Whitfield Quest Plus - Freestanding Burn Characteristics Questions

[bamboo]

Hi Folks, Does anyone know if my Quest Plus is capable of burning with a fire that's similar to looking at the sun? Even after disassembly and compressor cleanout (outdoor), my stove falls short of the 'explosive' type of burn visable in a neighbor's St Croix insert or a buddy's dad's Whitfield Advantage II freestanding. Both display an almost violent, explosive, white-hot burn in their pots.
Are there more powerful exhaust fan impellors blades available that might get my fire from orange embers to dancing white ones? Why won't my fire kick into higher burn temp and rate? From the 3" Selkirk T an increaser to 4" and 10' of Z-Flex up the fireplace chimney that has a snug damper plate. Why won't this set up kick? I'm burning premium hardwood pellets that comes from bags offered by the owners of the great performing stoves. So, it's not the fuel.
Should there be gaskets on each side of the damper plate assembly where it connects the exhaust plenum to the exhaust manifold?
OK< Now I have pics, but this program wsill not accept them, or take them as a slideshow. Back to the drawing board.

 

[rap69ri]

A picture of your fire would help.

My old Quest (not plus) does have a pretty violent fire and it's very bright. Not bright enough to hurt, but hot enough to make you move from the front of the stove.

 

[bamboo]

OK I've resized the pics with Picasa. We'll see if they will upload. Note; The pics appear much brighter / whiter than in real life I've made sets of two with Feed Rate starting at 2 and a Conv Fan set at 4. The following sets of 2 go up 1 higher in feed until the Feed Rate hits 5 (7th & 8th pics) and the Con Fan was set at 5.
I hope this will aid in diagnosis with the hope of getting the burn looking like other, newer stoves.
Somehow Picasa has lost the resizing instructions, or can't find where it hid the folder.
Sorry, After six hours of trying to make this work, I give up! The file says it's compressed to 96.2 KB for 8 pics, but it will not load. Thanks for your efforts to assist.

 

[bamboo]

OK I've resized the pics with Picasa. We'll see if they will upload. Note; The pics appear much brighter / whiter than in real life I've made sets of two with Feed Rate starting at 2 and a Conv Fan set at 4. The following sets of 2 go up 1 higher in feed until the Feed Rate hits 5 (7th & 8th pics) and the Con Fan was set at 5.
I hope this will aid in diagnosis with the hope of getting the burn looking like other, newer stoves.
Somehow Picasa has lost the resizing instructions, or can't find where it hid the folder.
Sorry, After six hours of trying to make this work, I give up! The file says it's compressed to 96.2 KB for 8 pics, but it will not load. Thanks for your efforts to assist.
And now, you're unable to receive even this portion of my effort to repost.

 

[Srfnff]

Bamboo, I realize this is well after the fact of your original posts, but...I have a Whitfield Quest Plus, purchased new from Stovesdirect.com in 2000. I did the original install and venting, nothing fancy, 3 ft. of horizontal pipe straight out the wall and that was it. (A few years later I added an above roof vertical run to improve draft and flame quality...I'm not so sure it did much good.) From the get go the flame on this stove has never been as you want it to be, but it has always provided enough heat for our front room area which is all we wanted. l believe the stove is rated at 1400 sq. ft. which was good for us, and it's always done the job I bought it for.

Recently due to inept maintenance (my fault and the guy I hired/fired's fault) I couldn't get the stove to burn well at all. Long story short I replaced the door gasket (twice because the manual erroneously calls for 1/2" gasket rope when it fact it's 5/8") cleaned the stove thoroughly (but didn't take it apart like you did) and paid special attention to blowing out the (hard to reach) exhaust ports that are tucked away to the left and right of the heat exchanger tubes in the burn box. The amount of fly ash and crap that was in there was phenomenal and is what caused me to fire the maintenance guy I'd hired, who told me he couldn't get to that part to clean it. More like wouldn't get to it. I also ran compressed air into the combustion air port that fronts directly into the burn pot and blew a lot of fly ash and chunks directly out the exhaust pipe and open tee. After all this, the stove has run as well or even better than when it was new, but not like you want it to.

This leads me to believe that the Quest Plus, which is obsolete and no longer manufactured, is never going to deliver that "explosive" flame and sun bright fire you're looking for. Best of luck moving forward, and if you've come up with something that proves me wrong, I'd love to hear about it.

