to rattle after it got warm. I have removed the decorative log and found i can go longer without having to clean probably because there is now more room for the ash to land. It seems that the ash is formed when the pellets drop at such a high speed. I feel that if the pellets were slowed down somehow there wouldn't be as much ash buildup around the outside of the burn pot. Have tryed a few different brands of pellets and it hasn't really made much difference other than the real hardwood pellets take much longer to ignite. I like the fact that the side doors and the ash pan door are all held closed with magnets because it makes it real easy to clean and service. It is also a very nice looking stove especially with the polished nickel door. I had compare this stove with the whitfield p2700 stove and found them to be almost identical. This stove came with the ceramic log and brick face and for $1700 I felt it was the best deal I could find for the money. Will keep you posted on how the rest of the season goes.

 

[jed12674]

ok, so tonight was my first problem. after I shut the stove down and cleaned it all out, I restarted the stove and it failed to ignite and the burn pot over flowed with pellets. Ignitor seemed to work but it worked alittle to late maybe? started to smoke alittle but I think the pot was to full and smothered it. I use to put a hand full of pellets in the burn pot before turning the stove on because I could see the ignitor rod glow way before the pellet level reached it but I haven't done that for atleast the last 5 times I've cleaned and restarted the stove. This time it just seemed to keep feeding pellets till the pot over flowed with no fire. I've been trying to rethink everything I did because I think it maybe something I did wrong. I ended up starting the fire with the gel. Everything seems to be working right now that it is running. Hopefully it doesn't happen like that the next time. I have been doing a thorough cleaning every 2 or 3 days. I shut the stove off and let it cool, scrape the burn pot out, remove all the ash out of the fire box and the heat exchanger. Vacuum the fire box and heat exchanger and clean the window. Clean all ash from around the ignitor and intake air tubes. Pull the cap off the bottom of the vent pipe tee and clean the ash out of there. Open the side doors and vacuum the dust from around the Blower and auger motors and the back of the circuit board (carefully using a light brush attachment on the vacumm hose). I try to keep this thing very clean only because I want it to continue working right and if anything does go wrong it can't be blamed on poor maintanance. I take care of the things I have but I have never been this anal about taking care of one thing like I do with this stove. Example: oil changes on my vehicles have gone as far as 1500 miles over due, my truck has rusted fenders like a typical 95 F-150 would because I didn't take care of it before it happened. mechanically I have, the truck run's and drives great. Sorry to be long winded. Have a Merry Christmas Everyone.

 

[jed12674]

Ok, It must have been something I did wrong. I cleaned it out again last night. This time besides the normal routine I removed both blowers and cleaned them out too. Restarted the stove and everything started up fine. I'm pretty sure the problem was operator error. Almost done with 2 tons of pellets (5 bags left). Just bought another ton of Dry Creek pellets this morning. Boy that really makes the old half ton pickup squat.LOL. Got them all in 1 load, good thing I didn't have to far to go. Thats ok, I've had heavier loads of firewood on it before. Hope everyone had a good christmas, and have a Happy New Year!

 

[sammypoodle]

HI, New to this forum. I just purchase and installed a Hudson River insert today, 07/11/2008. Getting ready for winter. We use oil heat and at over $5 a gallon in NH I figured why not. I fired up the stove and it seems to work great. Very quiet and HOT. I purchased thru a local distributor who sells and sevices his products. Picked up 5 tons of pellets for 249 ton and free delivery, not bad I suppose. He said his price just went up $20 a ton. I hope that will not be a trend. Any how so far it looks great and even thought its still summer, I cant wait to fully put it thru its paces this winter. The flame looks awesome.

