Check out THIS burnpot from a P61a!

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Lousyweather

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Anyone hazard a guess how a burnpot becomes like THIS one? Its from a P61a, just under 3 years old.
 

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looks like the ignitor wires may have shorted against the burnpot and arced it. very impressive. i envy your pyrotechnic skills
 
no, for those of you who guess coal, GREAT guess, but that damage usually appears at the end of the auger......now Im wishing I took some pics of the augers when I had folks mixing coal and pellets...and its not a short of the igniter either....although the igniter is trashed, the wires are intact....no oil either, but yes, GVA is right in the warrantee aspect...."its under warrantee, right?"
 
heres another pic:
 

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Ouch what a mess.
Probably something as simple as lack of maintenance
or a combo of that and burning corn?
 
One interesting question would be this.....

Since the vast majority of pellet stoves are run at vastly lower settings than advertised (especially 61's), could that simply be the result of running the puppy at full tilt?

And, if so, would it be under warranty then?

I can't claim to know about all the R&D;depts in the industry, but it would be hard to imagine that many designs are run at full tilt for years in order to find the REAL MTBF.

More important is how they hold up in regular use in the field.

Probably lots of possibilities on this particular one. There is even such thing as inferior steel. Could have been a bad batch, who knows? After all, pellets stoves are not cars and I really doubt that the suppliers are kept to the same (incredibly high) standards as cars, planes, etc......

So, do we get to know YOUR guess or the real story, as the proud current holder of this pot?
 
Heres my guess.... I think it was a few things (no order)
1. stove is always run on "flat out high" the pellets are then being pushed out of the burn pan into the ash pan and as they build up they are hitting the bottom of the burn pan

looks to me like the top is ok but its melted from the bottom

2. could be a bad batch of steel, but that would make the whole burn pan melt so I still think the pellets are not finished burning and they are falling into the ash pan and continue to build up until they reach the bottom of the burn pan thus melting the bottom
 
Aren't there similar issues (under normal operating conditions) with the burn pots in the Harman pellet furnaces?
 
Sorry, Harman newb here. Got any pics of a new one? I don't even know what its supposed to look like.
 
That's not a manufacturing defect... Thats abused.... with all that rust I agree with pook on the chlorides aspect.
But that doesn't happen overnight...
Maybe they were experimenting with the outside air and ran pure Oxygen through that thing :lol:
 
My guess is it was over fired.
 
OK, times up for the answer! You can entertain the audience for just so long before the interest wanes. We don`t come here to play guessing games. I`m about to tell you to stick it you know where.
 
Looks like it exploded from the inside! My guess they were using somthing they should not have to light the stove and it dripped down the holes and exploded. :grrr:
 
If i had to guess it had something to do with the ignitor...
Maybe it stayed on all the time or it has hotter than expected??
 
Me has a 2004 P61A and my burn pot is in fine shape. come on, spill the beans, what they hey did that? Small pieces of C4 mixed in with the pellets?
 
Don't you just hate it when at a cliff-hanger moment in the the story, To Be Continued Later!, comes across the screen?
 
I run through the pellet room maybe once per week and I will likely never find out how the story ends. Thanks for that.
 
1) Ash pan put in upside down, ashes pile up and insulate front of burn pot causing burn/melt hole in burn chamber....??
2) Customer mixed salt and pellets together to see "pretty color" flames...??
 
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