My husband got home early today and decided to dig into the pellet stove and get it cleaned out and ready for winter.  First thing he noticed while cleaning it out was how worn the auger was.  We knew that we were going to have to check into replacing it sooner or later.  We had some issues last year with the auger making some noises occasionally and when my husband cleaned the stove out monthly he could see it waring out more and more, so, we knew it was going to need attention.   The pellet stove is a Harmon which is a pretty popular name brand that is know for how well it is built. When we called to get the part we were not surprised that they had it in stock.

We got out the vacuum cleaner and my husband began taking the stove apart.
Since we have pets we had an issue of pet hair to clean out around the fans and motors. Then we emptied all the leftover pellets out of the hopper and the top feed tube. My husband then took apart the auger assembly to replace the auger. Then he cleaned out the lower feed tube before putting the auger back into place. This feed tube was filled with a tar like substance that had to be scrapped and chiseled out. We are not sure if this is something that should be done on an annual basis or if this build up was caused by the quality of pellets we had last year. Early in the season last year we purchased a ton of pellets that as the season went on they seemed to disintegrate or turn into sawdust. We reported this back to the company that made them and they told us they did have an issue with the adhesive and would replace the pellets.

After removing the damaged auger my husband was ready to put the auger assembly back into place and close up the back of the stove. We fired her up and the stove ran like brand new. We are very pleased with the pellet stove. It fits into our home life quite well and is our main source of heat.
We have a rather small house to heat but where we live the winter temperatures can get quite severe. We chose the Wood Pellet Stove because it doesn’t need a chimney. It only needed to be vented to the outside. This made installation very easy. The stove doesn’t get hot on the sides or even the top so you can put it anywhere in your home and it is safe. We use less than 2 tons of pellets a season (again our house is very small) so it is very economical.

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