 

[BrotherBart]

HI, New to this forum. I just purchase and installed a Hudson River insert today, 07/11/2008. Getting ready for winter. We use oil heat and at over $5 a gallon in NH I figured why not. I fired up the stove and it seems to work great. Very quiet and HOT. I purchased thru a local distributor who sells and sevices his products. Picked up 5 tons of pellets for 249 ton and free delivery, not bad I suppose. He said his price just went up $20 a ton. I hope that will not be a trend. Any how so far it looks great and even thought its still summer, I cant wait to fully put it thru its paces this winter. The flame looks awesome.

Congrats on the new stove. It looks great and you are headed for a warm house this winter.

 

[dstang17]

hey guys wondering if you can help just bought saranac fs.Having major problems with pellets pilling up in burn pot.after 2 or 3 hours they start to pile up so hi that it will get to the chute if I dont turn it off.Iv tried other pellets and they are fine.do you think its the pellets I have 3 tons of them?I just cant see it piling up after 3 hours Im at my wits end with it.

 

[sammypoodle]

I have the insert but basically its the same stove. Make sure your burn pot is seating correctly. There are two notches on each side. I have put it in after cleaning and did not seat it correctly. did you say other pellets work fine and some do not? Are u using a thermostat and what heat setting are you on.

 

[lass442]

hey guys wondering if you can help just bought saranac fs.Having major problems with pellets pilling up in burn pot.after 2 or 3 hours they start to pile up so hi that it will get to the chute if I dont turn it off.Iv tried other pellets and they are fine.do you think its the pellets I have 3 tons of them?I just cant see it piling up after 3 hours Im at my wits end with it.

Hi there,

I'm new to this forum (this is my first post!) Also new to pellet stove ownership. We just had our Saranac installed 2 weeks ago. Wish I could say the experience has gone off without a hitch, but I can't. Anyway, we noticed that the burn pot fills up with ash more than it should, so DH called tech support to find that there is a flaw in the vent hole design and they're working on it at the factory. From what I understand, they'll be retro-fitting current burn pots. Meanwhile, we just keep a close eye on it, emptying & cleaning it daily. I noticed, too, that keeping the fan on high helps in reducing build up.
We're burning New England wood pellets. What brand are you burning? I wonder if brand makes a difference, but with 4 tons already bought, we won't be changing brands this year.

BTW, we burned the stove with the log kit in for a few days, then removed it to see if it burns cleaner without it. It does burn much cleaner more efficiently without the log kit. I think it hinders airflow in the burn chamber.

All in all, it's a nice stove. It heats our entire 2800 sf home on level 3. If we put it up to 4 or 5 it would be so hot, we'd be wearing shorts and t-shirts.

 

[sammypoodle]

I live in southern new hamphire and purchased 5 tons of pellets. I am also new to the pellet world and have no idea on good or bad pellets. If your ever up this way we can swap some bags to try out different brands. That burn pot is an interesting issue. did they say when they would have a fix for it? do you have any pictures of this? I have the insert and I think yours was a FS unit. I would imagine they are the same. My only issue it the auger makes a creaking noise every so often. how about yours? Other than that its been fine.

 

[lass442]

Yes, ours is a FS, but the chamber and pot are the same. The auger does creak every now and then, more so when the hopper is full. I imagine this happens when a pellet gets caught. There are some vibrations that we need to troubleshoot, like a buzz in the motor which might be the motor, or just one of the doors vibrating because of the weight of the pellets in the hopper.

I know that there are differences in pellet quality. Hardwood is better than mixed or softwood, for obvious reasons. We'll probably try a few different brands next year. NEWP are burning pretty clean so far; I have no issues with excessive dust. Ash is hard to compare, as the stove's only been in for 2 weeks. We've yet to establish a base-line norm.

 

[sammypoodle]

Hi, It seems your stove has all the "quirks" as mine does. So I guess they are working "normally"?.! Mine too has that intermmittent motor noise. If you ever do find a cause for the creaks and noises please let me know. Thank you.

