St Croix hastings

Saturday I'm going to look at and probably pick up a st croix hastings pellet stove. It's 3 years old and the owner said he had some issues with it being very picky with pellets. He had a feed problem this past winter and thinks the auger motor is bad. The price is right, considering what they cost new . Obviously im gonna do a complete tear down and clean/test everything once i get it home. I don't mind changing out a few parts if after a good cleaning something actually is bad. Are there any major issues with these stoves? I did a pretty good google search and st croix seems to have very good customer service and the stove's get pretty good reviews.

Im only going to be using this as a secondary source of heat in my living room and dining room. This past winter i just couldn't get that end of the house warm. My old smoke dragon lives in the basement on the other end of the house

 

Most likely the stove just needs a complete DEEP cleaning....disassemble as far as you can, clean, vacuum, compressed air, etc, etc. Check door gasket, etc, and reassemble with new blower gaskets, etc. Since you'll probably be doing all this tear-down/cleaning in your garage(?), the final touch would be a leaf blower treatment, if you have one.

My guess is that if all the components check as good, the stove will burn just fine.

BTW, don't forget the pics!

 

Yea im guessing he just didnt realize the routine cleaning some of these stoves need. He did mention he had a company come "clean" it the winter before last but then figured he could do tha himself. He pretty much told me they just gave up on pellets and are going back to oil . And yes the hastings has the versa grate (at least the newer models) and this stove is only 3 years old. Hopefully he honors his word and it's still there saturday. Won't be suprised if it aint.

 

http://www.gleasonavery.com/catalog/pellet-corn-stove-motors.html

$75 + shipping.

BTW, as most of us know, these auger motors are pretty tough, and I'd be surprised if it was really bad. Does dirty stove/poor airflow/lack of vacuum switch closing sound familiar to anyone?

Smokinpiney, I suggest you make yourself a simple 120v power jumper lead like many of us did, to check to see if motors are actually good....an old lamp cord works great:

 

Thanks for the links and the tips guys! Spoke with him again last night and to my suprise he's holding it for me so im headed down to DE in an hr or so. Just so happens he lives 15 mins from cabelas and i have to drive right past it

 

Well i have officially joined the pellet heads club! Managed to grab her for $450 including the pipe, thimble, and home made hearth pad. Holy cow is this thing gummed up . I don't know what he was doing but as you can see in the pics something wasn't being done right. I got right to tearing it down when i got home and the auger and pellet chute were completely locked up with creosote and unburnt pellets. Once i was able to get the auger and motor out i tested it and it works! But the cam and shaft/cage weldment are pretty much toast. Something wasn't allowing the shaft to move freely and it wore down the cam and the part of the shaft it pushes against. Im really wondering if this guy mistakenly bought a some bags of smoker pellets because all the creosote has a sweet bbq smell. I smell like bbq ribs right now haha. I'll get some of the tear down pics up in a bit. But here's a pic of the stove

 

Ok here's some tear down pics

Looking down at the auger in the hopper

Looking up through the auger hole from the back (after i removed it)

The auger

Combustion air intake

 

Looking up the pellet chute from the burnpot. It's hard to tell but that's completely clogged!

Just some of the creosote/pellet mush i pulled from the chute and auger area

 

Dang that thing was dirty.

I'd gamble that it will burn just fine once you get the cleaning done.

 

Dirty ain't the word! I had to pry the auger out with a large screwdriver.

 

Holy chit that thing is dirty .doesn't look like it could get any air .

 

That stove makes some of the pics that Don has posted over the years look like normally operating stoves.

Once you get that critter all cleaned out, I'd put it in the driveway, crank it to 11 and let it run for a couple hours and burn out everything else that is left over. I'll bet once it can breathe good again that you'll have a nice stove for a good price.

 

Hmmmmm.....let me guess who said you were banned........

 

That's my guess for the majority of the stoves burning issues. Yes, he may have put smoking pellets in it, but those pics sure look like just a complete lack of combustion air......the pic of the air intake pretty much confirms that.

As has been mentioned above by 343amc & will711, once you get everything nice & clean and working, I bet that burns just fine.

BTW, I hope you have plans to add an OAK to the stove.

 

Yikes!

Gary

 

Once i get most of the thick creosote out im gonna blast that sucker with air till it looks new. Every crack, crevice, and air passage is gonna get brushed. Then like 342 said, once i get it back together i'll set it out for a while for a nice hot burn.

I knew it wasn't good sign when the guy handed me a bottle of acs soot and creosote remover with the stove