The other morning we got up to a cold house and a stove not running...BUT THE SWITCHES WERE ALL SET AS THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN. Looked at the clocks to see if we had had a power outage just long enough to place the stove in reset mode. Nope...clocks all fine....NO BLINKERS Looked in the fire box and see a huge ash clog in the drop tube. Seems that the fire tray had gotten slightly dislodged allowing the tray to stick up out of the pot enough to cause the shells to catch and start backing up. The result was the shells piled up, burned and ultimately tripped the over temp snap discs in the lower end of the tube. The disc trip kills the power totally and results in the need to do a hard reset. Sooooooooooo.... Nothing seemed amiss other than the fire was out and a COLD HOUSE. Decided to rip the stove apart and check things. Vacuumed out the dust and other crap that collects in the mechanical cabinet of these beasts. Decided to take the pipe loose at the adapter and re-seal with high temp silicone. The inner shield seal had been broken loose when I did the wall graphics to allow the metal piece to slide away from the wall. The silicone outside had come loose too just from time and weather. Re-aligned the pipe and sealed it....decided to add a single sheet metal screw to help retain the pipe where it slides onto the 4 bolt adapter assembly. All fixed, then decided to clean out the hopper....HAD NOT been cleaned since we installed the stove in 2009. A lot of shell dust and even some pellets left from when we got the stove.... A good sucking out and a looking over and then filled the hopper and started the fire. ALL GOOD....WELL SORT OF. I decided that maybe having a couple spare HI LIMIT snaps was in order. ARRRRRRGH No longer available. Looked all over the net and no joy. One manufacturer said they could make me some... but then called me and said they did not have the parts. The stove uses two 250 F hi limit snaps that have a 1/4"-20 stud that screws into the drop tube (one on each side and wired in series as a safety feature) Soooooooooooooooooooooooo..... Several companies make these type of switch, but always something slightly different that renders them a no go. The ones in the stove are fine FOR NOW buttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt.... The plan is to get some 250 F discs from a Quadrafire ( Small type 36T) that fasten on with two screws. I will make an adapter that will fasten to the original spots in the drop tube and then accept the new snap discs. I scared up a piece of aluminum rod that can easily be machined to accept the snaps from the quad and the entire assembly fastened to the original 1/4" threaded hole in the tube. Making the little adapter will take a bit of lathe time, but I have little better to do with my time. A piece of 1-1/4" aluminum bar stock. Recess a bore in the bar to allow the snap disc to contact the bottom of the bore allowing the little ears on the snap disc to be 1/32" above the adapter ( Fastening the ears will place the disc in firm contact with the inner surface. Drill and countersink a 1/4" hole through the adapter bores center will allow it to be fastened onto the drop tube with a flat head 1/4"-20 brass bolt. Pretty simple adapter to update the stove to readily available 250 F snap discs.
Thanks troops. I will post a few pix when I get the little adapters done. I had a snap disc from a Quad... correct temperature and the size is perfect for where it has to fit. I have not decided on whether I will use a brass flat head screw to secure the adapter to the tube, or possibly an aluminum flat head screw. Aluminum conducts heat real well. The original switch is brass with an integral brass stud. We shall see....
Hi Snowy Watch out for the Auto Reset Hi Limit snap discs I had trouble with some tripping when they should not have! Then they reset and looked ok so I had a lot of trouble finding the problem! Now I use the Hi Limits with the manual reset button so when they trip I Know that is why the stove shut down!! Just my 2 cents
Great point Any time there is an over temp shut down there needs to be HUMAN SUPERVISION involved afterwards. On the little Whit once the snaps opened and power was shut off the controls went to a default and the main switch had to be reset to off and then restarted. Only one thing can cause this... A POWER LOSS and we had not seen a household power loss (Clocks flashing) so the other thing was an over temp. With the drop tube all plugged with burnt fuel it was obvious what had happened. Personally I like to see manual reset snaps in any location that involves temps outside of normal... Burn back Room air fan failure and stove overheats I like the idea of having an over temp snap on the exhaust pipe outside of the stove too, but I HAVE NOT seen any manuf's doing this. Safety is just too important...
