I need to preempt this with the fact that I am new to burning pellets and still learning, the burn pot was scraped 3 days ago and the stove was cleaned less than a week ago, the ash pan 1/2 full when this happened. I cannot attribute it to anything at the moment, which might include operator error lol. This is Rocky Mountain pellets. I didn't think of bringing a coin with me, I found a few broken Heartland pellets back there to help your visualize the actual size of this thing, atleast 3" wide. Its easy to crumble in my hand but difficult for new pellets to push over the edge of the burn pot. The man of the house is out of commission for the time, I quit going out to the wood pile for the woodstove because its easier for me to load pellets. They also appear to take a lot longer to ignite, and dont feed as well through the auger. The Heartlands left a find dust in the ash pan, not black pellets and unknown clods like this. (again it could be operator error.....) I can't help but wonder if my stove does not like this new brand, I never had these issues (ash pan on fire, large black clods) with the other pellets.
I know absolutely nuthin bout pellet stoves... so naturally I just hafta say sumthin... Are you able to try a different pellet brand (you said sumthin bout Heartland) to see if there's a difference?
Those kinds of clinkers are from the silica content in the pellets. It's actually a form of glass. It is caused by the hot and cold cycles of the pellet stove. The thing is you have to be vigilant in scraping out the pot for some types of pellets. Some will be better than others, but I don't remember having any pellets that did not develop clinkers when I had my pellet stove for sixteen years.
there's an old joke that goes along with this....something about gals not being very good judging sizes because the are so often told that 4" is a foot!
Bingo Stinny! This is a new brand that making clinkers, Rocky Mountain Pellets. Thank goodness the rest of my stash is Heartlands, the first 1.5 tons of them burned flawlessly.
Years ago my company had small plastic 6" in rulers (imprinted for promo), the guys had great fun with the centimeters side
almost certainly the pellets, not the stove....but, since you know it can clinker, you can easily remedy the situation
simply make sure you scrape your burnpot regularly, which will break those clinkers up.......clinkers are a pellet thing, not a stove thing, but certainly doesn't mean its a bad pellet, just elevated chloride contents, which can cause more clinkerage.....
