I got a question today about the amperage listed on a motor that I sell. The amperage on my new motor was different than the one he was replacing and he was concerned that it would not work correctly.
Depending on when your stove was made there may be any variety of revisions on the motor all drawing different amps. Small motor companies will change the amperage on a motor periodically to comply with energy regulations. It makes no difference in how your stove runs and will not cost you any more to use. My pellet stove is close to 20 years old and none of the amperage ratings on my old motors match with the new motors.
Also, many of the motors I sell are upgrades from the original that may be in your stove. For instance many Englander and Quadrafire (and other) Exhaust Motors originally come without enclosed housing and bearing assemblies. The excess exposure to dust causes them to fail sooner. My motors all come with enclosed housing and sealed bearings. It’s a totally different and superior design and the amperage for these motors will most likely be different too.
The other two components in this equation are energy consumption and possible stress on the circuit board. When dealing with variables of 10th and 100th’s of amps, the difference is so small that you could not possible see the difference on your electric bill. It would be like changing one light bulb in your house from75 watts to 100 watts. You would not see any difference in energy consumption on a whole.
As far as stress on the circuitry goes, here again the variables are so small that it does not have an effect. Where that energy is routed is through the relays on the control board which all operate at 120vac and will usually have an amperage tolerance of 10 amps or more. So even if you doubled the amperage of a motor from 1 to 2 or even 2 to 4, the relays are well within tolerance.
Finally, if there was a real problem with amperage change in these small motors you would probably see a lot of blog posts about circuit board damage or increased utility bills and SURPRISE, there aren’t any.
I hope this has been helpful. If you still have questions feel free to post a comment on this blog. I look forward to any feedback you have for me. For a complete listing of all the pellet stove motors I sell go to http://stores.ebay.com/store=16777311
