Harman XXV Squealing After 2 Days of Burning NEWP

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mlwschultz

New Member
May 1, 2008
104
Southern Maine
This is our 3rd winter with our XXV & burning NEWPs (only pellets we've burned, purchased from stove dealer). We had the burn pot repair done last year, this year the dealer replaced the auger due to constant squealing. We're still having a problem with the stove starting to squeal after about 2 days after a cleaning. The stove seems to be running fine, heat output is great. There seems to be a lot more ash with the NEWP pellets this year. I'll shut down the stove, do a thorough scraping down (use the test mode to move the auger in 1/4 turns to thoroughly scrape out the end of the auger tube & make sure it's not squealing at this time), followed by a high burn for 20-30 minutes (dealer recommended). Within 2 days, the stove starts squealing again. I have never had to do a shutdown, major scraping, high burn every 2 days!!! This is ridiculous!! Start of the season, I was burning for a week before having to scrape (using up last year's pellets) and rarely had to do a high burn. Now, I'm having to do this every other day & it's driving us nuts! The dealer just replaced the auger due to constant squealing & the auger stopped turning. When he came out to the house, the stove started feeding right away for him, but squealing, so he replaced the auger (something about the sealed hub). Squealing every other day is obviously an indicator that something isn't right & is totally unacceptable. So my question, is the problem with the stove or with the pellets? Anyone else have a similar experience? If so, what was the solution?
 
MLWSHULTZ,

My Accentra squealed due to fines in the slide plate housing. Cleaned and vacuumed them out and had no more squeal.
My suggestion, check for excessive fines. Perform a normal cleaning and then burn a several bags of a different brand of pellet to rule out your NEWP's.


Steve
 
I did remove all the pellets from the stove & vacuumed out the hopper, used the test mode to feed all the remaining fines & vacuumed those out too. The auger was still squealing & this was done before the auger was replaced. Trying a few bags of another brand is a good idea. Will have to see what's around. I would think if it was the pellets that the dealer would be having similar issues all over the place. But the NEWPs are definitely not burning as clean as they were last year. Lots more ash in the stove. So I wonder if there's some stove setting (we run room temp) or adjustment that would make a difference in how they burn. I do clean out the air holes every time I vacuum out the stove (usually every other week I do a thorough stove cleaning) & vacuum out the ignitor area below the burn pot.
 
My Harmon pellet furnace does the same as Stevie's unit. It starts to squeal after about a ton of pellets have run through it. I vacuum around the top of the slide plate through the hopper hole while the slide plate is cycling to get the fines out. And also around the under side of the slide plate inside the slide plate housing. Takes care of my squeal every time. Be careful the slide plate edge doesn't catch on the vacuum hose.
 
NEWP has good years and bad years. Right now they are killin stoves by me at a rapid pace. It goes like this:
Thank you for calling FSC
Hi my pellet stove auger is stuck/squeaking etc
What kind of pellets are you using?
NEWP
Try cleaning the stove, hopper, etc and using Barefoot, Cubex, Curran Softwood, Okies (all available local) for a week and see what happens. Then call me back
One week later they call back and problem solved. The new problem is what to do with their NEWP.
 
I told my husband this morning that I was beginning to suspect the pellets (after being woken up at 1:30 AM by a squealing stove). It seems to be a carbon issue, but happening far too frequently to be normal. Either the stove isn't burning properly (which it appears to be), or else the pellets are the problem. Our dealer is good, always been happy with their service (just not the fact that we seem to need a major repair every year), so I guess the course of action would be to try a few bags of a different brand & see what happens. Then contact them with those results & see what they'll do.
 
Franks said:
NEWP has good years and bad years. Right now they are killin stoves by me at a rapid pace. It goes like this:
Thank you for calling FSC
Hi my pellet stove auger is stuck/squeaking etc
What kind of pellets are you using?
NEWP
Try cleaning the stove, hopper, etc and using Barefoot, Cubex, Curran Softwood, Okies (all available local) for a week and see what happens. Then call me back
One week later they call back and problem solved. The new problem is what to do with their NEWP.

I guess I have a good batch of NEWP. After burning a ton, I've had no problems with this year's run. Delivered to my house in late July. They are far better than the ton I had left over from last year. I had a couple of jams with them.
 
We had the same problem at start of the season with our p38, I had to remove the auger and scrape the whole auger tube . It's not a hard job but the stuff in the tube was very hard. Jeff
 
JFUNN said:
We had the same problem at start of the season with our p38, I had to remove the auger and scrape the whole auger tube . It's not a hard job but the stuff in the tube was very hard. Jeff

we seem to see this from time to time- carbon accumulates IN the auger tube, where it isnt so easy to clean out. As you can imagine, the greater the accumulation of carbon, the more the auger gets "thrown off", and comes into contact with the edge of the auger tube, thusly causing squeeling. Also check the two auger retainer bolts in the rear of the stove and make sure they are tight....and, what the heck, while you are back there, clean out the fines container AND take the cat and dog hair off of the fan houseings and squirrel cage fans.....oh....unplug the unit first!
 
is this only a Harman problem? My p68 has not squeaked this year but has so every other year. When it happened in the past I would take out all me pellets and vacuum the slide plate, I would also use powdered graphite all around the slide plate and the auger motor. I think it's all about the pellets, last year I used woodpellets.com and it had alot of fines this year I've been using energex and have found them to be much better with far fewer fines. For me the squeaking would only happen at night I don't know why.
 
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