Technically, your right. It did come from the bag. The wood fiber used had too high of levels of sodium, potassium or chlorine which caused the ash fusion temp to reduce the temp at which ash will bind together. It can happen when temps reach about 1100
, which will not happen under normal conditions. When any of these elements are present in the fire box the ash can fuse together at temps as low as 500
, which is normal in the fire box.
This is one of the first chapters in the NFI training manual.
So the user removes them while performing maintenance. It is a doh! moment and a trained tech ought to explain this to them to keep them from doing it again. It happens. They get placed in a bucket and then someone accidentally dumps a bag of pellets in it and then tosses it back on the hopper. Even worse!...and this happens a lot and would be something that would scare me more is that they go to start the stove it feeds, feeds and feeds...no ignition, the pot over flows, they dump the burn pot back into the hopper cause it's just pellets right? Well it may not have been lighting cause there was a big clinker in the pot, they dont see the clinker cause its buried by pellets...this gets repeated a few times a whola...clinkers in the hopper. There is a danger though that there may be some smouldering pellets from the failed ignition...those can cause a hopper fire.
You say the customer has a Hudson River. Well, that's a good stove now that Sherwood is making them but they are typically sold via the internet and or B grade dealers. Not that far of a fetch that they got the stove outside of a reputable dealer, got no instruction, obviously they are making a lousy pellet buying choice too....
Don, you have a chance every time you do a service call to educate people about better, best practices, it worries me that you would be duped so easily. My number one rule I tell my employees when servicing a stove, and I mean no disrespect, listen to what the customer says BUT DON"T BELIEVE THEM.
"oh, we JUST had the units cleaned a few weeks ago" - but the unit is filthy
"oh my husband works with HVAC and knows all about these things" - but is unemployed at the moment
"we only buy the very best premium pellets" - every bag says premium
"we had the stove professionally installed" - but its not installed correctly
"we would never dump clinkers in the hopper" - but their son in in charge of the stove after school
All of these statements may be entirely true but if you got it covered....why are we here.
As a tech our job is to be a detective not a lemming.
LOL
