Old stove has been running really sweet lately. Last night I stayed up watching something, got in bed about 1:15 AM, drifted off to sleep. Single digits outside. Then was awaken by the sounds of my Wife at the stove, and there was no light on the ceiling so I knew was no flame. Went down to the LR to check it out. Stove was running and we could hear feed / auger going, could hear the feeder block, but there were only a few black cinders in the burn pot, the glass was black, no flame. Was smoke in there too, but just a whiff in the room. Had a near full hopper too.
We could see there were no pellets being moved into the burn pot from behind, but the stove was trying. With the pellet hopper being near plumb full, I couldn't reach the feed port with my hand, so I pushed a long screw driver like prybar gently down through the foot of so of pellets to where I knew the feed gate was after pressing the red stop button. Pressing stop causes the feed to stop, but leaves the combustion fan on as long as there is heat. After a few trips with the bar, I pressed the green run button, the auger started, and in a couple minutes, we had fire too.
Long ago we had it happen, was some pellets that had a lot of long pellets, some in those bags were near 2" long. Never had it with these Hamers, they rarely ever have a long pellet over an inch, but they have an occasional one. I knew VC warns of long pellets bridging or blocking the feed block. Anyway, is running super ever since. I meant to pull the back cover today and clean thar area real good. Now is a good time as any I guess. A spring pulls the feed block away from the gate, but the auger has a cammed crank that supplies motive force to push pellets into the opening to the auger below. It'll break pellets if need be to push off the shelf, but the return being only a spring pull can be blocked if something gets behind it, then there's no pushing of pellets.
We could see there were no pellets being moved into the burn pot from behind, but the stove was trying. With the pellet hopper being near plumb full, I couldn't reach the feed port with my hand, so I pushed a long screw driver like prybar gently down through the foot of so of pellets to where I knew the feed gate was after pressing the red stop button. Pressing stop causes the feed to stop, but leaves the combustion fan on as long as there is heat. After a few trips with the bar, I pressed the green run button, the auger started, and in a couple minutes, we had fire too.
Long ago we had it happen, was some pellets that had a lot of long pellets, some in those bags were near 2" long. Never had it with these Hamers, they rarely ever have a long pellet over an inch, but they have an occasional one. I knew VC warns of long pellets bridging or blocking the feed block. Anyway, is running super ever since. I meant to pull the back cover today and clean thar area real good. Now is a good time as any I guess. A spring pulls the feed block away from the gate, but the auger has a cammed crank that supplies motive force to push pellets into the opening to the auger below. It'll break pellets if need be to push off the shelf, but the return being only a spring pull can be blocked if something gets behind it, then there's no pushing of pellets.
