what's wrong with the picture(sort of)?

hi,
i just got past my 75th bag of Cubex and seems like I have no heat. Recently installed OAK for this year heating and I am confused with the situation. A fella co-worker has a Enviro Meridian and says his is tweaked to burn the Cubex and gets a lot of heat. He mentioned maybe I'm throwing all my heat out the exhaust vent. I have a Harman Accentra so it should regulate the air coming in for the combustion efficiency but I am starting to have second thoughts. I might have to install my Fahrenheit sooner than later.

 

If you haven't done a "complete" cleaning yet and burned through 75 bags, you are WAY overdue for it. I would start with the cleaning.

 

The last time I burned Cubex in my P-61 I wasn't impressed at all. All heavy ash, no heat. Have you tried another pellet for comparison?

 

Are they fresh, this year's Cubex, or leftovers from last year?

 

T

that stove should be able to handle any wood pellet you feed it. How was the heat when you first started burning those pellets?

 

I have been cleaning my stove, should be due soon as I am changing to Trebio's as we speak. Suppose to be this year's batch so they say. How they burned in the beginning is about the same as now. Maybe I was spoiled burning some softies last year but I was burning Cubex as the major inventory and wasn't overly impressed. My question is , can a faulty control board cause side effects like I'm having? I have started heating in mid-September as the cooler weather fell upon me earlier than usual.

 

Are you running in room temp or stove temp mode?
Does everything seem the same as before , flame size ect.. just less heat?
Check your auto/ manual switch is in auto.

 

I'm running in room temp mode and in manual like I always do. Just today my furnace kicked on twice with temps outside hovering around 28F! I will be cleaning the stove soon but I have low hopes on the results. Flame size seems normal, sometimes high and other times low as I'm running in manual. Maybe my temp dial is on the low side(5 =77F) but it doesn't explain my excess pellet consumption. Here's a pic of the flame;

 

I'm no expert , but try running in stove temp auto and see what happens . That's how I run mine ,but everyone's home & location is different .

 

I'm no Harman expert, but is that the "normal" flame? I had a friend who had one years ago, and I seem to remember a short, blowtorch type on his....house was always too hot (for me). I'd normally say that yours looks like a very "rich" mixture....not enough air. Any time the flame in my stove gets more than about 1/2 the way to the roof of the firebox (on a normal heat setting of 4 or 5), I know something's amiss.

Hopefully, the Harman people on here will comment about the flame.

 

I cranked it up to full throttle for a couple of hours to see if the heat would increase and it did(I wasn't heat blown away!?!?). Mind you the daughter was X-mas baking upstairs and temps outside are about 28F. Now I'm running at 5.5(80ish) so I will see in the morning. I hope I have time for a cleaning tomorrow. I am making room for the Fahrenheit as we speak but I still need to make a exhaust hole in the concrete wall and install some ceramic tiles on the floor along with finishing a framed wall. The temptation is there but the princess wants our bedroom en suite redone after Christmas.

 

I cleaned the stove yesterday and noticed some creosote on the bottom door. Mind you, it was somewhat present in the past. 1st pic , partially wipe the heat exchanger. 2nd pic, creosete on door bottom. 3rd pic, my tool and back of baffles. 4th pic, untouched heat exchanger. 5th pic, flame after cleaning. I ran the lint brush up the vent to make sure there's no blockage. Checked the intake of the OAK and it was clean, clean just like day one. To my conclusion, stove was running rich. I hope to see better days ahead.

 

Dex you might be on to it , I have the same stove ,but my ash don't look black as ivan's does

 

For sure a rich mixture....looking at the 1st pic, there should never be any black, creosote-looking stuff that close to the burn pot, especially on the "sides" that come up from by the auger. Last pic looks better.

Have you done a leaf blower treatment on this stove? hint hint

 

Unable to do leaf blower trick as the vent is on my selkirk 7in wood chimney but then again, never tried! Dollar test is unable to pull or very tight pull through? Will check soon. Gasket has never been replaced so it could be due!!

 

correct...check all around the gasket

 

How many years/tons on that gasket? Late to the party on this thread, but gasket sounds like a front runner. As imacman mentioned, my flame is like a blow torch. BTW, after 4 seasons, I changed the gasket this fall, dollar bill was getting a bit easy on the tug.