What happens when pellets have high moisture in top feed pellet stove - Auger Jam - see pics

Hello

Moisture is the biggest enemy of the pellet stove.
These pellets were stored outside on the porch and absorded alot of moisture.
The stove jammed and it was baled and freed, but it just jammed again. The drop chute was completely clogged with pellets and the auger kept cranking and squeezing the pellets at the top of the auger chute until the motor jammed and wore the bearings in the motor until grease started leaking out of the new motor output shaft! The auger motor was a good quality motor that had a new bronze oil lite auger bearing installed earlier in the season. The motor was damaged and the bearing was scored. If the jam and cause is corrected right away then these parts may not have been damaged so heavily. Continued use did cause the damage!
The stove is an older St Croix York and it does have a small opening into the drop chute from the auger flight shaft. I heard this was corrected on newer stoves. However moisture in the fire box from a damp cleaning or damp inlet air or high moisture pellets can still cause this issue in many stoves.
Therefore a new auger motor, auger end plate gasket and bearing was installed.
Has anyone else seen this? See pics below
Click on pic to Enlarge

Pic 1 - Shows pellets fused together and clogging yp drop chute completely
Pic 2 - Shows drop chute after clearing pellets by sticking a brush up drop chute in fir box
Pic 3 - shows damaged auger motor, auger bearing and end plate gasket
Pic 4 - shows close up for grease leaking from auger motor output shaft
Pic 5 - shows ager bearing with small gouge rings from auger motor jamming.

On Jan 2, 2017 I had seen a moisture jam. See similar details
I had a new ocurance of a moisture jam today and I was reluctant to call it that until I was 100% sure. In this case it was the top auger in a 25-pdvc that was stuck solid. The first time I went there I pulled the augers and cleaned them thoroughly. The stove was clean and then it happened a couple of days later. The same top auger jammed. This time all the pellets were scooped out of the hopper and by slowly turning the top auger by hand I freed it up so it would wiggle up and down again. The bag of pellets were stored in the garage for about a year and may have picked up some moisture in the hot humid summer. The previous owner brought up bags and stored them in a dry warm closet so there were no jams. I am beginning to believe that any stove can choke on damp pellets and some stoves have a higher tolerance. However if the pellets are damp enough even a Harman P61 may choke and I have seen them not light in a Harman even if they do feed ok.
The augers were clean, the motors almost new and the bearings greased and moving easily.
This is New England near the coast and we do get alot of Damp and Humid air compared to other regions!

Here was the first time I saw this about 6 years ago
The first time we cleaned our pellet stove when it got dirty my wife used a warm wet sponge on the iron fire and put it back in damp!
When my friend first cleaned his pellet stove, he used a warm damp cloth to clean the fire box!
My other friend put in a bag of pellets that she stored in a very damp basement!
Bingo Three ways to cause a pellet stove auger
"Moisture Jam"
They were mostly top feeding pellet stoves and the jam happened at the top of the auger chute just before sliding down.

 

Long pellets would certainly cause bridging and exacerbate this situation!!
Also the Lignin in the wood helps to keep the shape when they are made using pressure, heat and moisture. So moisture with heat can change the shape and the lingin will keep the new shape.
See clump of pellets in pic below that was reformed.

 

Keeping pellets on the porch wont do anything to the pellet quality. Unless it was raining right on top of them. Pellets need direct contact with water for them to be compromised.

 

I strongly disagree. I kept a ton in my garage all summer one year. My garage is a walk out and not damp. We had a very humid summer and those pellets did not burn as good as the new ones I bought in the fall. I never did that again! The moisture will get in! Pellets should be well protected.
They can and will absorb moisture!

 

You would be wrong

 

I am burning pellets thar have been in a plastic shed for three years right now, without issue.

Where do you think pellets are stored?? Almost all of them are outside from the time they are made until you bring them into your house.

 

That is good
Did you ever see water condense on the inside of your window pane or the outside of a toilet tank? No water went through the window or the toilet tank!
If the air inside the bag of pellets condenses then the pellets can turn to mush and clump up.

I always have a ton next to my stove so they are warn to prevent condensation,

Here is 1 Ton of Pellets Walmart dumped into their dumpster because the pellets in the bags turned to mush!

 

Those pellets that you brought it to sit nicely next to your pellet stove have been outside for the vast majority of their life. You warming them up does nothing.

Every bag of pellets i have ever burned have been virtually vacuum sealed. No air means no condensation. Condensation happens on the outside of the bag. No effect on the pellets.

