Another wierd experience today with my Harman XXV !! Unreliable pellets, or what ?

Today, my stove quit again. It turned out there were no pellets in the burnpot, depsite a full hopper. Apparently the pellets in the hopper had bridged over the feed screw. So I stuck my clean-out tool down into the hopper, apparently breaking up the bridge, because then I could start the stove.

Wow this is getting unreliable. Is it because I switched to Sparkman (Walmart) pellets ? They are longer than Energex. I want to be able to depend on my stove !!

I found that to have oil back-up, my furnace will need to use about 1/4 gallon a day of oil to keep warm and not let acid build up and eat the seals. This is 91 gallons of oil a year, for about $365 a year if oil is $4 a gallon. Burning that oil just to preserve the seals in the furnace, so I can use it as a back-up, would eat a lot into the savings I want from using pellets.

Any thoughts ?

Thank you, Driz. My feed screw had indeed gone dry, because after the stove shut down, I got the screw to turn, but there were no pellets coming out - I could just see the screw turning by itself. After I stuck the tool down in and wiggled it around, the next time the screw turned it had pellets in it.

Wow if it's the weather that's scary. I don't want that kind of unreliability. I live not terribly far from you, and we've had the same warm-ups you have.

GVA said:

make sure when you add pellets to the hopper you resist the urge to push the pellets down into the hopper.....
you can spread them around but don't push down, this compaction aids in the hopper bridging..

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Wow thanks GVA - I probably did do a little bit of unintentional pushing down. A good point.

I started burning the Energex again last night, and the stove is running like a champ.

A question I have for you pros - in order to keep my Harman XXV running reliably (no surprise shut-downs or failures to automatically restart), do I have to burn Energex pellets for the rest of my life ?

A local friend burned pellets from Lowe's all winter (Green Team and then I think Clean Energy), and they burned well except for one week with the Clean Energy it kept shutting down. I need pellets that will run reliably when no one is home. Is Energex the only way to go ?

BIGISLANDHIKERS said:

I have never burned energex so I would say no. I have found that the length can vary from one bag to the next.

Good luck

BIH

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Thanks BIH - does your stove shut down unexpectedly at times, or fail to auto-re-light when it should ? Is shutting down a part of having a pellet stove, or can it be avoided ?

The Patriot said:

newpelletstove said:

Thanks BIH - does your stove shut down unexpectedly at times, or fail to auto-re-light when it should ? Is shutting down a part of having a pellet stove, or can it be avoided ?

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Depends on the stove and the situation. If it's warm out on a given day, my P-68 will turn off for a period until the temp requires it to automatically turn back on.

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Hello Patriot,

I did not intend to ask if the stove shuts off for warm times and automatically turns back on later (which is a normal thing). I was still referring to the previous question, "does your stove shut down UNEXPECTEDLY at times, or FAIL to auto-re-light when it should ?" In other words, I want to know if it is possible, with the right pellets, etc, to have reliable operation, with out these kinds of failures ?

Philip said:

While I only used my Empress for three months before running out of pellets, it never shut down when I didn't want it to except for the one time we had a power outage. I burned Somerset pellets and was very pleased with them.

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Thanks Philip for the feedback. I am hearing that others also run without shutting down.