Mother of all jams

[rky60]

Well for me it was

P43 goes down last night around 2:30, coldest night of the year or darn close to it, 14ish

No idea what it was at the time, fired up electric and went to work. Left work early after all my installers were on their way to jobs. Came home and did my first ever repair on the 43, operator created repair I should say, since I knew it was possible. I've had a self tapper jam an auger before but nothin like this. This HAD to be in the bag, never used them before for anything in my home. Now on to the pics, quarter for comparison...



Time for a metal detector?

 

[bbfarm]

holy crapola!

 

[Lake Girl]

What brand of pellets? UPC code might be helpful... so others can be on the look-out.

If you can rule out any possible way that it might have fallen out of your pocket .... contact the company. Looks like a sheared bolt w/nut from somewhere in the automation process.

Did the auger & motor survive?

 

[bill3rail]

Damn! That could do some damage to your auger motor!
I vacuum my pellets, but that may get past me because I am not watching every pellet drop into the bucket after vacuuming.

Bill

 

[rky60]

What brand of pellets? UPC code might be helpful... so others can be on the look-out.

If you can rule out any possible way that it might have fallen out of your pocket .... contact the company. Looks like a sheared bolt w/nut from somewhere in the automation process.

Did the auger & motor survive?

I'll get the brand/UPC when I get back home. Sitting here back at work i'm starting to think that the self tapper was in the same batch. I didn't rotate my stock that was left over from last year and I just started to get back into them, and this happens.

Yeah the auger/moter was fine as far as I can tell, everything back up and running. Stove is maybe a month old, i'm just thrilled it wasn't a Harman problem. I'm not sure what the diameter of the auger hole is but that bolt head is an 1 1/4"

 

[PoopieBritches]

Damn! That's scary. Hopefully your auger motor is ok. Even a pellet stove as mighty as the Harman can't have a bolt that large in it?
I'm wondering what brand of pellets? However, I would imagine it could happen with any.
Hopefully doesn't set you too far back$

 

[herdfan2003]

Wow, and why does that stuff always happen at the worst times

 

[briansol]

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the difference between jelly and jam.

 

[rky60]

And the pellets were....



On a side note, when re-installing motor on auger remember to have the set bolt on the flat part of the shaft It was dark!

 

[Ncountry]

On another side note.. How do you like those pellets (besides the obviously large clinker..lol)?

 

[rky60]

I guess they're ok, that's one aspect of pellet burning I've never really paid close attention to. Usually just buy/burn whatever Lowes is selling. There's alot of mom-n-pop type stores that sell pellets in my area, might start doing some research

 

[ScotL]

It might be stainless steel, which a magnet wouldn't have picked up. A lot of pellet handling equipment is stainless. It's surprising how corrosive wood can be.