I am beyond Angry

Please excuse me, as this could be a long post. This is my 2nd year burning, and had my first tonight. We have so much ice, trees are snapping like tooth picks, wires down everywhere, it is not good. So at 4 am, I knew it was only time before we lost power, so I shut the stove off. Fast forward to 5 am all hell breaks loose.
A family member at 5 was banging on my door at 5, telling me she thought the house was on fire. I jump up, only to get the most rancid burning smell, and a light haze through the house. I run downstairs to the stove, and it is smelling even worse. I feel the ash pan, and immediately knew what it was. I opened up the ash clean out, and took the pan outside with it smoking away, and put it in a metal can. That thing never went out and was smoldering the whole time. I have had all the doors and windows open for 2 hours, it is 50 degrees in here, and I can not get the smell out of the stove and the house. It is so rancid It makes you want to puke. I am beyond pizzed, I am bleeping furious. I can not figure out how to get this smell out of the stove.
I do not know why this happened, but I will tell you Lignetics is going to here from me. If I could get a hold of them I would ring there bell. Presto Logs, are some rancid smelling pellets, with so much ash, and dust, I have a strange feeling this had something to do with it. They have no quality control what so ever, some pellets are so long you can here the auger breaking them. So here I am sitting in a whole that smells like chit, stove is off, and I am furious. Rant over

 

Sorry to hear.....do you have any rise in your venting?

 

Yes the vent goes up 3 feet then out, that is why I am surprised that this happened. I have baking soda inside the stove now trying to get the smell out.

 

I was curious since I do not....was wondering if it would be worth while for me to change it, but it seems you can get smoke/smell either way.

I wonder if it would help to switch pellets (if you have any other brand) and run the stove to burn off any stink left in the stove.

 

I have 4 bags of somersets, I was thinking about doing it that way. I am so confused normally I shut the stove off, and no big deal. I wonder why this continued to burn, even after the stove shut down.

 

The only thing I can think of is maybe there was a clinker/ash cake that was still smoldering after the combustion fan shut off....did you have any power blips?

 

no not till recently!

 

If you're concerned about the content of your pellets (and are going to contact the manufacturer), you should grab a sample (5 lbs or so) and set them aside for the future just in case someone wants to analyze them.

 

Then I am stumped....hopefully you get it taken care of soon

 

Brokenwing, I'm sorry to hear about the problems.....hope you get things somewhat back to "normal" soon. If you don't have a backup power supply/generator that can run the stove, I think it's time to start thinking about one.

One question though.....why do you blame the pellets for this? If the pellets were not completely burned before falling into the ash pan, that is a stove issue, not a pellet issue, AFAIK.

 

Well after burning many different pellets, Lignetics are junk. I am all ears the and open to any ideas that you have. I know every once in a while a pellet falls into the ash pan but I am stumped.

 

I have burned MANY bags of Lignetics, including this years version that TSC had bagged, and I have had no issues with them....ever. They are one of the more consistent pellets I've used, with one exception being the blue-lettered bags I tried about 3 yrs ago.

Otherwise, they burn as well or better than anything I've tried.

But you didn't answer my question....why do you think it's a pellet's fault, and not the stove? The stove design allowed that pellet(s) and/or ash to not burn completely before falling into the ash pan. I just don't see how this is a pellet issue, unless there's something I'm missing.

 

This hasn't happened before right? If it was the stove I would think that this would happen all the time regardless of which pellet. However, I don't think it has anything to do with the quality of Lignetics even though it may be due to something unique to that brand if that makes sense.

 

After burning a ton of penwoods, and switching to lignetics presto logs, bam now I have a house full of smoke smell. I dont know what to hell to say, after burning quality pellets to this junk I am scratching me head. Could it be a stove issue, sure It could. But I am at a loss.

 

How many bags of the Ligs have you burned so far?

 

I'm not a pellet stove guy, so forgive my ignorance.. What does "shut the stove off" mean? Does it mean hitting a switch which stops the auger and all associated blowers? Or should the auger stop, the stove is then starved of fuel and the associated blowers and whatnot stop AFTER the temperature of the stove is below a level that sustains combustion?

My thought is this. Complete combustion with proper mixes of Oxygen and fuel yields mostly CO2 and H2O. For those who haven't seen CampInspecter's pic of him sniffing the top of his chimney during a burn, look it up. If shutting down the stove just stops all electrical components, combustion is still trying to occur, albeit in a reduced Oxygen environment. This would cause the fuel (pellets) to offgas due to heat but not burn due to lack of Oxygen. These gases when cooled produce creosote which smells horrible no matter what brand of pellets you're burning.

So my question is "is it the method of shutdown that caused this?" If a few pellets got into the ash pan, would the blowers, if left running, have exhausted the gases out of the vent vice into the house?

Like I said, I'm not a pellet guy, but I've opened my stove when I'm trying to do a slow burn and I can smell the wood gases which smell horrible.. I'm glad they get burned by the secondary burn tubes and don't bother the neighbors..

 

Because of the power failure the stove and fans probably shut off simultaneously, unlike in a normal situation (with power) the fans would continue to exhaust. Situation sucks BW but this crap happens occasionally when we heat with fire! Don't think the pellet brand was your issue IMO!

Good luck with the cleanup!!

 

This led me to believe that he shut the stove down BEFORE he lost power. A pre-emptive shutdown based on the possibility of a power failure and the reason for my questions...

Just want to learn.. I'm sure BW is busy with cleanup now... Best of luck..

 

You're correct Stuckinthemuck...I should learn to comprehend what I read. I have the same stove as Brokenwing, so with this info I have no clue as to why the issue arose!