Fixed constant auger jamming

[Kenzen]

New member here, and relatively new to pellet stoves. I have a Breckwell P32i that came with my recently purchased home, that was constantly jamming up. Long story short: After doing some research on this fine forum, I stumbled over someone that had suspected a warped auger. So I pulled the auger out (for at least the third time) to determine if that could be my problem. When I rolled my auger on a glass top table I noticed it was out of round at the top edge of the auger blade, at the area where the pellets would fall down into the fire chamber. Upon inspection I noticed that the blade edge itself was bent down toward the lower blades, closing the distance between the two top blades by a few millimeters. This was causing a "squeezing" effect in the auger as the pellets were working their way to the top. So I grabbed a nearby adjustable crescent wrench, and use it to bend the blade back up. The stove now works absolutely perfectly.

I can't say how the blade got bent, but there's no evidence of it having banged against anything, so I wouldn't rule out a manufacturer fabrication flaw. I recommend anyone having issues with poorly feeding or frequently jamming augers, to pull out the auger and measure the distance between the blades (especially near the top, above the hopper opening). Any variation will effectively create a choke point.

Ken
Bel Air, MD

Breckwell P32i
Whitfield WP2 Advantage

 

[SXIPro]

Perhaps the previous owner ran Wood Fiber pellets and there were screws or other hardware in the bag that jammed the auger and bent the blade??

 

[imacman]

Nice "McGuyver" fix!

 

[imacman]

Perhaps the previous owner ran Wood Fiber pellets and there were screws or other hardware in the bag that jammed the auger and bent the blade??

Believe me, there have been other manufacturers of pellets that have had things drop into the bag, as reported on this forum in years past.....AWF isn't the only one.

 

[Kenzen]

Perhaps the previous owner ran Wood Fiber pellets and there were screws or other hardware in the bag that jammed the auger and bent the blade??

There was no evidence of gouging or scoring of the auger bore/channel. Intuitively, something in the auger drive motor/gears would have stripped to bend the blade as it did. If it wasn't a manufacturing flaw, it was because the bit was dropped during maintenance, and it hit something solid enough to bend it, but not hard enough to mark it (e.g. wood).

 

[Kenzen]

Believe me, there have been other manufacturers of pellets that have had things drop into the bag, as reported on this forum in years past.....AWF isn't the only one.

Being a "newbie", I'm sensing there are some religious pellet wars among the ranks....

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

What you are sensing is people don't want metal parts in their wood pellets and that more than one pellet maker has had this issue.

Now that we have metal parts in the bags of pellets out of the way can we go on to other manufacturing gotchas?