 

[lass442]

Indeed, sammy, I sure will! I don't imagine that I'll be motivated to poke around too much; it doesn't bother me very much. Although last evening it was more annoying than usual. The stove had been off all day, so I think it was moaning more as it warmed up. Metal is characteristically pretty noisy as it warms up, and this is cast aluminum, not cast iron, so it's bound to vibrate more than iron would, especially when there are moving parts like the motor, the auger and a couple of fans.
We had a nice big wood stove in our old house. It was cast iron with a huge firebox. We'd have to light it slowly in the beginning of the heating season to prime the metal so that it would expand slowly. If it expanded too quickly, the parts would not heat at equal speeds which could have led to cracks. That wood stove did creak and moan, but at quite a different pitch than this pellet stove.
Now, if I were inclined to poke around ( which I might have done last night had I not eaten too much turkey and sweet potato pie! ) I would be looking for bushings at the motor mounts and the placement of the door hinges and magnets. I do think the magnets are well-placed, but perhaps piano hinges on the doors would reduce that aluminum sounding reverb that resonates with each turn of the auger. Maybe the next time I let the hopper go low, I might just tighten up some screws in there. I'll have to take a good look at the rear panel to see if there's some little thing I can do to reduce that vibration. (Now it's bugging me!)

 

[sammypoodle]

Ok, So now I developed a fan noise vibration. More so when the fan is on high but does happen while on low. So I had to investigate. I think I may have fixed it. The exhaust motor, which is on my left of the stove has 3 rubber bushings on the motor that attach to the fan. If you loosen them slightly my noise went away (tightning seems to make it worse). Since there were three rubber mounts I fiddled (technical term, LOL) on looseness and tighness until the motor was the quietest. Seems good so far. I will keep you posted. I really like the stove but these noises, vibrations must go! Now I have an insert so mine only has a surround sheet metal covering the fireplace and the stove really has no outer casing, so I am sure all the noises echo in the fireplace cavity and make them louder than they really are. I was thinking of putting some Rutland insulation ((broken link removed to http://www.rutland.com/productinfo.php?product_id=34)) on the surround piece of metal to see if it would dampen some noise also. It only gets warm on the insert surround.

 

[MCPO]

Well I have burned up 1 ton of pellets so far and everything seems to be good. 19 days averaging 2.6 bags a day. (we like it warm in our house, lol) . I'll keep you all posted after the next ton is burned up. Probably a little after Christmas. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all of you.

Sounds good!
But 2.6 bags a day is a lot of pellets. I assume you are heating a lot of area using all those pellets .

The amount of pellets used always interests me especially when reading (recently) about the guy who heats his finished cellar 78-80 and his whole upstairs 1800 sq ft on one bag a day.

 

[lass442]

Ok, So now I developed a fan noise vibration. More so when the fan is on high but does happen while on low. So I had to investigate. I think I may have fixed it. The exhaust motor, which is on my left of the stove has 3 rubber bushings on the motor that attach to the fan. If you loosen them slightly my noise went away (tightning seems to make it worse). Since there were three rubber mounts I fiddled (technical term, LOL) on looseness and tighness until the motor was the quietest. Seems good so far. I will keep you posted. I really like the stove but these noises, vibrations must go! Now I have an insert so mine only has a surround sheet metal covering the fireplace and the stove really has no outer casing, so I am sure all the noises echo in the fireplace cavity and make them louder than they really are. I was thinking of putting some Rutland insulation ((broken link removed to http://www.rutland.com/productinfo.php?product_id=34)) on the surround piece of metal to see if it would dampen some noise also. It only gets warm on the insert surround.

sammy, I just took a good long look at the rear of our FS and it makes sense to me that the auger motor is causing the vibration of the back panel. The panel abuts the rear casing and with a full hopper the weight must cause just enough pressure for those to sheets of metal to brush together like a cricket's back legs. I loosened one of the screws just a hair and it's reduced the vibration a little. Can't get the angle to loosen the other one, but I'll bet that'll do the trick. Thanks for the tip. Amazing that they don't use bushings or washers with the screws to attach the rear panel.

