I have a Englander 25-PDVP pellet stove in my detached shop. The building is a pole building with a garage door and one side door. Essentially a 2 car garage but deep. Building has insulation between the medal siding and the structure. Insulation on walls and sealing is about 1/2"thick. Also the eve is not vented, and there is thick 3" foam for the ceiling at the bottom of the rafters. The stove was installed by the previous owner. I have cleaned the stove out (combustion chamber). It just doesn't seem to be able to heat the space like it should. I've heard of people heating their whole house with one of these. Both blowers are running, the flame doesn't look black or off in color. I just can't seem to get the thing to heat the place up. I had it running all day yesterday and temperature never really rose. Went through a 40lb bag of pellets.
Pellet stove not heating
- Thread starter tvtaurus
- Start date
A747
Well-known member
What do you have the feed rate and fan speed set for? I have the same Englander unit in in my 1500 sq ft house here in San Diego. The house heats up about a degree/hr after the heater comes up to temperature and the settings at 5/5.
mygarageone
Well-known member
A 1/2" of insulation won't cut it , if you want to heat that place. You say it's pretty much a 2 car garage , ok but what about ceiling height ?
Seems to me you have insulation problems not heating problems .
Seems to me you have insulation problems not heating problems .
I have it on the same settings. 5/5
Building is 24'X32' with a celing height of 10'3"
Here are some pictures of what i'm dealing with.
Walls have the least insulation for sure, and there is a small gap in the door if it is not latched. with the deadbolt.
Here are some pictures of what i'm dealing with.
Walls have the least insulation for sure, and there is a small gap in the door if it is not latched. with the deadbolt.
Attachments
A747
Well-known member
Looks to be the size of a typical two car garage, <800 sq ft. Odd that the stove can't keep up with the loss of heat. Maybe the concrete slab may be sucking the heat out faster than the stove can put out. The only thing I can suggest is to start slowly ramping up the feed rate and fan speed to the 7 or 8 range. Is your back baffle plate centered? Mine came with it off set completely to one side. According to the tech I was wasting heat out the stack in that configuration.
Bondo
Well-known member
Ayuh,.... I see 2 issues, 1 is 1/2" of insulation is no insulation at all,....
2nd is, the 3" insulation on the ceiling isn't seam sealed,...
2nd is, the 3" insulation on the ceiling isn't seam sealed,...
The roof it's self actually has the same 1/2" foam on it also. Now what you can't see in the picture is most of the 3" foam in the rafters is overlapped, not sealed though.
I think your biggest problem is that pellet stove is to small. I ran into the same problem with my old one. You only have 4 heat exchange tubes (small stove). Large pellet stoves with the tube type have around 14 heat exchange tubes. Regardless of how much heat you put to them they can only do so much. I would suggest looking for a larger used stove rated for 2K plus sq ft.
That 1/2" insulation on the wall is probably giving you an R5 at best and probably more like an R3. However, the foil does have one advantage, that is to reflect the radiant heat back but it is still not enough.
If you had the same temps I did this past week, low teens to single digits, it takes alot of heat to keep up with that and make the ambient temperature rise.
If your overhead door isn't insulated, that will allow the heat to pass right through it.
If you are just now trying to bring the temperature up and your floor is cold, it's going to take time to warm up that very large mass of concrete. Once it's warm, it'll help hold the heat but you have to continually run that pellet stove.
If you had the same temps I did this past week, low teens to single digits, it takes alot of heat to keep up with that and make the ambient temperature rise.
If your overhead door isn't insulated, that will allow the heat to pass right through it.
If you are just now trying to bring the temperature up and your floor is cold, it's going to take time to warm up that very large mass of concrete. Once it's warm, it'll help hold the heat but you have to continually run that pellet stove.
Good advice. Roll up door is an insulated fiberglass door. Concrete floor is ice cold so definitely not helping.
The stove on the other hand even after cleaning out the stack and burn burn pot again doesn't seem to be running right. Both blowers are running, but the flame is real small even on high and the glass is getting coated with ash.
