Quadrafire Classic Bay 1200 not feeding

[JGroUSMC]

Hello everyone. I've read just about every article on here regarding the Classic Bay 1200 not feeding and need help. This weekend my hopper ran out of pellets, I added pellets a few minutes after it ran out. I noticed the call light was still on but the auger wasn't feeding. This is what I've done so far:

Checked all the snap disks
Cleaned out the vacuum hose with canned air
Ensured the stove was extremely clean
Repowered several times and hit the restart buttons numerous times
Emptied the hopper and vacuumed out the auger.

I have no clue what else to do. The stove is little over a year old. I can't get anyone out to help until 12/15. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[DMKNLD]

Hi JG and welcome to this forum !

You said you cleaned the stove - I assume that the vent is clean all the way to the termination, too ? If the venting is obstructed it can shut down the vacuum circuit, that in turn can shut down the auger feed. With your feed problem starting after you added pellets, I would start there for troubleshooting. Emptying out and vacuuming the hopper and lower auger should rule out a lower auger jam or pellet bridge, but you may have one on the upper end of the auger where it dumps pellets into the drop chute. If you have a small mirror you can hold that at the pellet drop chute opening and shine a flashlight or headlamp onto the mirror to see if you have a jam up of pellets at the top of the auger.

If you don't have a small mirror you can just take a straightened out metal coat hanger or stiff piece of wire and poke it up the drop chute to remove any pellets that might be bridging the top of the auger, which is particularly common if you're burning longish pellets. If your pellets have allot of dust it may have clogged up the auger nipple that the vacuum hose connects to on the back side of the auger chute. When you blew out the vac hose with compressed air did you remove the hose from the auger nipple connection or the vacuum switch end, or both ?

If you blow air through the vac hose from the auger nipple end while the hose is connected to the vac switch it can clog the switch diaphragm with sawdust and make the vacuum circuit fail. If you removed the vac hose at both ends and then cleared it your auger nipple may still be sawdust obstructed, which you can clear with a straightened paper clip or a toothpick.

Try the above and post back on the results. The next step probably should be to remove the auger assembly to make sure there isn't an obstruction, ie a piece of pellet bag plastic or something else possibly that got pulled up into the middle of the auger chute. It isn't too hard to remove the feed motor and auger assembly.

DK

 

[reallyte]

Check the hopper door sensor too.

 

[JGroUSMC]

Thanks DMKNLD and reallyte. It was actually the hopper switch, it wasn't working. After reading about this stove, it's apparently a huge flaw in the dragon. A lot of people have complained about it. I was told that Harmon had a lot of problems with theirs as well and just stopped installing them. I really don't see that point of it. Either way, all we did was bypass the switch and cut it out all together.

If someone else is having this issue, I'd do this first after a good cleaning.

Thanks again for everything!

 

[reallyte]

Glad it was an easy issue the switch is there mostly for preventing it from running while open in the event of a hopper fire. Do note that if it remotely ever did happen to burn ur house down somehow your insurance company may not cover it. We live with if ands buts here though so do as you may.

 

[mralias]

Strange that the 1200i does not have a hopper switch. I'm glad it does not after reading this.