Not everyone has a local pellet stove repair guy they can call to come fix a problem. Many of us are left with one of two choices: fix it ourselves or freeze. You may run your pellet stove 24/7 during the winter as some of my friends in Montana do.
If the motor is very noisy it is probably going bad. Pellet Stove Motors are not repairable without some very special expensive equipment. Oiling them can sometimes quiet them down in the short term but usually when they get noisy they will only get worse.
Here are the basics behind determining if your motor is bad. #1 UNPLUG YOUR STOVE BEFORE YOU REMOVE ANY PARTS! However you will need it plugged in to test. When it comes to an Exhaust (Combustion fan) or a Convection fan that is not working; you want to determine if the motor has failed or if it’s not getting any power.
What really helps out a lot is if you have a Multi-meter with a A/C volts setting. If you do, start the stove and put the test leads on the wires going to the motor and you should have somewhere between 40 and 120 volts. The important thing is that you are getting some voltage.
What if you don’t have a Multi-meter or don’t know how to use one? Because the motors all run on 120 volts you can plug them directly into a wall socket to test them. To do this, head on down to your local hardware store and get everything you need to make a power cord that has test clips on the end (to connect to your motor). Make sure your stove is unplugged before you power up any motor.
If you do the above test and the motor does nothing, great! You have a bad motor and I can have motors for sale on my eBay store. If not…you may need a new control board.
If the motor runs but won’t change speed or timing when you turn the controls up or down you probably have a problem with the control board. You can test the voltage coming from the board as you change the control settings. The higher the settings the higher the voltage you should be reading. If the voltage is not changing with the changing of the settings you have a bad control unit. If it does change but the fan speed does not change you have a bad fan.
“Is This an Original Part or a Knock Off?”
Hi, heres a good one about auger motor, i recently purchased an old withfield advantage 3 stove, took on me to recondition the unit, now it looks like new and work, well, almost fine… the auger motor turn as it should, a bit noisy but since i never heard the sound of a new one i can’t say if it is the normal operation sound. What happen is after about 30-35 minutes of operation the motor seems to draw more and more current to the point that it make the fans to slow down each time it turn on, also make the light on the control panel to dimm when it turn. I took it apart from the stove, gear box seems fine when i looked in to it, what is your suggestion?
thanks,
Robert
Robert,
It sounds like the auger motor needs to be replaced. Over time the motor can start drawing more amperage as it wears out which would steal electricity from other components. Replace the motor and see if that fixes the problem.
Yep I did just that,and you are right, took me 4 minutes to replace the motor, now my stove works like a charm, my wife ordered the motor from you on Ebay, thanks!