Thursday, January 29th, 2009
If there is one thing that I have noticed during this winter, it’s that the bathroom is really cold in the morning. I keep the door closed because I want to concentrate the heat, so that might be the reason. Either way, the whole thing got me thinking.
Can bathroom exhaust vents cause your house to lose heat? I am thinking yes. I did a Google search on this and came across a good article on “Ask The Builder” entitled, “Bathroom Exhaust Fan Leaks Cold Air.” It pretty much covered what I was thinking.
Basically, a bathroom exhaust fan is simply a fan attached to a hose that leads outside. The fan pushes the moist air you create from taking a shower outside, so you don’t rot everything in your bathroom. Some of the fancy fans have lights in them and I am told that the fans vary in quality. I guess they are supposed to have flaps in them too. The flaps stop the cold outside air from leaking directly into your bathroom and house.
I just walked into the bathroom to see if any cold air was leaking through the fan. I put my hand up to the vent and didn’t feel any cold air. Since that felt okay, I pulled down the attic door and went upstairs to see what that looked like. I saw both bathroom vent hoses leading outside. Nothing seemed too out of place.
Now that I am downstairs, I am thinking that I didn’t really do much to see if there was a problem. I mean, I still have to take the vent cover off to see if the vent flap is closing nice and snug. If not, I have to fix that. Then, I would like to cover the exposed vent hoses with insulation. An exposed vent hose in a cold attic can cause the air in the hose to get cold. That air can enter the house if the vent flap isn’t working correctly. Do you see where I am heading with this? I guess it doesn’t help that the boiler is kicking on and off all night, creating a vacuum in the house. Cold air is probably being pulled in through those vents.
I might need to do some more exploration to see if there is some sort of a “makeup air intake port” anywhere around. If not, I probably need to put one in.
Now, I admit, I am no expert at this. Any advice would be appreciated.
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Sunday, January 18th, 2009
I hope you forgive me for typing this post with dirty hands. I just got finished cleaning out the St. Croix Prescott EXL pellet stove.
Actually, I gave it more than a regular cleaning, I gave it more like one of those seasonal cleanings that everyone says you should do, but no one does. I even took some pictures.
The reason for this post is really to follow up from a comment left by “Linda” over at my original pellet stove post.
Apparently, many fine pellet stove owners out there are having issues with their #2 light blinking. I received tons of great comments on my other post regarding this. We have all been looking for the answer. Linda offered a lot of insight, so I decided to give her ideas a try. I think the main point of her comment was to say that cleaning out behind the “ash clean out covers” is very important. I thought I had been doing that, but she mentioned that what I was doing, wasn’t enough.
Okay, so let’s get going. I am going to show you some pretty interesting photos in this post…photos that are hard to find. Sure, there are tons of good pellet stove shots out there, but usually when people start cleaning out their stoves, they forget all about the camera. Not me, my friends. Not me.
I first went downstairs and shut the stove down. When it cooled itself and shut all the way down, I unplugged it. That’s very important, so make sure you do it. After that, I gave it a quick once over to make sure there were no large piles of ash anywhere. I didn’t give it a good cleaning, because I just did that yesterday. It didn’t need to be done again. I did push some ash into the ash pan and empty it though.
What I want to show you here are those ash clean outs that the owner’s manual talks about so much. I just realized this morning that there are about 4 warnings to keep these things clean. I guess it’s pretty critical. I have been doing this every time I clean the stove, so I really didn’t think I needed to do it again. Linda mentioned that we should be cleaning these out with a bottle brush or something like that to really clean them well. Good thing I had bought one of the bottle brushes from Lowe’s a while back. It’s really made for a fireplace or stove, but I was using it to clean bottles for my home brew.
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Left pellet stove clean out cover – closed
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Left pellet stove clean out – open
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Cleaning the pellet stove clean out with a bottle brush – straight up
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Pushing bottle brush into pellet stove clean out – towards center
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Right pellet stove clean out with ash showing
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St. Croix Prescott EXL exhaust fan
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Fan blades of a pellet stove exhaust fan
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St. Croix Prescott pellet stove exhaust vent
Notice how there really isn’t too much ash in there? I’m talking about inside the hole. I just vacuumed this out yesterday, but I can imagine what it would look like if someone never cleaned these out. Probably like a packed wall of ash.
I didn’t take pictures of the right side, because it is identical to the left side.
By pushing the brush straight up, I didn’t get all that much ash to come out. There really wasn’t all that much up there. By pushing it sideways, I got a little bit more. I’ll show you in the next photo.
To get the pile of ash in the photo above, I basically pushed the bottle brush straight through, from the left side to the right side. I actually saw the brush coming through the right side.
I figured that was done, since I saw all that ash coming out. I decided to move on to clean out the exhaust fan. This is one of those things the book tells you to call the dealer for. It took me about 15 minutes to do the whole job, so it’s up to you.