Those walmart pellets probably sat under a rain gutter with a hole in the bag.
There is ZERO chance that happened without direct water exposure

 

I have pellets that are 5-6 years old in my garage and grab a bag time to time with no issues and I'm in a humid climate. As a matter of fact, I had one bag left of NEWP that I won a ton years ago. I used that bag on the concrete floor to protect the rest of the bags stacked on top. I finally roasted that bag a couple weeks ago without issue.

 

I burnt 45 bags of vermonts. Sat in a garage for 3 years i think. Then i out em on my porch. Burned top notch. The garage seemed very damp too.

 

I store 10 tons outside without any issues what so ever , but then again I take some pre-cautions as I have come up with a strategy to keep them dry and it works perfectly. When i purchase them they are one ton at a time so when i get to the house i pull the top cover carefully as to re-use it in the end. I re-stack the pellets on two pallets the bottom one sits on the ground and the second one on top of it perpendicular to the one on the ground(allow air flow beneath in both directions) The top pallet is covered with water and ice barrier (vapor barrier thinking 30# felt would work fine) and then I re-stack the pellets and shrink wrap them once they are stacked as a ton.

I then replace the top cover that came from the manufacture and shrink wrap it once again starting at the bottom working my way to the top to where i eventually cross over the top as not to leave any seams on the horizontal for water to penetrate. Fetch the next ton and rinse and repeat... They sit like that until winter comes again through the spring, summer and fall and when uncovered for transport to the cellar they were / are bone dry and burned perfectly . May be a bit overkill but did not want to jeopardize the initial investment I make in the spring . They are just as they were in the spring when i purchased them dry with dust and dry fines which indicates they have not become wet or moist in any fashion.

With all that said guess what i was trying to say is that I agree with others and don't think your issue is a result of your suspected moisture in the pellets .

 

At the beginning of the 2016/2017 burning season I had 11 tons of pellets (all bought spring of 2017). My house is sitting on fill over a swamp and dampness seeps up thru the concrete floor to augment the natural humidity during spring and summer.

• I kept 3 tons in the basement (on pallets).
• Kept 3 tons in the garage, on pallets right next to the sump pump. Not only does damp come up thru the floor, but during rain or snow meltage water comes under the garage door and the entir garage floo is wet at times.
• The rest of the tonnage was kept in my yard, on pallet, under the plastic covering with a tarp on top.

Last summer I renewed my house & garage stash from the yard and still have a ton out in the yard. The only bags I had any problems with were originally damaged to begin with ($100/ton - no biggie). At this point I have to point out that these are bags of hard/soft blend and have little holes in the bags, so they are not vacuum packed (unlike IHPs pellets)

Now, do they burn as hot as if they had only been in arid conditions? I don't know. I don't need to care since neither stove works hard to heat my place.

 

Just to clarify my point. My bags are just like yours, with holes. But, most of the time they are "like they were vacuum sealed" as in, no air in the bag all.

 

Oh, I misunderstood what you were saying - thanks for clarifying! Mine obviously have air in them - don't know why yours would be different - weird.

 

Not sure why yours does...how do they stack up with air in them?

 

Never mind whether or not there is any air in the bags. I think Bogie and I are probably splitting hairs.

But serious question to don2222 . Have you ever opened a bag and actually seen condensation on the INSIDE of the bag? I never have and if its a big a problem as you say, you should see it all the time.

 

I have stored pallets of pellets outside for multiple seasons and never had any quality issues with them. As long as you keep them properly covered and protected from the elements, they will be fine. I put 2-3 hoods over them, and top them off with a tarp held on tightly with bungee cords. When I do uncover them and bring them into the basement, some of the bags have had condensation built-up on them, but like IHP said - that condensation has never affected the product inside the bags. Don I suspect that one experience you had was likely a bad batch of pellets to begin with, rather than pellets that went bad due to moisture in your garage.

 

No problem - it's not like the air is trapped there and most will squeeze out as stacked.

Agreed

 

Hi
You are right,
It really is not a big problem! I have only seen it happen less than 5 times in 5 years. I just wanted to point out it can happen under certain conditions. That is the only explanation for those very rare times that I have seen it. I also had a bag once that had a few clumps of pellets in it when I opened it and had to return it to the store.

 

Fortunately I have cats so I can repurpose damaged pellets - and for less than 40# of cat litter sells for (~$12). It clumps and is deodorizing, and I can dump it in my ash pile after a couple of weeks use. One cat won't use pellets/sawdust, only litter. The other cat only uses it for urine - that is helpful since I don't need to remove any torpedo prior to emptying (don't want any rolling out of the pile and my stepping on them ).