At this point my next step is going to be to pull the exhaust blower and check it out. Haven't had that out before.
p_mori7
Well-known member
Stove is not putting out enough BTU's to overcome loss thru building envelope.
Only 2 possible solutions:
1- Increase BTU output with a bigger heat source (= spend lots more money).
2- Add insulation (lots of it).
Only 2 possible solutions:
1- Increase BTU output with a bigger heat source (= spend lots more money).
2- Add insulation (lots of it).
Ironhorse74
MEMBER EMERITUS
I don't want to do pellet stove 101 because I truly hate the stinking things.
First things first in order to truly diagnose a pellet stove you need a magnahelic. See how many inches of vacuum it has when it is up to temp and running. Don't have one?
Take a leaf blower that has a suction tube. Attach the suction tube to the vent. Unplug the hose from the vacuum switch. Stick a golf tee in the hose. Make sure the leaf blower is not pointed at the neighbors house. Turn it on. A gas leaf blower does a better job than an electric one. Get a small ball peen hammer and tap all the interior surfaces of the stove. Paying particular attention to the back wall and top. When the sound of creosote that was stuck to the steel stops, you probably have it clean enough.
Check all the gaskets. Make sure the stove seals where it supposed to seal. Do not remove the exhaust blower unless you have a new gasket.
Get the instructions and adjust the intake butterfly to the correct position. Closing it, creates more vacuum.
First things first in order to truly diagnose a pellet stove you need a magnahelic. See how many inches of vacuum it has when it is up to temp and running. Don't have one?
Take a leaf blower that has a suction tube. Attach the suction tube to the vent. Unplug the hose from the vacuum switch. Stick a golf tee in the hose. Make sure the leaf blower is not pointed at the neighbors house. Turn it on. A gas leaf blower does a better job than an electric one. Get a small ball peen hammer and tap all the interior surfaces of the stove. Paying particular attention to the back wall and top. When the sound of creosote that was stuck to the steel stops, you probably have it clean enough.
Check all the gaskets. Make sure the stove seals where it supposed to seal. Do not remove the exhaust blower unless you have a new gasket.
Get the instructions and adjust the intake butterfly to the correct position. Closing it, creates more vacuum.
matt_i
Well-known member
I had to look up the thermal performance, they quote 38k BTU "input". There is no figure for output, I'm not sure what the efficiency is. Guess 80% efficient, thats 30k BTU
I agree that seems like a marginal unit for the insulation mentioned.
I'm not totally sure if the rafters or top chords are insulated but there is likely a large portion of the heated air escaping up between the gaps to reside in the attic...
mygarageone
Well-known member
For heavens sakes , forget about a bigger unit , get that building properly insulated !
Problem Solved .
Problem Solved .
Ironhorse74
MEMBER EMERITUS
You misspelled 60%
I never said I was looking for a bigger unit. This one is not running right; why that is I don't know. And yes the place needs more insulation. I don't own the place, essentially renting.
matt_i
Well-known member
Ironhorse74
MEMBER EMERITUS
ThanksThat was a little optimistic
60% may be fairly optimistic
First Post
I have the same size shop, detached 24 X 32. I use an old Earth Pellet stove.
At 40 degrees outside & inside the shop, the pellet stove will raise the inside temp 10 degrees/ hour. 2 Hours, it's 60+ degrees. Enough to work in.
Shop is reasonably well insulated with R13 walls & R30 ceiling.
Both garage doors are metal (10' doors, no insulation).
Should make for a good comparison.
Jim
I have the same size shop, detached 24 X 32. I use an old Earth Pellet stove.
At 40 degrees outside & inside the shop, the pellet stove will raise the inside temp 10 degrees/ hour. 2 Hours, it's 60+ degrees. Enough to work in.
Shop is reasonably well insulated with R13 walls & R30 ceiling.
Both garage doors are metal (10' doors, no insulation).
Should make for a good comparison.
Jim