 

[kykel]

hey guys wondering if you can help just bought saranac fs.Having major problems with pellets pilling up in burn pot.after 2 or 3 hours they start to pile up so hi that it will get to the chute if I dont turn it off.Iv tried other pellets and they are fine.do you think its the pellets I have 3 tons of them?I just cant see it piling up after 3 hours Im at my wits end with it.

Had the same problem. could only burn the stove on level 3. I read about a retro fit burn pot. Seems that the original burn pot has to many holes in it. I took advice from another post and filled all the holes drilled around the top of the burn pot with 2000 degree chimney cement. It seems to have worked. stove has been on for 6 hrs. 3.5 hrs. on level4 and not much in the burn pot. also make sure you remove the right and left panels inside the stove. located on either side of the burn pot. one screw holds the panel in place. the exhaust ducts are located behind these panels and mine were full of ash. cleaning this should help with air flow. I know this comes late but hope it helps. i bought the chimney cement at a local hardware store $3.00

 

[PhatT]

Have the same problem with my stove, my dealer gave me the prototype pot with single hole, I was able to increase settings w/o overflowing the pot, however stove temp decreased 5 now became 3 temp. They also replaced the exhaust fan, circuit board and a few other things. Still the pot overflows with the regular pot.

Does any one's model number on the right side door say Tasman 40,000, which is a 40,000 btu unit

My dealer is looking into whether the units are 40.000 or 50,000 btu as the Tasman and the Saranac are the same stove.....

 

[sammypoodle]

My understanding is they are 50,000 BTU's units, but the actual heat output to the room is 40k and 10k goes up the chimney, hense the 86% or so efficiency.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Actually the stoves go under a number of names and are produced by Inca Metal Cutting Ltd in British Columbia.

 

[kykel]

Have the same problem with my stove, my dealer gave me the prototype pot with single hole, I was able to increase settings w/o overflowing the pot, however stove temp decreased 5 now became 3 temp. They also replaced the exhaust fan, circuit board and a few other things. Still the pot overflows with the regular pot.

Does any one's model number on the right side door say Tasman 40,000, which is a 40,000 btu unit

My dealer is looking into whether the units are 40.000 or 50,000 btu as the Tasman and the Saranac are the same stove.....

I just looked and my stove says Tasman 40,000 Underneath that it says input rating 40,000 btus. I was under the im this stove was rated at 50,000 btus.
I,ll have to call hudson river. They havent returned any calls about a upgraded burn pot so im sure i wont here from them about this. I guess you get what you pay for. several neighbors have pellet stoves and no one has to empty burn pots three times a day.

 

[jed12674]

Anyone have a pic of this "new" burn pot for these stoves? Last year I had a problem with mine over filling with unburnt pellets. I couldn't run my stove on any of the settings above 2. I just got done taking the whole stove apart and doing a thorough cleaning before this heating season. So I'm hoping this solves the problem. There was a lot of ash build up inside, which I think was causing a draft problem.

Also been having a problem getting a new combustion blower gasket. Dealer told me to use the high temp stove RTV. I don't like the idea of that because that stuff glues the parts together so tight that you can't get them apart very easy after wards for cleaning out the ducts. And the metal is so thin there I know it will bend the crap out of it trying to pry it apart if I use the RTV. I have been taking the combustion blower off after each ton burned to clean out the exhaust chamber. Looks to be the same gasket for some of the whitfield stoves and some of the breckwell stoves. Shouldn't that be something the dealers should carry instock? None of them in my area have those gaskets.


I see some of you with these stoves have been experiencing the blower motor vibrations. I too have had that problem with the convection blower on mine. I came up with a fix for mine, I added an extra bracket that goes from the duct mount of the convection blower to the back panel of the stove. I just used a piece of flat stock metal bent it at the ends and drilled a couple holes and bolted it on. That seemed to solve that problem for me. I'll try to post a pic or 2 of it tomorrow.