Got a call from Quadra-Fire today!

Thats the way I run ours most of the time. Sometimes I might crank it up to medium for a few hours. Put that bad boy on high and I would be hauling pellets all night.

Gary

 

If it was me I would do what they say and run at -4,which is the corn setting,lowest air and fuel mix.Basicaly you will be wasting more heat out the flue,but stove will be safe.Probably have to turn the heat knob up 2 spots to make up the difference.

 

Its no big deal to clean, just pull a lever a few times. Takes only a few seconds. Biggest problem is waiting for the stove to cool slightly before lever gets swiped.

Doggy

 

Doggy and Gary,

How are your units vented?

Running the stove on a lower heat range likely also helps if you are trimmed out properly as the purge cycle has less crap to purge.

The quad engineer found clinker pieces in the igniter system area on HK's stove IIRC from the several times interrupted multi thread thread.

I just love it when someone thinks these are set and forget devices, they ain't.

As for a stronger ceramic glass I'll just say if an oil fired boiler can blow a flue access plug half way across a room many feet away from the fire box on a delayed ignition then I don't hold out much hope for most ceramic glass given some things i've seen.

Backdraft, flash over, delayed ignition, whatever. If it goes boom it is a boomy.

 

Mine runs basically straight up a liner about 20 feet or so inside of a class a aircooled chimney. When I pull my cleaned out lever I will get a clump of ash that will stick in the pot then I just knock it on down thru and scrape the pot and check the air holes for blockage. It would be interesting to find out one the ones that have had problems if it was on t-stat or manual.

Gary

 

3" or 4" ?

 

4"

 

Mine is vented straight up 15' 3" inside a brick 6" x 9" chimney. Just got home and I'M gonna shut the stove off soon and clean the burn pot. Its been running all day on the t-stat and I have a good idea of what should be in the pot when it was running on 0. It should be cleaner today, running at -1. I will say the flame appears a little more lively and perhaps a little smaller. I like Garys description of cleaning the pot, I swipe a few times and use the tool Quad supplied with the unit to scratch the bottom and sides. Takes but a few seconds to do and there can be a sizable amount of ash or Garys word clump of ash, depending on the pellet and timing of the last auto clean cycle.
The next few days are looking pretty cold so even running on low/medium with the t-stat shouldn't see much cycling. Hope they come up with a fix before shoulder season starts.

 

Well - 1 and -2 doesn't seem to make much difference in the cleanliness of the burn pot. Haven't heard from Quadrafire. Been very busy at work with all this cold and snow so I haven't reached out to them either. I think I will call the dealer tomorrow and see what Bill has to say. He burns a e2 in his home and his daughters home so he may have some information. I cleaned her today and took a good look at the glass, looking foe obvious cracks or imperfections and found nothing. I have it running at almost 50% with this little cold snap were having and the living room is 80 deg. Not going higher then that. Actually going to turn it down a notch and let it run, cutting down on cycling on/off.

Schoondog

 

I stopped at the dealer Sat. and they acted surprised that Quadra-Fire was calling the customers. They were quizzing me on what they had said. Obviously they had heard of the problems.

Gary

 

Spoke to my dealer today and the reason Quadrafire didn't contact me is because I didn't send in my warranty card. He told me that one e2 glass did break on start up. They have been trying to duplicate the problem in the lab and haven't been successful yet. Their "fix" so far is the -4 on the trim. It sounds like there is not gonna be a quick fix. I'm now running at -4 and stove seems fine. I didn't just jump to the -4 because its been pretty cold here the last week or so and I haven't been home long enough to monitor things so I thought the best bet would be to gradually get to the set point.

Doggy

 

Got a letter from Quadra-Fire today supposedly they are replacing the control panel with a new and improved version.

Gary

 

FYI that remote is designed where if it doesn't have human interaction for over 7 hours it wont start the stove up (what Quad tech support told me anyways).

 

No glass ?

 

Didn't see anything mentioned about glass. I will have to read the letter.

Gary

 

Thanks RMH, there may be something to that. I moved the remote about 4 feet above the stove and I haven't had a problem in awhile, but I've been turning it down and shutting it off twice a day. The weather has been pretty cold and the stove has been running mostly non stop at about 30% . Maybe the new control panel will help things.

Schoondog

 

Thanks for keeping me abreast of things Gary. Did a little research and a little birdy told me there are a few of our stoves that are blowing out the glass. Hoping the new control panel will help a few things.


Schoondog

 

The primary end result that caused all the hub bub was the stove ended up blowing the glass out on the stove.

The setting change to -4 on the trim control reduced the fuel feed and increased the air which leans out the burn more so at high fire (which is where that trim is supposed to be set).

When you have a rich burn going you are building up things various places that you will regret later on.

The trim setting (formerly known as flame height adjustment) needs to be checked and changed if needed whenever you change the pellet you are burning. Solid fuel is not uniform that requires periodic checking and adjustment if needed.

Some of the results of an improper fuel/air ratio are overheat shutdowns, over firing the stove to the point the metal warps or glows, the build up of burn pot clinkers , vacuum and heat induced feed issues, and after a awhile excess smoke and wood gas at start-up, it is this that lights off very fast and is perceived as an explosion and can part gasket-ed seals and take out the glass.

What reduces the chance of this occurring is proper cleaning of the stove and especially of the burn pot as it is the air flow over the igniter that actually ignites the pellets. If this process takes a long time the pellets have a longer time to just sit and generate smoke and wood gas. A single clinker piece in the right place or too many pellets/ash in the pot can slow the airflow down enough to cause a "delayed" ignition.

Chirp.

 

Nice info,yet you provided no practical info for the problem,numbers and figures can fix problems with procedures.You have only documented that turning the adjustments back prevents this,not the real problem.