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.