Endless Auger Jams, Please Help

[BenG]

I could use some advice to fix my constant Auger jams. Bought an Englander 10-CDV last year and it worked OK, burned almost 3 tons of Nature's Best pellets from Lowe's. Auger jammed occasionally and I had to break a pellet out before I could get it going again. This year I bought 2 tons of pellets from a local guy, brand is Corinth from Maine. Now I cant seem to get out of start-up mode without the auger getting jammed with a pellet. I tried vacuuming out the hopper to get all the sawdust out and I still got jams. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Fsappo]

I would ask the local guy if you could bring those pellets back. I'd try some of the recommended brands folks talk about here. Buy a few bags and try them. If "No" pellet will work without jamming the auger, I'm sure the englander dealer has an on staff service technician that can help you out. I have a showroom full of different stoves and I use PA Pellets, which folks will tell you can run long. I've jammed an auger once in the past 3 years.

 

[BJN644]

I would contact Englander tech support, nothing wrong with Corinth pellets, I have a co-worker who burns them all the time with no problem, and so do others on this forum.

 

[imacman]

I would ask the local guy if you could bring those pellets back. I'd try some of the recommended brands folks talk about here. Buy a few bags and try them......

Before you change all of your pellets, just go buy a few bags of 1-2 different pellets that get decent to good reviews here. That way, you'll know if it's the pellets, or the stove. Might save all the lugging tons of pellets back & forth.

I've already burned 3 different brands in my Englander (the terrible Infernos, Premier, and now Michigan), and have "0" jams.

 

[BenG]

Thanks to everyone for the help so far. I sent an e-mail to Englander customer service to ask what they thought could be the problem. Their response was that I should check to see if something is getting hung up between the two augers in the feed system. Does this make any sense. It seem pretty obvious to me that the problem is that a pellet is getting stuck right between the front of the hopper and the feed tube that moves the pellets into the burn pot. Whenever the auger gets jammed, I have to break a pellet out from this spot and once that pellet is removed the auger turns freely. Also, do you think it would help if I tried to realign the auger, not sure exactly how this would affect the pellets getting fed through the auger tube, but I guess it couldnt hurt. I am pretty new to the whole pellet stove lifestyle so I am trying to get a better understanding of how this works as I go.

 

[peirhead]

If your englander can handle a little corn, try adding some to your pellets...I tried corn initially in my Quad just to see how it burned in various ratios with pellets , but was amazed at how well the corn dust lubricated the hopper and auger.. no more clunks and thunks from the auger and the pellets slide easly down the hopper. I have had a couple of auger jams, but none since adding corn to the mix...I currently run about 20 - 25% corn.

 

[sinnian]

Try a different bag of pellets. I broke THREE solid steel Lovejoy couplings last year because my pellets were actually TOO HARD. That may be your problem, but try a different pellet to see if they will work or not.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

remove the auger (empty the hopper first) after pulling the auger look with a light up into the feed tube , look for any grooves in the tube, if the tube is scored in a circular manner the fuel as its pushed forward can catch that ridge and just start going around and around without advancing.

if you find this to be present , take the auger wrap a layer of fine crocus cloth around it and insert into the tube and basically work it in and out to sand the groove smooth , this shoud allow the fuel to get past that groove and continue to advance to the fire.

BTW while you have the auger out , inspect the edge of the flighting to see if there is a burr on it which would have caused the groove to start with , smooth it down with the same crocus cloth or a file

hope this helps ya

 

[GVA]

Mike What is crocus cloth? hh:
Is that emery cloth?
Just trying to expand my vocabulary

 

[Panhandler]

Mike What is crocus cloth? hh:
Is that emery cloth?
Just trying to expand my vocabulary

Yes, crocus cloth is a very fine polishing cloth. In industry it is used to polish the journals on shafts, especially where the inner race of a bearing makes contact.

http://composite.about.com/library/glossary/c/bldef-c1372.htm

 

[GVA]

I always used good old clover lapping compound for that

 

[stoveguy2esw]

Mike What is crocus cloth? hh:
Is that emery cloth?
Just trying to expand my vocabulary

emery cloth would work as well, you just dont want somthing too coarse that would score the tube further. crocus cloth would be more a polishing cloth which would take off the ridge inthe tube without scoring it.


BTW to the OP, ben if you are still fighting this , give me a yell at the shop and we can kick this around a bit, or shoot me a PM with a phone number and i'll try to give you a call during the week.

 

[trudd]

My question would be, and maybe Mike could answer this for you, is the auger in your stove the CDV different than what would be in a PDV stove? My reason is that I too have a "multi-fuel" stove, Country Flame Harvester, and had the same exact problems that you are describing ALL last year. What finally solved the problem for me was not different pellets, I tried MANY different brands, it was a different auger. The standard auger for my stove had a much narrower gap between the auger flitting than the augers I had seen on pellet stoves. It was primarily designed for corn use. Long story short, I found out that they made a "pellet auger" for my stove, replaced it two weeks ago and now finally my stove is operating correctly. *knock on wood

I know its a completely different stove but I posted all the info here in case someone with my stove had the same problem. You can see the difference between my two augers here: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/43034/

 

[stoveguy2esw]

My question would be, and maybe Mike could answer this for you, is the auger in your stove the CDV different than what would be in a PDV stove? My reason is that I too have a "multi-fuel" stove, Country Flame Harvester, and had the same exact problems that you are describing ALL last year. What finally solved the problem for me was not different pellets, I tried MANY different brands, it was a different auger. The standard auger for my stove had a much narrower gap between the auger flitting than the augers I had seen on pellet stoves. It was primarily designed for corn use. Long story short, I found out that they made a "pellet auger" for my stove, replaced it two weeks ago and now finally my stove is operating correctly. *knock on wood

I know its a completely different stove but I posted all the info here in case someone with my stove had the same problem. You can see the difference between my two augers here: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/43034/

very good question trudd,
we do not use a different auger for pellets in this stove ,just one fits all. however its a different setup alltogether han the 25-pdv which is dsigned strictly for pellets.

jamming occurs when either somthing which is too hard for the auger to crush gets caught, or if the fuel refuses to advance such as the possibility i mentioned above. if fuel gets lodged in a manner which doesnt allow the fuel behind it to advance it "boils"or rides out the top in the opening at the bottom of the hopper and doesnt enter because the fuel ahead of it doesnt advance and clear the space needed.

 

[BenG]

I believe I have found out what the problem is. I tried a bag of the pellets I used last year (Nature's Heat by Pennington) and the stove ran for hours with no problem. Upon inspection of the difference between the two pellets the Corinth on average are much longer than the Pennington. I would say that the average Pennington pellet is less than a half inch in length and the Corinth has a large % of pellets that exceed 1 inch in length. So, this leads to my next question. What can I do to get through these pellets I have. I don't think there is anything wrong with the pellets, I just think that the auger motor in the stove doesn't quite have the strength to break the longer pellets consistently. Is there anyway to upgrade the auger motor to give it a little more strength or do I just have to be really picky when I get my pellets to make sure that they are soft and/or small.

 

[BenG]

I have resolved my auger jams. Bought a new auger motor from Gleason-Avery (same RPMs as the motor that came in stove). I have been burning the longer Corrinth pellets for a week w/o a single auger jam. Thank to everyone for your helpful suggestions. By the way, the corrinth pellets are burning great, I used Pennington's all last year and thought that is was normal to have black soot build up on the glass within an hour of starting your stove. I also thought it was normal to get a big puff of sawdust everytime you open a bag of pellets and have to empty the ash pan every other day. I was quite mistaken.