Whitfield Profile - Bizarre Behavior

[Stove Goon]

My Whitfield Profile 30 INS has been running all winter in a predictable if not always desirable manner, but starting this morning it is doing something bizarre.

The pellets feed, the pellets burn, the pellets stop feeding, the fire burns until the pellets are consumed, the fire goes out. Then the pellets feed, the pellets burn... you see where this is going. It is as if the stove now says "I will feed some pellets, wait for some flame, stop feeding pellets, wait until the there is no flame, then feed some more pellets."

This just started happening today. Before, it would tend to feed too many pellets, eventually filling up the grate so I would have to stop it every day and let it burn down down before restarting it. Perhaps it is reacting to my hurtful comments in its presence? :roll:

 

[Stove Goon]

Well here I am replying to my own post. Let me tell you what I did, after which the stove seems happy again.

Being an insert, I had to pull it out of the fireplace but only so far because of the exhaust pipe going up the flue. I had to remove the surround. I had to get a flashlight and toolbox. I had to remove most of the pellets from the hopper. Why? To get at the photo eye. Yes, that thing underneath that box inside the hopper that is in the way when you fill the hopper. Then after playing contortionist for a while, I managed to get at this device that is angled toward the inside of the fireplace, away from me of course.

The photo eye itself was quite clean, but there is the "filter". The filter is a piece of amber glass, through which the photo eye looks to see if there is light. Being up against the chute through which the pellets drop and through which the flames will wander, I found this amber filter to have muck on it. Yes, muck. Not much muck, but just enough muck to perhaps render the photo eye nearly blind. Kind of like driving in New England in the winter. :grrr: So I wiped off the muck and put it back in. Putting it back in was even more of struggle than getting it out, but I think it was worth it, because the stove is working better than ever.