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

Bamboo,

I had purchased a new 1996 Quest Freestanding stove and had it professionally installed by the dealer. From the beginning, the stove never had enough combustion air. I would have the damper set on maximum, the pellet feed on minimum, and the grate would still build up with pellets after just an hour or two. The flame was never a bright yellow either. I complained to the dealer several times but he never came out to look at the stove. I would constantly would have to stir the pellets in the grate. The stove and venting system were properly cleaned.

Finally after 10 years year of putting up with the lack of combustion air, I literally gave the stove to a friend warning him about the problem. We completely tore apart the stove and cleaned everything and found no buildup of ash or fines, etc. The only thing left to do is buy a new combustion fan but my friend does not want to spend the money on this since the stove was like this from the beginning.

I have a 1998 Whitfield Advantage Plus and it has so much combustion air I have the damper closed and the trim screw turned back 1/8 th of a turn.

 

[bamboo]

I would like to thank you both for your posts and stove observations. Interestingly, I had even attempted to provide additional air to the burn by ducting in from a hair dryer without getting the desired results. The stove still soots heavily on the window, but it's not fly ash like the other stoves I've compared my Quest Plus with. So, my solution is to auction off this stove and upgrade to a model that demonstrates higher performance, even at the lower settings in the showroom. I had even tried duct taping the air access to cause the inlet air to enter through the ignitor port to direct the air flow more specifically to the burn pot base and regasketing the exhaust fan for possibly more pull. So, I give up on this stove after having given it my best shot. Thanks again for your confirmations. Bamboo

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Did you do the dollar bill test on the door gasket? You can loose a lot of the air that should go through the burn pot if the door gasket is on its way out. That exhaust blower is going to move X cubic feet per minute if it moves 3 cfm through a bad door gasket that leaves only X-3 cfm to go through the burn pot. Just saying

 

[Srfnff]

Sorry to hear the news Bamboo, especially since I've got a Quest Plus myself. I guess I'll just wait until mine goes completely south and then follow your path...get rid of it and get one that really works. Thanks for the update.

 

[Stovensen]

Hi there,

New in this forum, but I've been reading here a lot with great interest and benefit since I bought a used Whitfield Quest Plus in november 2008. To be honest, I could'nt have made it without all the knowledge, tips and tricks in this forum...Hearth.com is the best of its kind on the internet!

It made me sad, however, to read this thread about the bad experiences Bamboo and others have had with their Quest Plus stoves.

Right now my Quest Plus runs very fine and makes us stay warm here in this unusual cold winter in northern Europe. My experience with the Whitfield Quest Plus is that it's a well engineered piece of machinery, so in order to bias the reviews on it, I'll summerize some details of my set up.
I've also taken some photos to show you the perfect flame characteristics of my stove.

First some details on stove history, parts replaced and chimney/venting set up:

The first owner bought it new in 1998 and had been very satisfied with it for ten years. He only used the pellet stove as a secondary heating source, as he also had an oil furnace running the central heating etc., but with the increasing oil prices he had dropped the oil furnace and installed a new pellet stove with a boiler option, so now his Quest Plus was redundant.

I bought it very cheap since the auger motor was worn and very noisy (but still working, though!) . Also the nylatron bushing at the lower end of the augershaft was worn totally away, leaving a large gap that would allow false air to enter through the pellet chute. An augershaft with such a huge clearance makes strange sounds and pellet feed is unstable.
I found a new auger motor and with a lathe I tooled a new bushing out of a garden hose connector made of nylon.

As long as the rope seal in the door is fairly intact, it's easy to increase tightness to maximum ... sidepanels off, sligtly loosen the adjustmentscrews at hinges and lock, then while an assisting person is pressing firmly on the door, the screws are now tigthened. Perfect tightness!

I use a long bottle brush to clean the "exhaust manifold" between the heat exchanger and the combustion blower housing. The blowermotor is also pulled out and the fanblades are swept. After each such cleaning the flame characteristics get a little better. More stiff and dancing like those of a blast furnace.

I also use this bottle brush to clean the flue trough the small opening, shown on the photo fixed to the fluepipe with two butterflyscrews. This fluecleaning is also done by our chimney sweep once a year in accordance with local legislation, but in order to keep maximum flow, I also do it myself once a month or so.

By the way, my masonry chimney is 65 feet high (20 meter), so it has a very high natural suction....when I clean the flue, the ash is very rapidly sucked in to the chimney. Also with my hand on the fluepipe opening I can feel the vacuum. This may be the reason why my Whitfield Quest Plus has such perfect flame characteristics.
The damper is in the middle position. Fully closed, the flames get a bit lazy, but no piling up in the burn pot. Fully open, some pellets are sucked out of the pot, but the stove stays lit even at the lowest setting.

