Pellet hiccup

I had the day off work on Friday to lay the last lot of limestone flooring, this time in the utility room. Coincidentally the Ecoflex boiler decided to have a slight hiccup that day.

As you may have read previously, we've had to make a slightly 'heath robinson' amendment to the flexible hose that feeds pellets from the auger to the boiler, to ensure that it is straight to prevent pellets from collecting partway down it and therefore causing the boiler to lock out on 'pellets missing'. This has been working fine for the last two months.

So I was slightly suprised when I was greeted by a flashing red light on the room 'stat on Friday morning. When I checked the boiler it was due to 'pellets missing' with a slug of pellets stuck in the flexible hose. A quick shake and they were free, but this was repeated several times during the morning while I was supposed to be sorting out the limestone. Eventually a rearrangement of the fixing of the hose, with it secured on a slightly greater slope this time, resulted in success and a constant flow of pellets.

As nothing had been altered in the first place I wonder why this happened. It may be that a build up of dust from the pellets had collected in the hose, making them flow less freely. Or maybe it was due to a batch of pellets with higher moisture content, again flowing less freely. Whatever it was I'll probably not find out why this strange anomaly occured. But it does reiterate the fact that biomass isn't as straightforward as more conventional gas or oil fired heating. This is further illustrated by the fact that I've just ordered our second tonne of pellets, but unlike oil or gas I need to arrange delivery on a day when I can be here to offload them. Great for my exercise regime but not all that convenient!

Dick Strawbridge is right, it's not easy!