Blower Motor Problem or What?

[oliveraction]

Hello All,

I am new at this so bare with me. I've had my Pellet stove for a little more than 7 years now. It's a Lennox Montage model. The stove has been great and I have learned a lot in the past few years but I'm having a little trouble lately.

I noticed this season that there is a squealing noise at start up that quickly goes away. In researching this site I have figured that the bearing in the blower motor (convection) is probably going ( It's the motor behind the control panel on the left side). I also noticed that the motor itself seems very hot to the touch and last week I smelled wood burning in the house and realized the hopper was very hot as well. My wife turned the blower down when she woke up, and it seemed to go back to the cool down mode (as if it was just turned on) even though it had been running all night and my guess is that because the blowers weren't operating like normal it just overheated.

I did clean the stove out, including the ash clean out covers. I also cleaned the exhaust pipe. Neither seemed clogged and I do this once every ton anyways. I restarted the stove, (I don't use the thermostat, I manually ignite since the igniter burnt out years ago and I decided against replacement) but soon after it shut itself down even though I had a good flame and pellets were feeding as normal. Only a few minutes went by on the startup and thats when I noticed the blower motor (again the one on the left behind the control panel) was very hot. I have never touched the motor while it was running and didn't know if it normally gets hot. I couldn't touch it with one finger for more than a second, that's how hot it was.

Anyways....I wasn't sure if this is my problem. I also wanted to make sure I am talking about the right part. I call it the blower motor but I believe its the convection motor. My understanding is the combustion motor is responsible for exhausting the air out. This seems to be working fine as I do not have smoke building in the living room and I can see it exhausting outside. Thanks for any help you can offer.

 

[Bioburner]

I would take and blow out the motors windings and suck with vac at same time to clear out any dust bunnies that are motor killers. Better yet remove the whole assembly and take outside and with compressed air and a brush get the main fins cleaned and blow out the motor windings. There may be oil ports on the motor. Can you possibly take it to a electric motor shop and have them service it and replace the bearings if your not that handy? Squealing is not a good sign

 

[oliveraction]

I would take and blow out the motors windings and suck with vac at same time to clear out any dust bunnies that are motor killers. Better yet remove the whole assembly and take outside and with compressed air and a brush get the main fins cleaned and blow out the motor windings. There may be oil ports on the motor. Can you possibly take it to a electric motor shop and have them service it and replace the bearings if your not that handy? Squealing is not a good sign

Thanks for the idea. I have some mechanical skills, i was planning on pulling it out, I just wanted to see if anyone else has had a similar problem and if the motor was the issue, would that cause the hopper to get hot? Also should I expect the motor to be hot? I will take it out this weekend. I think its about $230 for a replacement motor, but there is a shop nearby that I heard rebuilds for a lot less.

 

[Bioburner]

I cant remember what fan assembly is in that stove. Its a Whitfield design so once you have it out I would google the numbers on it and should be able to get it for much much cheaper.
If the stove cant move the air things start to get hot. If you have never removed the blower and have a pet or two its probably suffering badly. Lot of manufactures recommend annual cleaning.
Lot of blower issues around the site so your not alone by any means.

 

[Hank1981]

I'm having same issue except mine is the other side. The combustion blower. It's making side of stove an hopper to get very hot. This is my first pellet stove so I didn't know if it was normal or not

 

[Bioburner]

Motor can get very warm to touch but if much more than 120 the internal thermal switch should shut the motor off. Time to blast out the dust bunnies and give it a couple drops of oil.