XXV condensation in hopper?

[marylu]

Has anyone else had a problem with condensation in the pellet hopper? I noticed it the other night when I went to shut the stove down for the night. The inside of the glass hopper door was full of moisture. When I opened the cover I noticed rust along the back edge of the opening. Seems like this must have happened a few times for this to happen. I have burned it some evenings this fall. Never noticed this other years.

I called my tech and he said he had not heard of this happening before. Said I should watch it when I burned to see if I could "troubleshoot" when it happened. Well it happened again tonight. Nothing seemed different than any other time I burned. Last night when I burned it I did not see any moisture.

Any ideas of what could be causing this? I did check the pellets in the hopper and they did not appear to have been wet when dumped in. None were "puffy" like they get when wet.

 

[imacman]

Do a double check of the pellets using a microwave to make sure they don't have more moisture than normal:

1. place 1/2 cup pellets in a GLASS (not plastic) bowl.
2. cover the bowl with a saucer to make moderately airtight
3. nuke them in microwave for about 45 sec, to 1 minute.
4. immediately when finished heating remove the saucer and tip it up vertically, look for moisture on the bottom of the saucer, there should be a little. If enough is present to allow it to run down the bottom of the saucer, they have excessive moisture

 

[Corny]

I think that Imacman is on the right track. Some corn burners have noticed the same thing when burning corn of excess moisture. Beats seeing soot inside the lid!

Cute test, Imacman. :coolsmile:

 

[cantman]

Marylu-I have a XXV like you and on occasion have noticed the same presence of moisture on the glass hopper lid.
I've attributed mine to a few factors:

1) Cold bag of pellets (not wet) condensing the warmer air that is entering through a small air leak in hopper lid gasket
2) Usually only happens on mine when the stove is run with a high flame to quickly heat up a cold room (also with cold pellets)

Do you notice any similarities?

 

[tinkabranc]

Never had this issue, but first thought was cold bags of pellets.
Do you store em outside?

 

[Don2222]

Hello

Last night I burned the Avalon Astoria on low all night. Sometime before 6 AM when it was about 36 Degrees F outside the stove quit with a #4 error because of pellets in the auger were jammed. I know this happens when there is moisture in the shute. Could it be the large Temperature swing outside is bringing in some moisture thru the OAK?
I know being on the lowest heat setting does not help.

There is the trap door on the shute so not much goes in there but moisture can still get in?

Short of running the OAK thru a dehumidifier what can be done? Disconnect it and try it without? anything else?

 

[Fire]

I've had this before. It's due to moisture in pellets. The front of the hopper is against the rear of the vertical heat exchangers. You will see that area is too hot to touch from inside the hopper. The pellets in the hopper are getting hot, and releasing the moisture. It has no where to go. That is what you see. I would wipe the inside of your hopper door whenever it is wet. Your pellets probably stored outdoors for quite some time.

 

[marylu]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I am thinking you are all probably right. The pellets were stored outside where we purchased them from and there had been record rains. They were shrink wrapped, but probably absorbed some moisture. We will try opening and dumping the bags into our wood box first, not directly into the stove. Would it help, do you think, to bring in maybe 5-6 bags ahead of time into the heated house? Perhaps opening the top of the bags? We are storing them in the garage, but doubtful that they would dry out now in an unheated garage?

 

[imacman]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I am thinking you are all probably right. The pellets were stored outside where we purchased them from and there had been record rains. They were shrink wrapped, but probably absorbed some moisture. We will try opening and dumping the bags into our wood box first, not directly into the stove. Would it help, do you think, to bring in maybe 5-6 bags ahead of time into the heated house? Perhaps opening the top of the bags? We are storing them in the garage, but doubtful that they would dry out now in an unheated garage?

Short of drying them in an oven (totally impractical), or out in the sun spread out on a sheet (also ridiculous), there's not much you can do...opening the top of the bags might dry out some pellets after weeks, but anything under the top layer will stay moist.

BTW, did you try the little test I mentioned above??

Also, how long ago did you buy the pellets? If the moisture test shows them to be "wet", would the seller take them back?

 

[marylu]

Our son and grandson were here all day. Brought a big trailer load of stuff we have had stored for almost 10 years. Had to unload and carry up to the second level of the garage. So no time to try the test. I will definitely do it tomorrow though. Will let you know how it turns out. I did have one bag so far that had "puffy" pellets so that bag for sure had gotten moisture in it.

As far a whether they would take them back, I am not sure. They did say that if we had any bags that had gotten "wet" we should just bring them back. As they had had so much rain and being their storage was out side. We bought a total of 3 ton. The first ton, Uncle Jed's Bear Mountain seem to be ok as we picked them up earlier in the fall. The last 2 ton, Uncle Jed's Pine, we picked up later and there had been a lot of rain.... So I really don't know how many bags could be extra moist? Perhaps just the ones that were on the bottom of the pallet, don't really know. Plus now that we have unloaded them and stacked them into the garage, not really sure which bags are which.

 

[holstein]

I had the same issue on my new Accentra insert. I freaked at the first sight of rust on the lip of the hopper lid.
I called my stove dealer first and they said it was either coming from my chimney (unlikely) or the pellets were
wet. The next time it happened, I shut the stove down and pulled it out of the fireplace and checked for any
signs of water as directed by the dealer who I had on the phone. Upon finding no signs of water, I contacted
the place I bought the pellets from and told them the story. I had burned 4 different types of pellets and only
this brand was giving me issues. Being a "rookie",I had no idea what water damaged pellets looked like. The
pellets were larger in diameter than any other I had burned, had numerous cracks in them, did not have a shiny
coating, and were easily broken up into fines. The bags of problem pellets also had at least 1-2 cups of fines per
bag. After a few back and forths with the pellet dealer, they ended up taking the pellets back (all 3 tons) and
exchanged them for a different brand. Moisture hasn't returned since.