Pellets destroying someone's stove? Really? Is this Credible?

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ChrisWNY

Feeling the Heat
Just over a month ago, before I went out and began purchasing pellets, I read a lot of reviews online on various websites too numerous to list here. At any rate, on a number of occasions, I read reviews bashing xyz pellet brand because it "destroyed someone's stove" - this ranged from pellet dust clogging augers, insane amounts of ash jamming up mechanical parts and ruining burn pots, or pellets burning too hot and destroying a heat exchanger. I found myself pondering how compressed saw dust could single-handedly destroy a pellet stove.

My hypothesis is as follows: if the stove can't handle sub-par pellets, either because the pellets are too dirty/dusty, too moist, or contaminated by rat feces, I say the stove is either a piece of crap, or very poorly maintained or neglected by the owner. Even if a pellet sprays ash forcefully inside a stove when it burns, I can't fathom wood pellets, in and of themselves, wrecking a decent quality pellet stove. Thoughts?
 
ChrisWNY said:
very poorly maintained or neglected by the owner. . Thoughts?

That's my vote! Whether its 1 ton of pellets with a 1% ash content or 3 tons of 0.333% ash content! The stove will have a lot of ash build up and it needs to be cleaned on a regular basis or problems will arise! just my 2 cents worth.
 
Let me explain how those little pellets can actually destroy a stove.

You first disable the high temperature system by bypassing it, then you disable the convection blower by disconnecting it.

Load that puppy with some high octane pellets and fire it as fast as it can push those pellets into the burn pot.

That will frequently warp a heat exchanger and the stove.

The stoves can be damaged however it usually takes a bit of careful planning to do so.

However that isn't always the case, you only need a small batch of bad metal to also have problems.

Now considering that most of the people who have pellet stoves are more of the fill the hopper and press the button mindset it is also possible that they think a stove is ruined when in fact it isn't.
 
I have 1st handed have seen what a Dirty or Plugged stove will do. When I bought My Fahrenhiet, the gentleman had to "throw a handful of pellets" in the burn pot. Said that It had a design flaw. YEAH OK?? Fire barley burned and it was in his garage. Full open air on level 5. You could barely see the flames. If he would have burned that stove another year like that, there is no doubt in my mind that there would have been catastrophic failure on some component. BUT.. After cleaning it for 12 hrs and looking like a coal miner when I was done, it burns great. And fires up within minutes. (After Auto clean feature) And got it looking like new again. What a beautiful investment. (Although its exhaust passages are a little odd)?? I can believe that if you Don't take of it, IT WON'T TAKE CARE OF YOU!! Does it have to do with the pellets?? Yes, That is what you are burning.. Does most of this, if not all of it.. Fall on the OPERATOR??? Absolutely.. Another fine reason to have a few cold ones and get away from the wife and kids on the weekend. Just doing my job as a Father and keeping my family safe and warm.
 
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things to think about with a dirty stove

ash buildup restricts airflow but in most cases it will not plug completely just choke it way down, this does a couple things, it allows fuel to build in the pot which can cause a big ugly lazy fire which is hot but the ash doesnt allow release of heat in the exchager. so exhaust temps rise this can cause serious issues with exhaust blowers and their impellor blades as well as inner bearings on the motor which may not take that kind of heat. ash also acts as an insulator trapping heat in the exhaust even further, add to that the restricted passage also concentrating heat into smaller areas can cause warpage, ive even seen busted firewalls in badly abused stoves. dirty burns can also build hard carbon which if not periodically removed can corrode mild steel which most stoves are made of especially burn pots.

yeah, ive seen it in person as i do "pathologies" on returned product in the summer months, usually after the first couple and the "what the hell were they thinking?" subsides you just hope the store didnt actually give them another stove.
 
we had a neat tech bulletin from Lopi. They showed pics of a leyden that was completly destroyed inside after 6 mos of burning... not destroyed by neglect, but by the pellets... The pellets the lady had been using had some chemicals in them (from crap fiber, probably building reclaim) that ate apart the insides in half a year.
 
really?! i had a customer e mail me about issues but he's on an island in alaska and i was concerned with the amount of chlorides (from sea salt) in the air , he's pulling outside air and right on the ocean, figured that was what was eating his burn pots at a rapid clip , thought about a stainless pot but would be major league expensive to do a single pot of that guage stainless.
 
summit said:
we had a neat tech bulletin from Lopi. They showed pics of a leyden that was completly destroyed inside after 6 mos of burning... not destroyed by neglect, but by the pellets... The pellets the lady had been using had some chemicals in them (from crap fiber, probably building reclaim) that ate apart the insides in half a year.

Did you find out about the brand of pellets she was using? Wouldn't the pellet manufacturer be held responsible in that case, especially if they slap a "premium" grade label on the bag, marking their pellets as certified "premium" by the Pellet Fuels Institute? Perhaps she just mixed up wood pellets with animal feed, or tried to use another biomass fuel such as grain pellets in her stove?
 
I'll try to find it tommorow if I have time.
 
stoveguy2esw said:
really?! i had a customer e mail me about issues but he's on an island in alaska and i was concerned with the amount of chlorides (from sea salt) in the air , he's pulling outside air and right on the ocean, figured that was what was eating his burn pots at a rapid clip , thought about a stainless pot but would be major league expensive to do a single pot of that guage stainless.

It wouldn't suprise me... we put in some gas insert units on the coast in some condos years back. The salt air ate up the aluminum liners in 3 years, had to go back and replace with stainless. I'm sure if you add in the extra corrosiveness of pellet ash, then even stainless wouldn't last too long on the coast.
 
ChrisWNY said:
Just over a month ago, before I went out and began purchasing pellets, I read a lot of reviews online on various websites too numerous to list here. At any rate, on a number of occasions, I read reviews bashing xyz pellet brand because it "destroyed someone's stove" - this ranged from pellet dust clogging augers, insane amounts of ash jamming up mechanical parts and ruining burn pots, or pellets burning too hot and destroying a heat exchanger. I found myself pondering how compressed saw dust could single-handedly destroy a pellet stove.

My hypothesis is as follows: if the stove can't handle sub-par pellets, either because the pellets are too dirty/dusty, too moist, or contaminated by rat feces, I say the stove is either a piece of crap, or very poorly maintained or neglected by the owner. Even if a pellet sprays ash forcefully inside a stove when it burns, I can't fathom wood pellets, in and of themselves, wrecking a decent quality pellet stove. Thoughts?
I have seen Michigan brand pellets Tear out a auger motor in a PF-100 Harman Furnace. They had probably 1/2-1 gal of fines per bag. The stove is designed to feed pellets not dust. This unit was only 6 mo. old. The auger bound up and stripped gears in motor.
 
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