Whitfield Advantage II-T pellet build up

[dbull18]

I just bought a new house that came with a Whitfield Advantage ii-t pellet stove insert. I had the stove services/cleaned by a reputable company. They replaces the horizontal exhaust and cleaned the entire stove.

I have been having issues with pellet build up. I have been running the stove at "1" heat level and the pellets will build up in the burn pit. The flame also seems very large for being on the lowest heat level. The sides of glass will also turn black after a few hours of burning. I have tried adjusting the air flow with the damper but it doesn't seem to change anything. I also checked the rope gasket and it seems to be sealed. One thing I did notice is that the door doesn't seem to close very snug but that doesn't seem adjustable. I am not very handy so I am hoping that this is an easy fix so I can enjoy the pellet stove this winter.

I have also tried several different types of pellets. This doesn't seem to change much.

I attached a picture which is the result of a few hours of burning after cleaning the ash from a previous burn. Prior to shutting off the stove, the pellets were overflowing behind the burn pit.

 

[Ssyko]

Not many stoves burn efficiently on low settings. Have you tried opening the damper a bit to get a better burn?

 

[Stovensen]

These tips from Hearthtools helped me a lot when I was a newbie in 2008. Hope they can be helpful for you too.

Tips on if Your pellet stove is burning lazy and or getting smoke in the house

If you are getting smoke in the house or you stove just don’t seem to be burning like should. Check the door seal and latch for a tight fit. Check the ash pan for shut tight and latched If all doors seals are good and latched. MOST pellet stove are Negative air. (Inside of the Firebox is...

www.hearth.com

 

[dbull18]

Not many stoves burn efficiently on low settings. Have you tried opening the damper a bit to get a better burn?

I have tried opening the damper at different increments and it doesn't seem to make a difference. I just lit the stove again and have it on 3 of 5 heat level. The flame seems really big. is this normal?

 

[Ssyko]

When was the last time a thorough clean was done? Blowers out vacuumed? Brick out pnls removed and vacuumed? Here is one of the best pics i have found on how the flame should look

 

[dbull18]

When was the last time a thorough clean was done? Blowers out vacuumed? Brick out pnls removed and vacuumed? Here is one of the best pics i have found on how the flame should look

View attachment 268465

I had it professionally cleaned 2 weeks ago.

 

[Ssyko]

Did you watch them pull everything and clean it? Should be on the bill. If that was done. the only other thing i can think of is the combustion blower motor is very weak.

 

[Northeaster2010]

dbull18, welcome to the site I found this site very useful for diagnostics: https://www.butkus.org/whitfield_pellet_stove.htm
also, if you have pellets that are not fairly uniform and has big ones! they will get hung up in the auger at lower setting and then dump a bunch in your pot smothering it, happen to me before until I found a good pellet.

 

[MButkus]

You need an ash vacuum. Try a SunJoe vacuum for about $50. There are 2 adjustment on the side by the controller. They should be pointed to the center (arrow points up), right is + and left is - . Can you remove the side fan ? Two screws by the hinge of the firebox door, and the side will hinge out. Unplug stove and remove the 5 screws. Watch the cheap gasket it has. Then see if there is soot there and by that tube going to the fire box. Do that every year, also check the fan for dust.
I buy Allegheny Pellets... never had a problem in 6 years with those.
The two adjustments on the side, one is feed the other is exhaust fan. These two need to work together to burn the pellets. Hot enough (exhaust fan speed) and the amount of pellets dropped. I have mine on 1 (feed) and fan on 2 all the time unless it goes to the mid teens.
I have my draft pulled out 3/4 of the way. If you are only running on 1 and 2 (feed) most of the time, I have found to use aluminum sheets and cut them the width of the burn pot on each side to make it about 75% of it's size. The few pellets then drop in the center and burn just right. Just a little turn of the fan speed will increase the burn rate. The feed adjustment determines the length of time the auger is on and how many pellets drop. A small pile of pellets will burn very hot. I see a number of pellets missing the pot ? ? Have you watch how that is happening ?
Every day I vacuum out the pellets with the SunJoe, while running (8 seconds). Just get the ash. I clean behind the (brick) backs once a month or less as the pellets burn so good they don't leave much ash. My first auger lasted 17 years, got a cheap second one (one year and dead) and a good one is now 5 year old. I only replaced the room fan because the unit was installed in 1996. The new one makes more noise then the old one.
Tell me what you find.