So, to those considering selling or even giving away their dear Quest Plus stoves and purchase a new stove: Why not give the Quest Plus an extra chance by installing a fan unit on top of the chimney? It must be a lot cheaper than a new pellet stove.

I hope you can use the positive experiences I've had so far with my Whitfield Quest Plus and save thousands of Dollars.

Best regards and good luck
Bo
PS, some of the photos are deliberately underexposed in order to reveal flame details.

 

[opus74]

Absolutely enjoyed your pix and I couldn't agree more.
Pellet stoves take some TLC and a little work and then it happens.

We are rounding out our first season on a 10/2 year old stove (see signature).
We are just finishing our 2nd ton.

Sure beats $400/month electric bills.

Thanks for the tips.

 

[karmijo1]

I know the post to this is already a couple of years, but I wanted to share my experience with a Quest Plus that I purchased. When I purchased it, the person who sold it said it ran perfectly. I tested it in the garage and it smoked for everywhere, except from the exhaust!

I replace the following:

Door Gasket
Glass Gasket
Exhaust/Combustion Motor & Gasket
The Firebrick
I spent (along with my dad) about 20 hours cleaning the CHUNKS of soot the stove had

What happened after all this:

Smoke still came up into the hopper.
Smoke still escaped from the Glass area somewhere.

Fire was lazy. We weren't seeing the air blow through the holes in the fire grate.

We took everything out again from the inside of the stove.
Removed both the convection and combustion motors.

From the front, with the door off, I lit up a torch connected the torch to a small bottle of butane. I heated the "ash trap" areas with the torch while my dad with a small, very strong piece of thick wire would scrape the inside paths of the exhaust area, right where the exhaust housing bolts. The soot build-up in that area was an extreme amount! I heated it up so much, the soot just ran down and piled up. He scraped it out and we would get it out. We were taking out 2" by 3" chunks of soot. When we got all we could out, until we heard the wire scraping making a metal to metal sound. Then I got the torch and burned into the area where the exhaust housing mounts. It burned out whatever else we didn't get from earlier and we vacuumed it out with a very powerful shopvac.

We put everything back on. Plugged it in. Pressed the start button. Pressed the Auger button.

In less than 7 minutes, I saw a fire and flame in that pellet stove like I've never seen! I tuned it a little so the flying pellets wouldn't fly so much by closing the damper a little bit at a time.

Today, it is installed and heating like an awesome pellet stove

I hope this helps someone

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

I know the post to this is already a couple of years, but I wanted to share my experience with a Quest Plus that I purchased. When I purchased it, the person who sold it said it ran perfectly. I tested it in the garage and it smoked for everywhere, except from the exhaust!

I replace the following:

Door Gasket
Glass Gasket
Exhaust/Combustion Motor & Gasket
The Firebrick
I spent (along with my dad) about 20 hours cleaning the CHUNKS of soot the stove had

What happened after all this:

Smoke still came up into the hopper.
Smoke still escaped from the Glass area somewhere.

Fire was lazy. We weren't seeing the air blow through the holes in the fire grate.

We took everything out again from the inside of the stove.
Removed both the convection and combustion motors.

From the front, with the door off, I lit up a torch connected the torch to a small bottle of butane. I heated the "ash trap" areas with the torch while my dad with a small, very strong piece of thick wire would scrape the inside paths of the exhaust area, right where the exhaust housing bolts. The soot build-up in that area was an extreme amount! I heated it up so much, the soot just ran down and piled up. He scraped it out and we would get it out. We were taking out 2" by 3" chunks of soot. When we got all we could out, until we heard the wire scraping making a metal to metal sound. Then I got the torch and burned into the area where the exhaust housing mounts. It burned out whatever else we didn't get from earlier and we vacuumed it out with a very powerful shopvac.

We put everything back on. Plugged it in. Pressed the start button. Pressed the Auger button.

In less than 7 minutes, I saw a fire and flame in that pellet stove like I've never seen! I tuned it a little so the flying pellets wouldn't fly so much by closing the damper a little bit at a time.

Today, it is installed and heating like an awesome pellet stove

I hope this helps someone

Congratulations you found the ash hiding spots and really cleaned the stove sounds like it had been run on incorrect settings and the ash had really built up. Likely with a bit of creosote for glue.

A clean stove is a happy, safe, and warm stove.l