Auger Troubles..

[mangler]

My stove is a Englander 25 PDV made in 2008
Two questions...top auger was barely rotating until I bypassed power from vacuum switch that hose comes from firebox to switch. Upon doing power directly from top auger to control board the motor runs as normal...so does that mean switch is bad or something with control board and how long can I run stove without this vaccum switch?

Question 2
Bottom auger motor will run fine for awhile and continuously rotate until it just stops turning so that tells me the motor is working...so what does this mean? Is it a flat spot in the gearspossibly ....sometimes lifting and tapping motor it will start again and go for a little while....or is this an issue with the control board? Desperate need of some help as tempature goes below 30 tonight! Thanks for any guidance!!

 

[Bioburner]

Give Englander a call come Monday. Maybe Mike will chime in to help. I have read that owners swap motors around to extend their life. Should not run a stove without a vac switch for any length of time as its a major safety. Have you tried the dollar bill test of your door gaskets? Poor worn gaskets lead to poor fire and vac switch shutting the stove down. A stove over 5 years old is probably due for new door gaskets.

 

[mangler]

Give Englander a call come Monday. Maybe Mike will chime in to help. I have read that owners swap motors around to extend their life. Should not run a stove without a vac switch for any length of time as its a major safety. Have you tried the dollar bill test of your door gaskets? Poor worn gaskets lead to poor fire and vac switch shutting the stove down. A stove over 5 years old is probably due for new door gaskets.

I change door gasket last year. Running without vac switch how is it safety concern? Last year I also changed top motor..looking at bottom motor it says INT on it...intermittent? Should they be swapped maybe and try that? Thanks

 

[BUBIBEAR]

Sounds like you might have crossed the connecting wires. The top auger should is suppose to run off and on that's the metering auger. The lower auger should run continuously. And they should be 1rpm motors and interchangeable.

 

[JDenyer236]

Vac switch is designed to shut stove down should the airflow drop below a certain point. You can bypass for testing but I would not leave it running with the switch bypassed. It's a safety switch that is designed to prevent the stove from feeding with insufficient combustion air. Prevents house fires, smoke damage to the house and CO poisoning.

 

[mangler]

Appreciate all of the help and guidance! I just swapped top and bottom motors so they the one that says INT is on the top auger and the other on the bottom. Turned it on first by bypassing the vaccum and bottom motor ran constant never stopped as suppose to...top motor would turn like 1/8th turn and stop and then keep doing that on and off then after two full revolutions it would only turn just a slight bit...which I thought was strange. I then reconnected vacuum loop and same outcome..1/8 turn and two revolution and then only a quick short turn. All this was done with no pellets in stove doing a dry run...so my assumption is that this is normal due to stove not heating. I'll be turning on in a few hours with pellets to see how smooth it goes. Thanks again I'll let you know if I get stumped again.

 

[JDenyer236]

Bottom auger is supposed to run all the time. The top one cycles to meter out the pellets. At least that was the way my old Englander use to work.

 

[Luv2burnPellets]

Auger motors are gear motors. I suspect that the gears are stripped. You would need new gears or new gear motor. You can buy new Gleason-Avery 1 rpm motor for $78. You need to know if you need CW or CCW rotation (as viewed from shaft end ).

 

[mangler]

Been running about two hours now and feeding and burning good. Only strange thing is that the top motor feed seems to slow for low settings?

 

[JDenyer236]

If it's running good then I wouldn't worry about it.