I have had this insert for about 3 years and must say I am pleased with it as it has been a solid quality built product as far as my experience with it has been. I was sold on the unit when i was shoping for a pellet stove and thought that it had good features such as easy access to the fans and such for maintenance purposes without having to remove the unit to do repairs. Thankfully I have had nothing major to do to the unit yet but feel that it will last a good while for us even if have to replace some items going forward. I do have some questions though about this stove that some who know this unit may be able to provide some answers to.
One thing I have a question about is the combustion air intake adjustment slider just in front of the combustion air fan assembly on the right hand side door. I found it all the way to the outside (right side) for what I think would be all the way open position and have read that this is the way that it ships. This year seems to be a bit colder than the first 2 years and we have been finding that the stove is having trouble keeping the temps up to what it was holding in the past. I did read here that this combustion air adjuster was not optimal at the fully open position and I decided to experiment with the other settings for this slider and moved it toward the center maybe 1/4 of the distance from fully open and found that that helped the actual heat of the stove to increase quite nicely. So that information it seems was quite accurate. My question is what would I do to optimize this setting. Right now I am certain it is improved but it is just a guess on my part as to just how much I have helped the stove by my guestimate of this change. Or is it just that I should try some slight changes in the setting until I can decide on where it seems to be best for this stove although that does seem sort of like guessing at it. Any more precise method I would be glad to hear.
Another issue I had early on was the unit just cut off when operating at its highest setting(4). I did find that after doing a thorough cleaning of the stove I could run the unit on the 3 setting and that worked fine and did produce adequate heat so I have been going with that till now and have needed to up my setting to 4 again to get the heater to maintain the previous temps in the colder temperatures we are having here in northern Michigan this winter. So having changed the draft adjustement for what seemed to be a better setting I tried the stove for about 3 hours today on the higher setting and found that it works fine and does not kick off at the high limit switch setting any longer and that it does produce quite a lot more heat output. I am just assuming here that my improved maintenance schedule on cleaning has enabled this stove to perform at this higher setting without overheating. I am a bit concerned however by some of the wording in the owners manual regarding operating the stove on the highest setting for prolonged periods of time as it may cause the earlier failure of some electronics due to this increased heat? I find that to be a somewhat odd comment for the maker to put out there since the whole purpose of this to produce heat. Anyone have any feelings on this I would be glad to hear about it.
Thanks Jim
One thing I have a question about is the combustion air intake adjustment slider just in front of the combustion air fan assembly on the right hand side door. I found it all the way to the outside (right side) for what I think would be all the way open position and have read that this is the way that it ships. This year seems to be a bit colder than the first 2 years and we have been finding that the stove is having trouble keeping the temps up to what it was holding in the past. I did read here that this combustion air adjuster was not optimal at the fully open position and I decided to experiment with the other settings for this slider and moved it toward the center maybe 1/4 of the distance from fully open and found that that helped the actual heat of the stove to increase quite nicely. So that information it seems was quite accurate. My question is what would I do to optimize this setting. Right now I am certain it is improved but it is just a guess on my part as to just how much I have helped the stove by my guestimate of this change. Or is it just that I should try some slight changes in the setting until I can decide on where it seems to be best for this stove although that does seem sort of like guessing at it. Any more precise method I would be glad to hear.
Another issue I had early on was the unit just cut off when operating at its highest setting(4). I did find that after doing a thorough cleaning of the stove I could run the unit on the 3 setting and that worked fine and did produce adequate heat so I have been going with that till now and have needed to up my setting to 4 again to get the heater to maintain the previous temps in the colder temperatures we are having here in northern Michigan this winter. So having changed the draft adjustement for what seemed to be a better setting I tried the stove for about 3 hours today on the higher setting and found that it works fine and does not kick off at the high limit switch setting any longer and that it does produce quite a lot more heat output. I am just assuming here that my improved maintenance schedule on cleaning has enabled this stove to perform at this higher setting without overheating. I am a bit concerned however by some of the wording in the owners manual regarding operating the stove on the highest setting for prolonged periods of time as it may cause the earlier failure of some electronics due to this increased heat? I find that to be a somewhat odd comment for the maker to put out there since the whole purpose of this to produce heat. Anyone have any feelings on this I would be glad to hear about it.
Thanks Jim