 

[dbull18]

You need an ash vacuum. Try a SunJoe vacuum for about $50. There are 2 adjustment on the side by the controller. They should be pointed to the center (arrow points up), right is + and left is - . Can you remove the side fan ? Two screws by the hinge of the firebox door, and the side will hinge out. Unplug stove and remove the 5 screws. Watch the cheap gasket it has. Then see if there is soot there and by that tube going to the fire box. Do that every year, also check the fan for dust.
I buy Allegheny Pellets... never had a problem in 6 years with those.
The two adjustments on the side, one is feed the other is exhaust fan. These two need to work together to burn the pellets. Hot enough (exhaust fan speed) and the amount of pellets dropped. I have mine on 1 (feed) and fan on 2 all the time unless it goes to the mid teens.
I have my draft pulled out 3/4 of the way. If you are only running on 1 and 2 (feed) most of the time, I have found to use aluminum sheets and cut them the width of the burn pot on each side to make it about 75% of it's size. The few pellets then drop in the center and burn just right. Just a little turn of the fan speed will increase the burn rate. The feed adjustment determines the length of time the auger is on and how many pellets drop. A small pile of pellets will burn very hot. I see a number of pellets missing the pot ? ? Have you watch how that is happening ?
Every day I vacuum out the pellets with the SunJoe, while running (8 seconds). Just get the ash. I clean behind the (brick) backs once a month or less as the pellets burn so good they don't leave much ash. My first auger lasted 17 years, got a cheap second one (one year and dead) and a good one is now 5 year old. I only replaced the room fan because the unit was installed in 1996. The new one makes more noise then the old one.
Tell me what you find.

I have an ash vacuum. I am not sure what the two adjustments are that you are referring to. My panel has a fan speed adjustment and a heat adjustment.

I ran the stove for 10 hours yesterday on 2/5 and the picture I attached was the result. This picture was taken after i turned the auger off and the flame started to die down. The pellets are partially burning and building up in the center. There seems to be a lot of ash building up on the bricks too.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Looks to me like not enough combustion air. It's running way too rich.

 

[BrianH]

Looks to me like not enough combustion air. It's running way too rich.

This. All this. You're lacking oxygen in that fire. Looks like the reason your fire gets really big at times is that sometimes it's getting a good supply of air, then it's not. Something is causing your airflow to stop at times or the feed rate is too high. I guess my first question is what are you aiming to get out of the insert? Heat, aesthetics, or both?

 

[dbull18]

This. All this. You're lacking oxygen in that fire. Looks like the reason your fire gets really big at times is that sometimes it's getting a good supply of air, then it's not. Something is causing your airflow to stop at times or the feed rate is too high. I guess my first question is what are you aiming to get out of the insert? Heat, aesthetics, or both?

The pellet stove is my primary heating source. I also have baseboard heat but my house has an open floor plan so heating the first level with baseboard is not economical.

I attached a phot of my control board. I did some research online and it seems like the metal circles on the bottom right of the panel are trim controls (please tell me if I am wrong). I turned the middle one a tad clockwise and I have been running the stove for about 16 hours now. There is some build up of pellets but it isn't nearly as bad. I'm not sure if it was the trim control adjustments that helped or now. Any other way to adjust the combustion air?

 

[BrianH]

Combustion Air Trim – The Combustion Air (exhaust blower) Trim is located just above the Heat Output Selector button. Turning the Trim Control counterclockwise will decrease the amount of combustion air entering the UltraGrate. The Trim Control is factory set at the (0)

posiAuger Trim Control – The Pellet Feed (Auger Trim) Control is located just above the Auger On/Off Button. Turning the Trim Control counterclockwise will decrease the amount of fuel delivered to the UltraGrateTM. Turning
the control clockwise will increase the amount of fuel delivered to the UltraGrateTM. The trim control is factory set at the (0) position.

