Pellet Stove Woes

When we got our house we got two Quadra-Fire Pellet stoves and a few tons of Energex Premium Grade Wood Pellets.

Quadra-Fire Classic Bay 1100I, the older of the 2 stoves.

So far they have been nothing but fiddly and annoying. The pellet stoves were both in need of a thorough cleaning. They needed all the blowers delinted, an auger motor replaced, a thermistor replaces, and firepot doors ground smooth again. And they are great when they are dialed in and working without constant tweaking. That's where the annoyance is. The feed rate control is done with a sliding door between the auger and the pellets and that's the only control. If I adjust it for the proper flame size, it won't feed enough pellets to achieve ignition. If I adjust it to reliably ignite, it sucks the flame into the exhaust tube way too big and potentially a dangerous situation. On top of this the auger door has a tendency to jam with pellets, causing the stove to flame out and the house gets cold.

The pellets are another griping area. I've read about wood pellets. They are supposed to be consistent size, consistent moisture content, consistent material composition, and premium grade is supposed to be more consistent. I have tons of Energex Premium Grade Wood Pellet Fuel and every is visually different and so are the pellets within the bag. I'm thinking when it's time to order more pellets I will go with any other brand than Energex. The previous owner went with this brand because it's the brand the delivery company that stacks the bags in your garage for you sold.



I'm not sure at this point which part of the equation is the primary problem in my heating system, but I think it's the pellets and not the stove. From what I've found on Quadra-Fire they are pretty universally set and forget, as long as the fuel is good. Moving mechanical parts all wear out eventually, after 15+ years I'm not surprised. The thermistor that had to be replaced was melted away from years of running the flame too high. I've looked into pellet suppliers and read a lot of reviews. A lot of bad reviews at that. The 2 biggest complaints I've seen across all brands is inconsistency between batches, and too much ash. I did not find Energex being sold in my area currently so maybe the bad pellet issue will have remedied itself through market selection.

Anyway in the short term, changing pellet brands is an easy and cheap (<$50) test to confirm the theory. Changing stoves is a bit more costly and involved than cutting open a different bag.

Stay tuned for future results.