Pellet heads!! What's up today?

Yes JT.

 

We ran Munchy today and did 3 barrels to stove ready status
My tenants in our basement apartment are moving now as they are having a baby and they bought their first house.
They are hauling stuff out and the young man mentioned that the pellet stove was full, BUT would not start.
A quick look at the burn pot revealed the pot had a huge black hard clinker....
The igniter could not light the fire....
also the pellets were not feeding.
Pull he sides off the stove to get access to the electronics, feed motor and such.
I figured the the kids had run the stove empty last spring and the auger was dry.

I hand fed the beast and got it lit....Got the temp probe hot and the green lamp on the magic box came on...
Auger is turning but no pellets.
After a bunch of hand feedings and still no pellets I grab a bucket and a scoop and clear the hopper.
Pellets were Lignetics and were crap.
There was a football size clump of what looked like pellets that got wet or ???? before they were bagged.
Cleared the hopper all the way to the auger..
Auger crammed full of fines ....ARRRRRRRRRGH.
The Quadrafire 1000 has a coil type auger and if the things gets stuffed with fines it will not feed.
Finally got my shop vacuum in there and sucked the auger tube out and added clean pellets.
More hand feeding and after a few more tense minutes the pellets started dropping out into the fire pot and things started to work as it should.
Auger motor works as it should.....The 1 RPM motor takes forever it seems.
The large spring auger is not my favorite ....But they work fine..
Running these stoves dry can be a pain to get the auger full and the stove back into time as far as when there is enough pellets to start the fire and get the probe temp hot enough to start thr auger once the startup timer is done.
These feed about 2-3 minutes and dump a good amount of pellets, then the auger stops while the fire starts.
Then once the thermocouple reaches 200 F the auger starts again and runs until the thermocouple reaches 1000 F then things are set to go....Room fan comes on and things just work great.

No maintenance and crap fuel makes for tough sledding.
I will get in the apartment tomorrow and vacuum the stove out good and check it over well.
I just gave it a quicky to diagnose why it was not working.....

Ah well.
Pellet stoves are not the best heaters for those not willing to learn to operate them....

I have had tenants that were great.....Others not so much.

YA HAVE TO PUT PELLETS IN THE THING ????????

These stoves need a caretaker that has the entire operation well understood for sure..

AH WELL SUCH IS LIFE..

 

I had a couple of bags last year that had clumps of pellets in them - large clumps. The bags were unbroken, and the clumps were floating around in the middle (not around the edges or in corners), so it was obvious that the drying process was not as thorough as required, or that somehow moisture had been introduced just before or during the bagging process. And, if during the drying process, there was no sorting process to take out big chunks. I mean, a random baseball clump of broken down pellets doesn't just happen. Something in the process broke down or wasn't in place to begin with.

I didn't catch one of those clumps and it clogged the pellet chute so pellets wouldn't drop. So I paid more attention to what I was pouring in and was able to intercept other clumps before they became a problem.

 

Yeah
The clumps that I found were huge....One was football size .
This morning I am going to head downstairs and give the Quad a good cleaning make sure all the fan motors do not have pet hair and other debris on the end caps that will stop airflow
House dust is bad enough, but pets add an exponential amount of hair.
I try to stay out of my tenants space, but the stove must be serviced regularly .....Fire pot cleared of the nasty "Lave like" clinkers that form in the bottom and block the igniter.
The Quad has a clean out knob on the lower front that opens the bottom of the fire pot to allow the crud to drop into a catch pan in the lower booster air plenum.

Just pull the knob and a spring loaded rod pulls a crescent shaped cover on the pot open.....

This stove was purchased new in 1993.......It's been a great workhorse.....

 

I got in the Apartment about daybreak and gave the Quad a good cleaning and washed the glass, vacuumed out the mechanical cabinet and checked things over.
Added more pellets to the hopper and cranked up the Tstat.
Exhaust fan and booster came on, Auger started up and dumped in pellets.
Took a few minutes and the fire started.
About 5 minutes Give/take the green light on the computer came on (200 F proof of fire)
Auger started back up and got the fire up to full .....About 5 minutes more and the RED light on the computer came on 1000 F and then about 5 minutes or so more the room air fan came on and life was good.
Ran the stove a bit more and then shut the Tstat down to 55 F and let the stove shut down.
Everything worked great.

AS IT SHOULD.....
Neglect, dirty fire pot and a bag of bad pellets.
this stove is 33 years old now....
Pretty decent service.
This stove was one of the originals that came with the Ceramic fire pot (Absolute JUNK) The new steel and cast iron pots came out and we got a replacement fire pot kit under warranty.....
In the last 33 years we have replaced the metal pots on that stove 3 times
When the stove is the sole heat source 10 years is the life span.....

Replaced the computer once.......
A handful of igniters over the years as well....

 

I have a few more.

 

Good morning, pelletheads.

Just checking, but i'm sure i know the answer.
Just had a power outage, and when i plugged the stove back in, nothing.

Pretty sure it blew through my surge protector and fried the control box.

Sound about right?
Def getting one of the big Tripplite protectors next time

Thanks.
I have the big Tripplite on my electronics suite, and was using a small wall Tripplite unit on the stovve

 

Ok, that was weird af

Main power came baco on, and the stove works
All the other things ran on the generatorpower.

I'll take it.
But need to sus out what was going on.
Thanks

 

Ok, pretty sure i figured it out with a moment to consider.

Normally, in a power outage, i plug the stove directly into the power strip which is on a heavy duty enough extension cord out to the generator.
But recently i let wife use the power strip, and i instead ran a (small) extension cord between the stove and the power strip.
Apparently stove just said, "Nah, weak sauce."

Just went out and got a nice Yellow Jacket power strip/surge protector.
And also a 25' Yellow jacket extension cord for running out to the rest of the house, since my other decent cord is now used for the battery tender onthe car.

 

Guessing the box senses proper resistance so you don't burn your house down with an inadequate extension cord.

 

Almost that time.

 

Glad nothing toasted your stove and it was an easy fix. Thank you for sharing your experience - hopefully it will help someone in the future.