This is what I found on it. Yours are under those silver caps. If you're certain the one you turned is the combustion fan trim and it helped, I would keep very slowly adjusting it until you get the bright, tall flame you should be getting. It says here's also an auger trim in there, but if you're wanting heat, I wouldn't turn that down. I'd just leave it be at 0 and adjust the fan up a little.

 

[BrianH]

Unless someone has been into it before and turned it up. I always start at factory settings and go from there.

 

[BrianH]

My method of pulling heat out of my furnace is to set the furnace on level 3(mine has 5 levels), open the air door about 1/4 of the way open(for me is 1.5" out), then adjust the exhaust fan down from factory until I start losing heat on the door, then go up until I start losing heat again, then back it off to the setting that gave me the hottest door temp on my Lazer thermometer, then set my high pellet rate to match the temp I want it to be in the house on the coldest day of the year. Sometimes I have to guess at that number but if it starts getting cold in the house, I can bump up the feed rate a little until I find the correct top end rate.

You have the added benefit of having a window that you can watch the flame as you adjust the settings, so just watch for that bright orange flame that goes straight up without dancing side to side too much and that should be the cure for it.

 

[dbull18]

Combustion Air Trim – The Combustion Air (exhaust blower) Trim is located just above the Heat Output Selector button. Turning the Trim Control counterclockwise will decrease the amount of combustion air entering the UltraGrate. The Trim Control is factory set at the (0)

posiAuger Trim Control – The Pellet Feed (Auger Trim) Control is located just above the Auger On/Off Button. Turning the Trim Control counterclockwise will decrease the amount of fuel delivered to the UltraGrateTM. Turning
the control clockwise will increase the amount of fuel delivered to the UltraGrateTM. The trim control is factory set at the (0) position.

This is what I found on it. Yours are under those silver caps. If you're certain the one you turned is the combustion fan trim and it helped, I would keep very slowly adjusting it until you get the bright, tall flame you should be getting. It says here's also an auger trim in there, but if you're wanting heat, I wouldn't turn that down. I'd just leave it be at 0 and adjust the fan up a little.

this might sound like a dumb question, but do I have to remove those silver caps or just turn the caps?

 

[BrianH]

Remove the caps. There should be screws behind them.

 

[BrianH]

Did some more digging, looks like the center one is the convection blower you're looking for.

 

[dbull18]

Did some more digging, looks like the center one is the convection blower you're looking for.

Ok. i just removed the cap and turned it clockwise one notch. I'll try this and report back with results. thanks

 

[BrianH]

Did it sound like the blower was kicking on more often or for a longer period of time? I run a USSC King Model 8500 furnace and mine is all computerized, but I've found that every time I switch brands of pellets I have to tinker with the settings a little because no 2 types of pellets are the same. More dense pellets have to have more combustion air and less fuel drops than some of the less dense pellets. It could be possible that they were running a less dense pellet where they had to have the air turned down and the pellet rate drawn back. Once you get your air:fuel settings dialed in, then you might be able to cut your pellet rate back a little and cut your air back down to match. The important thing right now is that you get the 2 proportional, to one another, then you can adjust both from there depending on the amount of heat you want.

 

[BrianH]

How's your insert coming along?

 

[dbull18]

Hey, I was just about to post an update. So I ran it for the last two days. It did not seem to build up as much but It's still not burning correctly. I just shut the stove off because it's going to be warm today and the pellets were building up (I attached a photo of the build up).

The flame seemed to be alittle smaller than it has been. It also seems like the pellets aren't fully burning before more pellets are being pushed into the pot. Is it possible that my auger needs to be turned down to prevent it from feeding new pellets onto the burning pellets too quickly?

It should also be noted that I am running the stove on 1/5 heat level. It gets too hot in the room if I keep it on anything higher than that.

 

[BrianH]

I would say that's very likely. Feeding "cold" pellets into an existing fire will drop the temperature of the fire. Too many and it will try to snuff the fire out.

 

[Ssyko]

I still think the stove is starving for air. Stove isn't clean or combustion blower is weak/dirty.