I helped a bud a couple of weeks ago with the install of an old Whitfield pellet stove that he picked up for nothing. Hadda core thru a poured foundation & install the vent for him, since he'd never done it. He told me that he'd bought some Pennington "Oak Hardwood" pellets at Walmart & that's what he was gonna burn. He managed to fry the original auger motor & then the replacement, before he decided that "FREE" didn't mean much. So he went to Lowe's - because he had a card with zero balance - & grabbed a floor model Englander for $1600 less 10% & asked me to stop back & hook THAT up. He said the vent didn't line up & didn't know what he needed to make it work. I asked him to grab another 12" adjustable & I thought that I could get him back in business with only that one piece. He didn't understand how, because his new stove exited higher than the Whitfield, but I told him to trust me, & we'd get it up & running. Well, he decided to play around & he managed to get the vent hooked up correctly with that adjustable in the place of a solid piece. He called me to say that he got the vent connected, but now his new stove didn't work. I grabbed a bag of Cleanfires & I met him after he got out of work yesterday. I noticed 5 bags of Penningtons sitting in the basement. I had him turn the unit on & no auger turning. He took the back off the unit & we could see the motor TRYING to turn, so I had him turn it off & grab his shop vac & empty the hopper. Didn't have a whole lot of pellets in there & after a bout 15 seconds he exposed the auger...I could see that there was a pellet caught between the top of the auger flight & the auger housing & asked him to get a screw driver. I got the pellet out & I don't know what it was made of, but MOST of it wasn't sawdust. It was more like a hardwood stick match with a saw dust coating on it... Once that was removed, the auger motor turned the auger freely. I dumped the Cleanfires into his hopper & let er rip. It took a little while since he neglected to prime the burnpot, but once it lit it burned fine. I asked him what kind of pellets he was planning to burn now & he was gonna go to the hearth shop I used to work at & grab some of their stuff...I'm willing to bet that his FREE Whitfield had the same jam with a pellet & that it'll work fine...Moral? Don't know. Maybe that the quality of Pennington pellets is questionable, or at LEAST arguable...The Englander unit seems like it was pretty well built, but I'm glad I'm burning underfeed Harmans, instead of some other manufacturer's drop feed units...
