This why you dont use pellets that got wet

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rickwai

Minister of Fire
Nov 1, 2011
1,503
ohio
These locked the auger up tight! Homeowner said it was not feeding very good:). If the bag has a hard or mushy corner just junk it. It is not worth the expense of the possible repair. Before and after
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I routinely burn bags with damaged pellets, after I remove as
many of the hard packed chunks as I can. I admit that some do go thru, but
I burn the remainder without issue. Maybe it's because I burn em in a Harman P61...
 
Not in my stove. Any significant amount of water damaged bags and they go back to the store. If it’s just one or two per year then I’ll use them as oil dry. Doesn’t make sense that a bag of pellets that’s actually engineered to run well in the stove, costs less than a bag of sawdust for absorbing oil spills.
 
Looks like they dumped a bag of wet pellets in and left them sit
 
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How do they get wet unless one just leaves them outside, and who burns wet pellets that are now just damp saw dust at best?
 
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How do they get wet unless one just leaves them outside, and who burns wet pellets that are now just damp saw dust at best?
You would not believe the stuff a service guy sees. But it is people like them that keep people like me in business :) . I service stoves in the winter and inground pools in the summer, If everybody were diy'rs and kept up there maintenance who needs service guys? As a rule I tell customers to junk the bag if it has moisture damage. Obviously they are not capable of repairing it them self if they accidently dump some of the junk in if they have me out there. Junk a $4.00 bag of pellets or pay $150.00-$225.00 service call and labor and hope the auger motor did not get burnt up if it ends up binding up the auger.
 
How do they get wet unless one just leaves them outside, and who burns wet pellets that are now just damp saw dust at best?
Sometimes if the store has them outside the cover gets a hole in it. and water sits on the bags and finds its way in the bag thru the little pin vent holes
 
Pretty hard to impossible to roast an auger motor even in a locked rotor (jammed) situation. Shaded pole motors get warm but by design they won't 'go up in smoke like a wound armature motor will.

You can lock a the rotor and let it sit all day. It will get hot but it won't puke.

Routinely return lumpy bags of pellets to the store and replace them but I have, in the past roasted them with no issue but remember I'm mostly on corn with the pellets to mitigate the clinkers so it's a non issue with me anyway.
I've had a few bags that were only good for floor dry in the past.

Obvious to me that the loaded auger was trying to feed extremely wet fuel. The owner deserves to pay for a service call, he (or she) is an idiot.

Finally, most bags of pellets will have air holes in them so they must stay covered if kept outdoors. I keep mine in the barn but I still cover them with the included plastic overcover that comes with every full pallet. Just common sense to do that. Of course in out current plug and play society, common sense is a rare commodity.
 
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Pretty hard to impossible to roast an auger motor even in a locked rotor (jammed) situation. Shaded pole motors get warm but by design they won't 'go up in smoke like a wound armature motor will.

You can lock a the rotor and let it sit all day. It will get hot but it won't puke.

Routinely return lumpy bags of pellets to the store and replace them but I have, in the past roasted them with no issue but remember I'm mostly on corn with the pellets to mitigate the clinkers so it's a non issue with me anyway.
I've had a few bags that were only good for floor dry in the past.

Obvious to me that the loaded auger was trying to feed extremely wet fuel. The owner deserves to pay for a service call, he (or she) is an idiot.

Finally, most bags of pellets will have air holes in them so they must stay covered if kept outdoors. I keep mine in the barn but I still cover them with the included plastic overcover that comes with every full pallet. Just common sense to do that. Of course in out current plug and play society, common sense is a rare commodity.

That all depends on the stove. I've had to replace motors because a ghost looked at them it seems.
 
Low voltage will take out the coil windings been there done that
 
You don’t need wet pellets to have this issue. Very powdery pellets will do this over time. As they go up the pressure of the pellets push the powder against the auger and the lignin binds it to the metal and the heat hardens it. I can say I’ve never seen one that packed.
 
Pretty hard to impossible to roast an auger motor even in a locked rotor (jammed) situation. Shaded pole motors get warm but by design they won't 'go up in smoke like a wound armature motor will.

You can lock a the rotor and let it sit all day. It will get hot but it won't puke.

Routinely return lumpy bags of pellets to the store and replace them but I have, in the past roasted them with no issue but remember I'm mostly on corn with the pellets to mitigate the clinkers so it's a non issue with me anyway.
I've had a few bags that were only good for floor dry in the past.

Obvious to me that the loaded auger was trying to feed extremely wet fuel. The owner deserves to pay for a service call, he (or she) is an idiot.

Finally, most bags of pellets will have air holes in them so they must stay covered if kept outdoors. I keep mine in the barn but I still cover them with the included plastic overcover that comes with every full pallet. Just common sense to do that. Of course in out current plug and play society, common sense is a rare commodity.
That is good to know on a shaded pole motor. I dont know much about the inner workings of a motor but it makes prefect sense.
 
You don’t need wet pellets to have this issue. Very powdery pellets will do this over time. As they go up the pressure of the pellets push the powder against the auger and the lignin binds it to the metal and the heat hardens it. I can say I’ve never seen one that packed.
Me neither. It was on a Envirofire Meridian insert. I had only serviced one of these stoves before. Luckily it had a removable auger cover in the hopper. I dont think the auger would pull out the end as tight as it was. I ended up having to chisel that stuff out with a screwdriver thru the 4" hopper opening. Ended up running my thumb nail into the sheet metal edge and ripping the nail back in the process. Had to electrical tape up the thumb to keep from bleeding all over:rolleyes:
 
That is good to know on a shaded pole motor. I dont know much about the inner workings of a motor but it makes prefect sense.
Not much to know actually, field laminations, coil and skewed solid armature. The skewed segments in the solid armature are what imparts rotation to the motor.

One very nice aspect of any shaded pole motor besides the fact that it will never go up in smoke (unless the coil windings short out which is rare is, you can reverse motor rotation by flipping the laminated field 180 degrees are reinstalling it so, if the replacement motor you happen to install in a customer's stove turns the wrong way, just flip the laminations 180 degrees and it will rotate the opposite way. When it's apart, add a couple drops to the front bearing too. The motor will thank you.