Is this common?

Pellet stove went out and off today. I opened the door and the "bin" was full of pellets. What's up with that?

 

I cleaned it out just now, been busy with moving firewood and taking son to appointment, started it up and igniter worked and it seems to be burning well.

 

Well, couple things.....and maybe more.....

1 - Your pellets might have "bridged"
2 - inconsistent pellet feed
3 - too low of fire
4 - loss of vacuum

Most likely 1 or 2. Maybe pellets stopped feeding for a bit...fire basically went out and pellets started/kept feeding and smothered what was there.....That's what we were talking about yesterday about maybe keeping the feed rate up a little bit so you didn't have too small of a fire.

 

Oh and to answer your question, is it common? Well, it's happened to me already a few times but it shouldn't be "common". I can tell you that if I ran my stove on factory settings 1-4-1, and depending on the pellet, this definitely would happen more often. That's what we were saying about getting your stove "dialed in" so to speak.

 

Naaa....the more the merrier!!!

 

Okay. I am now trying to determine if it may have been operator error. I did open the top of the stove today to check on pellet stash. It was a little low. So I fed it two more bags of pellets and closed the lid. The fire was still going so I left and it was on 2 .. 2 like usual. Now I am wondering if I triggered it to turn off because the top was opened for a while, and because the pellets were still burning in the "bin" I didn't realize I had triggered it to turn off. ? Maybe? Is there something I am suppose to do when feeding pellets in to it? Ya, I know. I should read the manual again. Right. I like hearing how to run my stove from you guys better though. Cmon. Let's have it.

 

There is a hopper switch on your stove correct? If you had the lid open too long that could have done it????? It turns off the auger when the lid is open.

 

Is this a new stove? What model?

 

Yes. The switch is on the top right hand side in the back. And when you open the top it stops the auger. I remember I had to hold it down to do the dry run.

 

macman...it's a new PAH....from Lowe's

 

Most stoves stop feeding pellets when the hopper lid is open, so if you had it open for "quite a while", it's possible the fire died to the point that when you closed it, the stove was already in shutdown mode or you basically smothered the fire when it stared feeding again like slvrblkk suggested.

 

Brand new. England's Stove Works 55-SHPAH.

 

Okay. So operator error. What do I do when I want to fill the hopper so this does not happen again? Do I have to go through shut down in order to fill it? Or do I just cheat and have something hold the button down while I put a couple of bags in?

 

I actually forget you had a large hopper on that......mine, I lift the lid and it fills quickly. I normally always fill mine when it's on. I guess just do it more quickly...lol

 

Ya. It holds three bags. I burned through about 1.5 bags in two nights and a day. Not bad when it went down to 29 degrees last night and 31 or so the first night. Although I am a complete newbie when it comes to Pellet stoves.

 

Try dumping a bag, close the lid and let some pellets feed, dump a bag, etc.

 

You'll be "well seasoned" in no time!!! We were all newbs at one point....hell, reading everyone's posts, I learn something new everyday....I believe all stoves have somewhat of a learning curve.....

 

OMG...I'm 'bout pizzin' my pants reading that...lololololol