Lower Auger jams on 25-PDV

[vultage]

I think I got this one solved, but I wanted to post if others run into the problem.

The lower auger started jamming constantly, I decided to attack the problem at the source. I removed the bottom auger,. and when it came out,.. a TON of old pellet dust,.. mixed w some rusty looking dust,.dropped out. When I started using a wire brush to clean out the casting,.. the dust just kept comming. At this point, I decided to pull the top auger as well. I scooped out the hopper, and pulled the top auger. This allowed me to get in and clean out the whole casting with the wire brush. Lots of nasty old dust was jammed in all the crevises,.. and contours of the feed tubes.

Once I got the casting all cleaned, and vaccumed out. I forced grease into the bearings until it came out clean. wirebrushed the augers themselves, and cleaned each and every piece the best I could. After getting it all back together, it seems to be working flawlessly. Time will tell.

I had a buddy tell me that his dad had a problem with the dust in the bottom of the bags, jamming his auger every time, so he built a filter bucket with some screen and an adapter for the vaccume. I asked if she ever had a problem with dust in This stove? She said she never gave it a 2nd thought in the 10yrs she ran it. Not sure how suseptible to dust this model is,.. but I'm guessing 10 yrs of dust is what finally caused the auger to start jamming in the first place(when she stopped running it).

With any luck, this will be the end of auger jams for a long time to come!

 

[vultage]

It has now been running for almost 24hrs,.. 2-2 through most of the night,.. 5-5 for 2nd half of the night,. and 2 hours on 9-9 this morning. No jams!

I am still wondering if the pellet dust from the bottom of the bags, is an issue to look out for with this model?

 

[the pony boy]

Yes. It' called fines. It can cause several problems including what you experieced. Some pellets have more than others you also create more fines the more you handle the bags.

 

[doghouse]

Make auger removal part of your yearly major clean and you should never have a problem with fines on the 25 PDV. 11+ years with that stove and only one auger jam.

 

[vultage]

Right on! Thanks! The project was not bad.

One thing I found interesting,. Supposedly, they ran this stove for 10+yrs without a jam either, without giving fines a single thought, dumping the dust right in. The first time it jammed,.. she didn't know what was wrong and stopped using it. That is when I stepped in, lol.

I've now told everyone, just to be careful of the dust at the bottom of the bag,.. and that should help keep it from being a problem throughout the season. I know it depends on Pellet brand, and how much they are handled, ect, These bags do seem to have an amount of dust in each bag.