To remove the fan, I took off the 6 nuts that surround the motor. I believe I used a 9mm 6-point tall socket. I also removed the vacuum hose and took off the vacuum switch wires as well as the fan wires. After everything was removed, the motor and fan popped right out.
With the fan in hand, it was easy to clean the blades (if you call them that). You can use an old paint brush or a rag or something like that. Just get the ash off the blades. The owner’s manual says this fan does not require oiling.
I also decided to take a photo of the rear part of the exhaust vent. This is one of those things we always wonder about, but unless you have taken a pellet stove apart, you will most likely will never see.
As you can see, there wasn’t really too much ash buildup on either the fan or the exhaust vent. I brushed them off and put everything back together. I lit the stove up and watched it burn for a while. I haven’t yet put the wires back on the vacuum switch. I still have them jumped. I’m not sure I have the heart to go through that again, since the stove has been running so wonderfully the way I have it now.
Questions, comments, concerns?
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Monday, November 24th, 2008
As I mentioned earlier in the season, we had a St. Croix Prescott EXL pellet stove installed in the basement.
Before the Winter season really began, I had my doubts on whether or not the pellet stove would heat the entire house. I was worried that it’s location would hinder the airflow to all the rooms upstairs. Well, I am happy to inform you that the stove does heat the entire house. I mean, if we keep the master bedroom door shut, it does. The master bedroom is over the garage and the furthest room from the stove. It’s also the coldest room, which is why we keep the door shut. When the time hits 10:30PM, the new digital thermostat cranks the heat in that room up to 65 degrees. That’s good enough for me.
We have had some nights already where the temperature has been in the 20s. I think that’s Winter and enough to tell me that the heating situation is going to be okay. I did try burning a fire in the regular fireplace a few times while running the pellet stove. The fireplace actually made things worse. It sucked so much air out of the house, all the rooms dropped a few degrees. Fireplaces are remarkably inefficient and really shouldn’t be used, in my humble opinion. If you want to run something in your fireplace, run a free standing wood stove or a wood stove insert. Even burning a fireplace for aesthetics on a cold day will freeze out the rest of your house. Nuff said.
Okay, we are having a little issue with the pellet stove.
A few nights ago, I tried to start it up. The start up procedure really isn’t very difficult on the Prescott. It basically consists of pushing the “on” button. Once the “on” button is pushed, the room blower turns on for about 10 seconds and the auger turns until the burn pot is approximately half way full of pellets. As the auger is turning, the ignitor kicks on and the pellets light up. It’s fun to watch and I sit there almost every time I light the stove doing just that. I smile when I see that flame dancing around inside that pellet stove.
Back to a few nights ago…when I tried to light the stove this particular time, I pushed the button. The fan turned on for about 10 seconds and then the stove just shut off. I am not sure if the auger ever turned to drop pellets into the burn pot.
I tried to light the stove a few more times when I noticed the #2 light blinking on the control board. I thought this was a little strange, since I had never seen that light blink before. I pulled out the owner’s manual and looked up that error code. Apparently, a lack of negative pressure causes the stove not to light and the #2 light to blink.
What can cause a lack of negative pressure? Well, a really windy day can do it, an open pellet stove door, a fireplace burning upstairs perhaps, a clogged air feed pipe or a clogged exhaust vent pipe. I am sure there are others, but these are the ones I remember.
Since I had a fire already going upstairs in the fireplace, I chalked the whole thing up to that. I got the pellet stove going in this instance by pulling the rubber tube off the vacuum switch and lightly sucking on it. When I heard a little “click,” I pushed the on button again. From here, things were fine. I held the crimped hose for a few minutes and then I hooked it back up the proper way.
Well, I tried to light the stove again the next night. The same thing happened. Since we had no fire going in the fireplace, I thought perhaps there was a clogged area in the stove somewhere that is causing the lack of vacuum, or negative pressure.
Let’s make a really long and boring story a bit shorter and to the point.
I cleaned out the entire stove about 10 times and nothing has changed. Every night, I suck on that hose to get the stove up and running. I have been reading the owner’s manual as well as some websites that deal with this kind of situation, but nothing has helped. One website said that a clogged exhaust vent is the sure-fire problem. I got excited and took off the clean-out cap. A little pile of ashed dropped out, but nothing changed.
This afternoon, I called the pellet stove dealer. I told them that I had pretty much narrowed the problem down to a faulty pellet stove vacuum switch and that I would need the tech to come out and take a look. Before we swap out the switch, I want him to hook up a vacuum gauge to see if there is proper negative pressure. If there is, we can replace the switch…if not, we have to do a bit more digging.
I keep going downstairs to investigate this issue. It is in my blood that I try to diagnose this problem myself. The only things I don’t have are a vacuum gauge or a new vacuum switch. I guess I need those things to solve the problem.
