Here is a photo from a customer who has just changed from wheat to crushed olive pits. THe photo shows the fire running at a temp of 1040 degrees F, just before it tripped out on over temp. I got the owner to dial down the fuel feed so the low fire temp was only 700 degrees which is still over the high temp for wheat. Wood pellets come in at about 1/2 between wheat and pits but as they are 4x the price they are not really an option.
I would make sure nothing is laying around in the vicinity to have peace of mind when I go to bed, torch temps are HOT HOT
Really getting with the program Not sure what the shells burn at, but a lot hotter than the pellets, as the #1 setting is just perfect and 2 is nearly too hot. Thanks for sharing
Wow, hot stuff! Maybe you could have a nice computer control that has a program for each type of fuel? Then the home owner could press 1 - for wheat or (warm heat) 2 - for wood pellets or (Hot heat) 3 - for Olive Pits or (Sizzle Baby - Hot -Hot - Hot!!!) ??
Nah that don't work Don as control tolerances for the alternative fuels are too tight. Individual stoves need to be adjusted both to account for varying fuel qualities but also slight differences in stoves. That is what makes pellets so easy; all stoves will run on presets without mucking about. I would love my customers to just use pellets as I could just send stoves out the door and not spend heaps of time tuning stoves over the phone. But pellets are so damm expensive that I wouldn't sell any stoves. Straight pellet stove companies out here try to tell people their stoves are cheap to run because a $15 bag of pellets (thats right $15!!) will last 2 days. They ask me and I say that they will use atleast 1 bag/day maybe more. They ask me why my consumption level is so much higher and I say the answer is simple; the other guy is talking out his a**. Occasionally people get sucked in and buy one. They have told me that the company line when someone complains about how expensive the pellet stove is too run is; dont use it so much. Great way to keep warm.
I got my Quad up to about 800 and warped the heat exchanger tubes. I can no longer use the slider to clean them... What stove is that and where do you get olive pits? Must live in California.
Australia, in that area very common for people to have what they call fruit blocks.. so in dessert area olives grow great!
OMG $15 A DAY Cost us about $1 a day to run both Whits on the shells. I can't imagine $15 Pellets here in winter run about $4 a bag depending on the brand and we could plow through a bag in two days heating only with the Quad 1000.
You reckon that is bad. Check the Facebook post of another stove seller out here spruiking how good their new stoves are running. These guys also make the pellets so you tend to forget the costs when you get the fuel for free. Their stove (as mine would coz they are a similar efficiency) hammered through 4 bags in 2 days. Big area yes and high temp yes but 2 bags/day equates to $22.50/day in your money. Nothing economical about that. I would not be very happy, I would be very nervous. It might actually be cheaper to shred dollar bills and burn them. Absolutely nothing wrong with the stoves, it is the crazy prices of the pellets. The faster these guys convert to multi-fuels (which their stoves can) the faster they will start selling them. Their problem is they also sell pellet mills so are really tied to promoting pellets so I think they are really stuck between a rock and a hard place. As a long term industry participant I watch their progress with interest. I really hope that they can build up a decent base and get the price of pellets down. I would definitely use their pellets as they are very good. "Have burned the pellet heater for 50 hours now and used 4 x 15 bags pellets. That's 1.2 kg/ hour average pellet consumption on heat setting P2. (There are 5 heat power settings, 2 is second lowest) Room area is 380m3 - 2.7m ceiling height. Room temp set at 24 C. Last night burned for 4 hours straight and made a controlled test for ash; 1/3rd cup ash in this time. About 0.6% ash from the pellet fuel, which are hardwood pellets at 9% moisture content. Very happy with that "
1100° internal temps? Or external firebox temps? Internal doesn't seem out of the ordinary! But external? That's crazy!! What was it measured by?
The hottest reading I got off the glass of my CB 1200 was 550 and I believe it would shut down at 600 .
Internal temps (of air?) that high wouldn't scare me. A candle can be about 2,600° Is this measuring a temp somewhere in or on the firebox wall? Because the flame in a pellet stove is much hotter than a candle when tuned properly and set at a high burn rate. Temps below are Celsius.
Our older stoves, like the one in question, measure the flue gas temp at the top of the combustion chamber just before it goes done the heat exchanger channel, a good 2' from the firepot. Once the temperature is over 500 degrees C the exchanger can't extract enough heat and I reckon you would be heading for a meltdown hence the overload. Our newer stoves have the thermocouple in the exhaust just prior to exiting the stove. This took a bit of getting used to but is actually better as we can tune the exhaust temp accurately so we dont end up with condensation or waste heat out the back. It is also a good way to tell if the grain you are burning is any good; correct wheat exhaust temp varies between 80-110 deg C, some wheat struggles to get over 70. No heat and bad for the stove. Feed it to the chooks.
