Quick question about the Heatilator PS-35

I have been fighting with my last ton of pellets. Curran hard wood that I decided to try but never again. We have good luck with the Curran hard/soft and that's what we use 99% of the time. With in 2 days the glass is black, everything inside the stove is black and I have to take the exhaust pipe off every week and clean it. My question is, can I increase the exhaust air flow via the controller? I have been told yes and no by people smarter than me. Stove is set up with an outside air supply and all path ways are clean. Under the ash drawer is clean and outside air is slid all the way open. There is no external air control on this stove. I have wanted to be able to increase the air flow for the other pellets as well to try and help the pot stay a bit cleaner. Feed gate is only open enough to allow reliable starting and it is not feeding too much. Flame height is actually a bit low on a perfectly clean stove. Here is the set up so you can see the exhaust path. It is a 24" piece that goes through the wall with a stainless termination cap. All 4" pipe with a 4" clean out on the outlet of the stove.

 

I haven't had to work on many of these and never an issue like this but.... it is basically just a Quadrafire without the price tag afaik. After looking up the manual online, that control box looks like the ones in the Quadrafire pellet stoves and if so, you can not change the air flow via the control box. The only thing you could change with it would be to change the dial to a setting that would give your particular stove a 10% higher feed rate.

I'm leaning towards the pellets being a problem and nothing else. I'm quite sure you can't adjust the airflow in this stove without some type of modification which I wouldn't suggest.

Hope this helps.

 

Have you checked all of your gaskets? You might be sucking air from somewhere it shouldn't.

 

This is what I was told but others said the adjustment was for air. I believe it is for pellet feed rate.

Yes. Door seal is good, pot gasket is good, pot clean out door is adjusted correctly so there is no gap at the bottom of the pot. Air wash for the glass is working correctly. I just had the exhaust blower out this morning (first cleaning ever.....after almost 12 tons) and gasket is good (yes, it should have been replaced but it wasn't). Dust around the gasket on the motor was even and showed no signs of air sucking anywhere. I took everything apart this morning including the stove pipe and cleaned it all again.

 

Holy chit!!! That must have helped a bit, no?

 

It has had this issue since new in December 2011. Wasn't as dirty as you would think. Just had to hit the reset once again to make the stove run. I hate these pellets.

 

You might want to shoot a PM to Eric at Kinsman Stoves.....he's a Quad/Heatilator dealer and Factory Certified Tech. Ask him what he thinks.

BTW, did we ever ask you what side the OAK is facing? Which direction the prevailing wind comes from?

 

All vents are on the north side of the house. Wind in the winter comes from the north or west. The exhaust has an adjustable end on it and it faces to the east. I don't have much choice there.

 

Hey Dex. You and Smokey were the two that always tried to help me with this. I have tried the aluminum foil tricks you told me about in a PM last winter. No real change to speak of. My user name on "other" forums is Samdweezel05 for those that may have read my threads. I really wasn't active there very much though.

 

I must of missed your posts over at the other place, but nice to meet you!

 

hmmm, so one pellet works and the other doesn't? I still think it's a pellet issue myself.

 

If you do not have outside air and your house is relatively tight and/or you have other air handling equipment running or the stove is on a lower floor level then you could have an interfering negative pressure situation.

More than one member has seen the effects of such things. This was noted by a good number of M55 and Clones in posts at various internet forums.

IIRC there is also a small piece of metal that should be removed that blocks part of the air flow to the burn pot. In short you have to trace all of your air path in order to remove anything that may prevent the proper air flow.

It is also possible that there are air leaks caused by such things as shipping bolts that were removed in order to remove any shipping pallets that were not replaced by something to block the unwanted air leaks.

Sometimes the pedestal isn't tight to the rest of the stove this can also cause unwanted air leaks.

If your stove has a gasketed hopper lid it would also pay to make certain there is nothing in the way of that having any effect such as a separation at a spot in the hopper away from the gasket.

Your eyes and a good flashlight and taking your time might just find something.

 

Did you ever try PM'ing or calling Eric to pick his brain on this? If I was in your situation, and had exhausted my attempts as figuring it out myself, he would be my 1st phone call.

Great guy, VERY knowledgeable, and he sells & services these stoves. 330-448-0300

 

when was the last time you removed the three inside panels? I did not read the 15 other posts so I might have stepped on someone's toes.

Eric

 

Every Sunday. I will wright up my weekly cleaning procedure when I get home and on a computer. Its a pain to do on a phone.

 

Here is my cleaning scheduled every single Sunday.

Clean interior of door and glass.
Clean all loose ash into the ash pan.
Remove 3 baffles from the rear of the stove and clean them in the sink.
Vacuum bottom, top, sides, rear and exhaust pathway.
Clean holes in burn pot and remove any crud from burn pot.
Empty ash pan.
Clean off ceramic thermocouple cover.

Every 2 weeks I do all of that and I remove the entire stove pipe and clean. In two weeks I can find up to an inch and a half of ash in the 3 foot horizontal pipe leaving the house. It has been like this since new no matter what pellets we use.

I can tell you that I will reseal everything on this stove come spring. Right now it won't even run. It will light, burn for a bit and then quit dropping pellets and shut off. I wonder sometimes if I don't have ash or something in one of the vacuum switches.

My background is in industrial and residential heating systems. I understand that in order for the stove to work correctly, it has to meet certain perimeters as the cycle goes on to continue. With out the thermocouple reaching temp, it will not drop pellets. If the vacuum switch doesn't detect correct vacuum in the exhaust pathway, it will shut down. This stove has always acted like it didn't have enough air flow to work correctly. My dealer was absolutely no help when we had issues. The service guy would show up, look at the stove, turn it on, tell me it was working fine and leave.

What one of you guys is going to sell me parts?

 

Blow through the hose from the switch into the stove and see if there is a blockages. I did have this happen on a Quad and needed a piece of wire to unclog it. TEMPORARILY bypass the negative pressure switch and see how she runs.

Eric