I Burn Corn

People have been anxiously awaiting an update on my Traeger TPB-150 corn/pellet boiler.  But, I don't have a lot of information yet.  It goes back to the old saying, "You can have Good, Quick & Cheap, pick two"  Well, I am going for Good and Cheap, so it is going to take a while before I get it back.  I was happy with this because I wasn't sure how much the gas boiler installation last week was going to cost me.  I needed to stay liquid in case there were big surprises.   There weren't really, so now if we can just get through Christmas with nothing else breaking...

Ok so what has been going on in my life, over the past three weeks?  Well, for one thing, I came down with this nasty-ass'd cold that has been going around this area.  I personally think I got it from my plumber Steve*.   He was over to talk boiler with me on Saturday, confessed that he had spent the last two weeks "sicker'n a dog" and this was his first day back.   By 3pm Sunday afternoon I was reeling with a fever.  So that wasn't a fun week.  This week I have been consumed in getting our heating system setup.

My project list is so long, I figure I will never die.  But, this Thanksgiving break I was knockin'em down.  Pictures hung.  Telephone wires run.  Toys glued back together.  I was sailing along.  The Traeger was in need of cleaning as well.  I usually put it off until I get a little bit of smoke smell in the basement and that was happening on Saturday.  So, Sunday morning it didn't get its ration of pellets.  I let it burn out and by afternoon it was cooled off.  I pulled the lid off the smoke box and went to work with the shop vac.  Then, started pulling out the turbulators.  Or trying, I should say, because about half of them seemed stuck.  It wasn't until I got to about the sixth one that I started getting a clue what was going on.  It came right out, but it also came out wet.

The web site is going through some software upgrades over the next couple of days/weeks or whatever it takes.  It is moving from the eight year old PHPBB2 to a new forum software called Kunena.  A major, major change.  The old forum will stay online but it will be locked.  So, it will be there as a resource, but new messages, questions, answers and comments should all go into the New Forum.

A video of the installation of a draft control gauge and draft control on to my Traeger TPB-150 boiler.  This was done because I felt (correctly as it turns out) that the draft up the chimney was way too high.  This caused much of the boiler heat to bu sucked out the chimney.

So I woke up this morning to a cold house, checking the boiler reviled no fire, but a full hopper of corn.  What's going on?  A little time and I determined the cup auger was not turning.  The first thing to check was the set screws on the cup auger shaft, which is a common Traeger difficulty.  No, they were fine.  It was disassembly time.