Examine your pellets as you fill your hopper. I use Energex pellets in my Harmon stove. One day while cleaning the stove, I found a 12 gauge wire about 6 inches long about to enter the auger.
To all who experienced Auger or other feed failures
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Wow...good catch!
All though I would imagine this is probably rare. Any body else find large foreign objects in their pellets?
All though I would imagine this is probably rare. Any body else find large foreign objects in their pellets?
I have found a nail which did jam my auger, and later found a knockout from an electrical box. After the nail, I started screening my pellets, and that is how I found the knockout. And yes, I have those wonderful pellets made in Athens, Maine. And as everyone else has said, I will never buy them again. I will burn oil first.
Did you contact the manufacturers of these pellets? They need to know, and you should expect a response. I'd be interested in hearing 'the rest of the story'.
i have a set of 3 keys (masterlock) hanging on a tack on my wall at my desk at work , they went through my stove and definately came from a bag of pellets.i was lucky , i found them as they were laying in my burn pot (what was left of them) when cleaning my stove.
i have had customers with nails , wires , even in one humorous case a couple golf balls... seems the home depot the pellets were bought from was located next to a driving range. the balls punched through the bags and the folks at the store thought they just got ripped, taped theholes shut and sold the bags as ripped bags at a discount. balls were dumped in with the pellets ,and naturally they migrated to the auger where they jammed the auger. no damage in either of the two cases and the depot found a different place to park their stock after the incident(i should note they gave both customers gift cards(dunno for how much) for the trouble which i thought was pretty nice of them considering the issue was more the driving range's fault for not having perimeter netting).
i had a customer once who called because her stove stopped feeding, after checking a few things advised her to empty the hopper, she went to comply but couldnt find her scoop that she used to load her stove , so she went and got a cup to dip them out. yep you guessed it her scoop was covering the auger opening blocking the feed.
could drop a bunch of these little tales on ya ,but these were a few of the more humorous ones
i have had customers with nails , wires , even in one humorous case a couple golf balls... seems the home depot the pellets were bought from was located next to a driving range. the balls punched through the bags and the folks at the store thought they just got ripped, taped theholes shut and sold the bags as ripped bags at a discount. balls were dumped in with the pellets ,and naturally they migrated to the auger where they jammed the auger. no damage in either of the two cases and the depot found a different place to park their stock after the incident(i should note they gave both customers gift cards(dunno for how much) for the trouble which i thought was pretty nice of them considering the issue was more the driving range's fault for not having perimeter netting).
i had a customer once who called because her stove stopped feeding, after checking a few things advised her to empty the hopper, she went to comply but couldnt find her scoop that she used to load her stove , so she went and got a cup to dip them out. yep you guessed it her scoop was covering the auger opening blocking the feed.
could drop a bunch of these little tales on ya ,but these were a few of the more humorous ones
i can think of at least 2 instances when a new pellet stove owner called due to the pellets not feeding and i had them open the hopper to find the bag had wound itself into the auger. yes america you dont just drop the bag in the stove and turn it on.
had a little boy who decided to execute the "bad boy" doll he had to pit against his GI joe or whatever it was by feeding him to the pellet stove , once helped remove a barbie doll while the little girl wailed in the background.(no she didnt get a spanking , i think the little brother might have been in major trouble though.)
had birds in the exhaust blower, had a guy who found a couple dead bats in his exhaust blower (mummified)
ive been asked about corn stoves , classic question from a fellow who asked and i quote "so, tell me, do you have to take it off the cob first?"
years ago we used to have problems with power cords on our older pellet stoves would ocasionally fall loose and get chopped off by forklifts as they would fall down into the pallet , we then tied them up to the underside of the feeder (which was aparantly a little hard to find , a fellow bought a stove piped it in and couldnt get it to run , actually pulled the rear cover and changed the fuse, no dice , didnt work , when he called i asked him to unplug the unit so i could have him pul the fuse again and examine it , he asked "what plug? you gotta plug this thing in?" its got a fuse dude , you dont use them without electricity. he just didnt see the cord tied up there amazingly even when he changed the fuse he missed it. all those wires should have been a pretty good clue
had a little boy who decided to execute the "bad boy" doll he had to pit against his GI joe or whatever it was by feeding him to the pellet stove , once helped remove a barbie doll while the little girl wailed in the background.(no she didnt get a spanking , i think the little brother might have been in major trouble though.)
had birds in the exhaust blower, had a guy who found a couple dead bats in his exhaust blower (mummified)
ive been asked about corn stoves , classic question from a fellow who asked and i quote "so, tell me, do you have to take it off the cob first?"
years ago we used to have problems with power cords on our older pellet stoves would ocasionally fall loose and get chopped off by forklifts as they would fall down into the pallet , we then tied them up to the underside of the feeder (which was aparantly a little hard to find , a fellow bought a stove piped it in and couldnt get it to run , actually pulled the rear cover and changed the fuse, no dice , didnt work , when he called i asked him to unplug the unit so i could have him pul the fuse again and examine it , he asked "what plug? you gotta plug this thing in?" its got a fuse dude , you dont use them without electricity. he just didnt see the cord tied up there amazingly even when he changed the fuse he missed it. all those wires should have been a pretty good clue
even in one humorous case a couple golf balls... seems the home depot the pellets were bought from was located next to a driving range. the balls punched through the bags and the folks at the store thought they just got ripped, taped theholes shut and sold the bags as ripped bags at a discount. balls were dumped in with the pellets ,and naturally they migrated to the auger where they jammed the auger.
Mike, I hope they were not ProV's
Mike, I hope they were not ProV's
I can imagine the dealers must have all kinds of stories, some of which I can see myself as a potential character, being a new stove owner. Bats, birds, maybe even mice in the exhaust vent. I can see it. I can solve it with the leaf blower now that I'm anticipating it. But the bag stuck in the auger? I'm thinking (broken link removed), here! How far from common sense can a human brain separate itself!
I found a rather large bolt (1/2 in. dia.) in the hopper once. It was too large to make it to the auger.
Hey Stoveguy, it sounds like you have heard or seen quite a few problems. Besides the "stupid user tricks" like the bag in the hopper, etc., in your experience how common would you say it is to find damaging objects in our pellet bags? I was just wondering if it is rare or should we go out and buy metal detector wands to wave at our bags before we pour them in?
remember code, ive done this for 15 years ,so the stories arent all current "just happened" things, ive seen maybe 3 to 5 jam issues due to foriegn objects in a season , they happen but its not pandemic. screening pellets is not a bad idea though i havent done so myself , i usually do however pay close attention to the flow of pellets as i pour them in , i have not seen other than my "keys" episode a single thing out of the ordinary in a bag. more often its somthing the user drops in , and a lot of times thats from dumping several bags in a bin and scooping , (someone knocking somthing in the bin is the likley culpret in that case. its enough to kinda keep an eye out but im not sure it happens enough to warrant getting a lot of high tech gear to scan them before you pour em in.
I was hoping they were just experiences over time. I usually watch close as I pour them in the hopper but I think I will be keeping a sharper look out for objects. They are funny stories you have though.
lass442 - I don't think I would get far talking to the company I bought my pellets from, and I certainly am not willing to move 4 tons of pellets from my basement, and truck them back to Rockland which by the way is a two hour ride each way. The company I bought them from knows there is a problem, as the person I dealt with is a blogger on this site. My intentions are to burn the pellets I have and not do business with the company or the manufacturer again. As stated in my first post, I will burn oil before I would purchase these pellets again.
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