St. Croix York auger jamming

[reddfox]

I posted a bit ago about our York making a whistling sound. https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/37588/
It ended up being the versa grate and that is now fixed.

However, now, the auger keeps jamming! The pellets seem to be the perfect size to fit between the first tine of the auger and it's plate. We've been burning the same pellets all year - and it was no problem. But now the stove won't start because it jams over and over. We're super frustrated. Feel like we've had the stove and it worked great - but now, at the end of our first season...everything is going to hell. we've adhered to the cleaning schedules, have burned good quality pellets...we can't figure out what's going on!

I should add that it's definitely not a problem with the auger motor or anything - we just keep getting repeated pellet jams.

Dealer is not helpful - we could have gone with someone closer, but he assured us that servicing the stove wouldn't be a problem. Now, it suddenly is.
Anyone have any thoughts on keeping the auger from jamming...think we have Juniata Premium pellets...

 

[relxn88]

I posted a bit ago about our York making a whistling sound. https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/37588/
It ended up being the versa grate and that is now fixed.

However, now, the auger keeps jamming! The pellets seem to be the perfect size to fit between the first tine of the auger and it's plate. We've been burning the same pellets all year - and it was no problem. But now the stove won't start because it jams over and over. We're super frustrated. Feel like we've had the stove and it worked great - but now, at the end of our first season...everything is going to hell. we've adhered to the cleaning schedules, have burned good quality pellets...we can't figure out what's going on!

I should add that it's definitely not a problem with the auger motor or anything - we just keep getting repeated pellet jams.

Dealer is not helpful - we could have gone with someone closer, but he assured us that servicing the stove wouldn't be a problem. Now, it suddenly is.
Anyone have any thoughts on keeping the auger from jamming...think we have Juniata Premium pellets...

I too have a York, but I made my self a homemade sifter for the pellets. The one time I used the pellets straight out of the bag, the auger jammed from the fines. I do about 10 bags at a time with my sifter, takes me about 20-30 minutes a week to sift. Beats sift jammed augers.

 

[krooser]

What do you consider a jam? Do the pellets fail to drop into the firepot or are the pellets overfilling the firepot.

If they are overfilling the firepot you have a dirty stove... you need to use a leaf blower to suck out the ash that's plugging all the hidden areas of your stove. At the very least you need to pull everything out of the stove including the ash trap doors nd , using a small hammer, tap all over the walls of the firebox to loosen up the ash and let it fall out of the ash traps.

the leafblower is best but the other method will help clean it but not as well.

 

[Xena]

Sounds like most jams are due to the pellets or abnormal
amount of fines in the bag. If it were my stove I'd clean it out
including vacuuming out the hopper, and try a bag of a different brand -
Maybe Barefoot, Lignetics, Cleanfire, Omalley if you can
get a bag of any of those. From my experiences those four
have little to no fines in the bags.