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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Monday, September 22nd, 2008
First of all, let me just tell you how much I hate the word “obsolete.” I hate it almost as much as I hate the words “green” and “organic.” Gee, how much can we overuse these words? I didn’t use one of my lights today, therefore I am running a “green” company. Hmmm.
Basically, everything is obsolete these days. I mean, is my car obsolete just because there is something better out there? Is my telephone obsolete just because there is a new model? Ok, I’m sorry. I don’t want this blog post to sound like a rant, even though I can rant with the best of ‘em.
I was in the pellet stove place the other day waiting to talk to someone about when my pellets can be delivered. Remember, they aren’t answering their phones? By the way, the delivery was scheduled for today, but no one showed up. Basically, the day was spent working and looking out the window. I might stop by to visit them again tomorrow to see what they have to say about this.
Anyway, while I was there pretending to look at some stoves, I noticed a sales guy walking by. He asked if he could help me when I said yes. I asked him what the little door in the floor of the fireplace is and what it is used for. He replied, “Well fireplaces are basically obsolete…everyone is getting inserts.” I felt like saying, “Look you little pissant, I didn’t ask you whether or not fireplaces are obsolete. I asked what the little door was.” But, me being me, I didn’t way that. I just kept my charming smile and got an answer after he tried to sell me an insert.
Just in case you wanted to know what the little door in the floor of a fireplace is, it’s a clean out. Instead of shoveling the ashes out of the fireplace, you can just open the door and push them down into the hole. Then, you can go downstairs and shovel the ashes out down there.
I think the word obsolete is obsolete. So there.
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Thursday, September 11th, 2008
It was a bit chilly last night at around 50 degrees. It wasn’t chilly enough to make a fire, but I did anyway. I wanted to see how everything worked. I mean, I know how everything works, I just wanted to see it in action.
I made a fire with some fairly green wood I took out of the woods a few weeks ago. It was a little smokey and hissed, while the moisture evaporated out of the ends of the logs. I know that kind of wood isn’t meant to be burned, but it had to be done.
After a while, the fire got going pretty good…
Fire in fireplace
I am not sure how much heat this fireplace is going to produce this Winter. From what I have been reading, not much. Fireplaces aren’t too efficient. I guess the issue is that when the fire goes out, all the heat in the house goes right up the chimney. This fireplace does have glass doors though, so I can close them before we go to sleep, stopping some of the heat from escaping the house.
I really want the Hampton Wood Insert HI300. This wood burning stove insert has a nice, glossy baked on enamel so it looks really good. It has a BTU of 75,000, an efficiency of 77%, can handle a log size of 18″ and has a burn time of 8 hours. Also, this wood stove has an optional blower, so you can really pump up the heat.
I hate the fact that I have been thinking about this wood stove so much, because that means I am most likely going to get it. I just want to get into the season a bit to see how the pellet stove does.
I like the idea of having both a pellet stove and a wood stove.
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Thursday, September 21st, 2006
Ahhh…the hidden wonder in the woods. It’s amazing how many people live in this area or go to school close by and have never been to the Mohonk Mountain House. This interesting resort, perched on a mountaintop, truly is a destination.
The very first time Laura and I went to the Mountain House we were kind of…ho hum about the whole thing. People tell us all the time about how we just HAVE to visit here or HAVE to visit there. This time we took whoever told us about it on their word.
We arrived at the front gate and were kind of taken back at the fact that they wanted $20 per person to go up the hotel. We negotiated at a lower fee (I think $8 per person) for a one hour visit. What in the world were these people charging us to visit a hotel for? We drove through the gate and continued on for a two mile drive through the woods. Hmmm…this place was pretty nice. It was a very well taken care of path through the woods. We saw hikers on both sides of us enjoying the wilderness. The trees canopied over the road making things very shady and cool, just the way I like it.
When we arrived at the base of the hotel, we saw a few fenced in areas with horses. Pretty cool. Then…we parked the car and walked up the hill to see…
…the front of the hotel. Wow, what an interesting place. I think I was expecting something else. We walked up to the front and saw valet parking and about one hundred rocking chairs on the front porch facing the Catskills. I was beginning to like this place more and more. I really could get into sipping some red wine and rocking my life away.
We continued through the hotel to find that the inside was strikingly similar to the Shining…long halls, lots of wood and a good number of staircases. I can just imagine how many fireplaces this hotel had. There were people walking through quickly on their way someplace important and those who were just wandering aimlessly looking at the paintings. We were right in the middle because we had no idea where we were going. We heard some sort of activity towards the back of the hotel and began heading towards it. Hmmm…tea time. I can do this. We weren’t sure if this was meant for the guests or for everybody. Since I paid $16 for the both of us to visit today, I considered us guests. We proceeded to enjoy tea and cookies with the rest of the “guests.” It was so funny…Laura just kept looking at me and laughing inside, I’m sure.
Now that our appetites were a slightly satisfied, we wandered off the back porch towards the lake. Let me just tell you…well, take a look.
Have you ever seen anything like it? Remember, this place is on top of a mountain. Behind the hotel is a huge mountain (down). This is where everyone hangs out and goes boating, swimming and hiking. People were making their ways up to the tower on top of the hill and some were arriving though the end of the eight mile trail that begins way down towards another part of the ridge. There were also places to sit and ponder.
If you exit the back of the hotel and make a left, you can visit the gardens.
This is a great area to get married. Apparently many people do. Being the botanists we are, we loved looking through the large variety of flowers and plants.
There are so many things to do at the Mountain House, but since we only had an hour, we had to hustle back to the car. I kept thinking there was going to be some sort of a check at the gate. Hint, hint: there was none. We will have to keep that in mind for next time.
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