If you have ever experienced something like this with your pellet stove, please let me know. I am racing against time here. I want to beat the repair guy and figure this out myself.
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Wednesday, August 27th, 2008
The town inspector came by today to inspect the freshly installed pellet stove. It passed, but with a little story.
When the inspector was reading through the manufacturer’s installation manual, he couldn’t find the part that said exhaust vent clearances only need to be 9″ from windows and doors if a fresh air vent is used. The reason he couldn’t find it is because it wasn’t in there. When I realized this, I began to sweat. Then, I remembered that the updated version of the installation manual was online…that’s where I got those clearances from. I quickly went upstairs to print out the pages I kept telling him about. I ran back downstairs and gave him the paperwork. He approved the install with no more issues.
I really like this installation because we don’t need a protective layer between the stove and the floor, since it’s on the new basement tile. That’s pretty cool, as well as a money saver. Also, we used hardly any exhaust pipe. That’s another money saver.
After the inspection, I called the pellet stove place to complete the order for four tons of pellets. I wanted to make sure the stove would be operable before finishing and paying for the order. They will get delivered in mid September.
I also called the insurance company to inform them of the new appliance. They liked this and added $11 to the homeowner’s policy. Not bad…
On the way home from Home Depot today, I saw a sign that offered a cord of wood for $200. Boy, prices have gone up. Even pellets were about $2.50 a bag a few years ago. Now, they are averaging about $5 per bag. If you were ever thinking about getting into a new business, alternative energy is it. This stuff is HOT right now.
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Saturday, September 9th, 2006
Last year, in the middle of winter and after the second delivery of heating oil, I made a vow to myself. I said that I would get either a wood burning stove or a pellet stove. I said that I would get it over the summer as to avoid the rush. Well, August rolled around and I happen to remember my vow. I really tried to avoid it because I just didn’t want to drop a few grand for a stove, but I kept thinking about how it would feel in the middle of January as I enjoy the warm flame.
I had recently cut up about a cord of wood, so I was really trying to find a good woodstove. I found one at a local dealer and was about a day away from getting it delivered when I found out that I would need more chimney pipe than anticipated. I didn’t want the look of all that chimney pipe sticking out of my roof in the front of the house and there was no other suitable place to put the stove in the interior, due to all the clearances required by the local building code. I decided to purchase a Harman P38 Pellet Stove instead. The clearances are much tighter and the exhaust vent is much, much smaller, as I will show in a few photos below. Here is a great post Paul wrote on woodstoves vs. pellet stoves.
I had the stove delivered along with a ton of pellets so I wouldn’t have to worry about that for a while. I picked up a piece of Bluestone from a dealer up in Mt. Tremper, NY. The piece is 36″x36″, which would cover the clearance I needed. It also saved about $200. I cut a 6″ hole in the wall behind the stove for the exhaust pipe and installed the wall thimble. I attached the Duravent pipe to the wall thimble and ran the pipe through to the outside. One note: I could have installed this stove much closer to the corner (2″), but since both walls of the corner were outside walls, I was forced to have a 12″ pipe clearance from the inside corner and an 11″ clearance from the outside corner. After the pipe was installed, I put the stainless steel turbo vent cap on the outside end of the pipe (photo below).
After everything was installed properly I started up the first fire. What an amazing machine! The stove gets to a certain temperature and the fans kick in to blow warm air out into the room. Also, the exhaust is barely visible and not all that hot. I had the building inspector come over a few days later to give it a passing grade.
The stove manufacturer calls for an outside air vent if you have a smaller and especially well insulated home. We can actually feel the suction when we close the doors in the house, and being only 1150 square feet, I felt that an outside air vent would be a good idea. This takes the air from outside, burns it and sends it out the exhaust pipe, without using any air from inside the house. The kit for this is about $100. $100 I didn’t want to spend, plus, I enjoy making things myself.
I decided that a piece of automotive exhaust flex pipe with a 2 3/4 inside diameter pipe would fit perfectly on the intake adapter.
I cut a hole in the sheetrock so the pipe would just fit through. I then cut a similar hole outside through the vinyl siding and plywood.
Then, I secured the flex pipe to the intake adapter using a sheet metal screw.
After that was set, I went outside the cut off the excess pipe and to attach the custom cover I purchased (dryer vent cover). From the photos below, you can see the exhaust vent (top) as well as the intake vent (bottom). All I have to do now is caulk the sides of the intake vent on the outside and paint and caulk the pipe on the inside and I will be ready for nice cold winter air to be pulled into the stove for clean, efficient burning.
One last note, you can see that I planted a few Arborvitae and a nice little Lilac bush in front and on the side of the vents. In a few years, they will grow large enough to cover the corner of the house and the vent covers.
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