Hi all, yet another Englander question. Actually about 2 separate stoves.
My sister in law has a dead pellet stove in her back room, she finally let me look at it after never calling the service guy. It had what looks like the upper auger motor replaced recently (found the old one sitting on the floor next to it), but it doesn't feed. I fiddled with it and figured out that the lower auger seems to be frozen...she said the repair guy told her it needed that motor replaced too, but I'm not confident in his diagnosis as the lower auger is frozen solid...can't move it by rotating the motor assembly, doesn't have any give at all in the bore. I ordered a motor regardless because between her stove and mine we have 4 of them, so its good to have a spare if needed during the winter, but I clearly have more to address here and her auger motor might be ok. Any tips or common issues/failure points with the lower augers on these stoves that I should be looking for? I noticed both augers seem to have zerk fittings and the dust covers are very heavily covered with dust, so its entirely possible they've never been re-greased in the 4-5 years they've operated this stove, is normal automotive grease the right stuff here?
On to the second auger question on my home stove. My upper auger seems to enjoy jamming on me at startup. When it happens I have to empty the hopper, clear any obstruction of pellets around the auger, stop and restart and it goes just fine from then on. Doesn't do it every time, I'd say a couple times a week, with me shutting the stove off twice a day because its not yet cold enough to run it around the clock. This morning however it was very stubborn and just didn't want to start, took awhile but it finally did. I could see once in a great while jamming, but this seems far too frequent for, does this indicate maybe a weakening auger motor and I should order one now for when it eventually won't start? Does the auger maybe need to be removed, cleaned and realigned? Any other ideas?
My sister in law has a dead pellet stove in her back room, she finally let me look at it after never calling the service guy. It had what looks like the upper auger motor replaced recently (found the old one sitting on the floor next to it), but it doesn't feed. I fiddled with it and figured out that the lower auger seems to be frozen...she said the repair guy told her it needed that motor replaced too, but I'm not confident in his diagnosis as the lower auger is frozen solid...can't move it by rotating the motor assembly, doesn't have any give at all in the bore. I ordered a motor regardless because between her stove and mine we have 4 of them, so its good to have a spare if needed during the winter, but I clearly have more to address here and her auger motor might be ok. Any tips or common issues/failure points with the lower augers on these stoves that I should be looking for? I noticed both augers seem to have zerk fittings and the dust covers are very heavily covered with dust, so its entirely possible they've never been re-greased in the 4-5 years they've operated this stove, is normal automotive grease the right stuff here?
On to the second auger question on my home stove. My upper auger seems to enjoy jamming on me at startup. When it happens I have to empty the hopper, clear any obstruction of pellets around the auger, stop and restart and it goes just fine from then on. Doesn't do it every time, I'd say a couple times a week, with me shutting the stove off twice a day because its not yet cold enough to run it around the clock. This morning however it was very stubborn and just didn't want to start, took awhile but it finally did. I could see once in a great while jamming, but this seems far too frequent for, does this indicate maybe a weakening auger motor and I should order one now for when it eventually won't start? Does the auger maybe need to be removed, cleaned and realigned? Any other ideas?
