OnYourPerson
New member
Hey PB family,
A little back story, I made the mistake of leaving my grill outside covered earlier this year in January during severe storms in Northern California and it came down hard. Hadn't seen a storm like it since I lived in Florida for a few years. The wind even blew off my cover off the grill during the storm.
Time passes, I ignore it and summer is here and I wanna smoke some meat. I put it off for months knowing this was going to be a bitch and a half to clean but it turned out to be worse than I ever thought. I vacuum out all the swollen pellets from the hopper and find that pellets have swollen and hardened like cement along the entire auger tube. I chiseled out as much as I could on both ends with a screw driver. So I disassembled the grill and removed the auger housing and was destroying the end of my auger trying to turn the auger to pull it out to no avail. After some research and watching a video of someone slamming their auger box assembly on the ground to fix it, someone in the comments said to pour some water in the auger and I did and I kept a hose running for an hour and it didn't work.
After spending 2-3 hours trying to fix it for 3 days after work, I was at my wits end and ready to trash it if it didn't work and didn't want to spend $200-$300 on parts if it didn't work because I only bought it for $250 brand new back in 2019. I found a big storage box from costco in my garage. It's the black storage boxes with the yellow lids and I filled it up with water and submerged my auger assembly box. After 24 hours, I pulled it out and it still took a lot of force but I was able to turn my auger counter clockwise until it came all the way out. From there I chiseled the pellets out of the auger tube which was still pretty hard even after 24 of soaking. Some people said to attach a drill at the end but I wouldn't even know how to attach it to the auger, not to mention it's pretty soft metal on the motor side. Some said to throw a few small pieces of charcoal in the auger tube and start a small fire to burn it off but the metal is pretty thin especially compared to the fire pot and I didn't want it warp. It was literally cemented from one end to the other with pellets. With the grill spending months outside with no cover in the rain and now 100+ degree weather I put everything back together and she turned right back on and started running as if nothing ever happened.
I know some people talk shit about PitBoss saying it's cheap garbage but for it to go through one of the most severe storms in recent California history and now a few days of 100+ degree weather with the back of the control board exposed for a while plus all the shit I put it through and it still works? I'd say that's quality right there. I'll never make this mistake again that's for damn sure but I hope this post helps somebody who is dealing with the samething. Don't give up and make sure you take a short video of where everything is plugged in to reassemble it faster.
A little back story, I made the mistake of leaving my grill outside covered earlier this year in January during severe storms in Northern California and it came down hard. Hadn't seen a storm like it since I lived in Florida for a few years. The wind even blew off my cover off the grill during the storm.
Time passes, I ignore it and summer is here and I wanna smoke some meat. I put it off for months knowing this was going to be a bitch and a half to clean but it turned out to be worse than I ever thought. I vacuum out all the swollen pellets from the hopper and find that pellets have swollen and hardened like cement along the entire auger tube. I chiseled out as much as I could on both ends with a screw driver. So I disassembled the grill and removed the auger housing and was destroying the end of my auger trying to turn the auger to pull it out to no avail. After some research and watching a video of someone slamming their auger box assembly on the ground to fix it, someone in the comments said to pour some water in the auger and I did and I kept a hose running for an hour and it didn't work.
After spending 2-3 hours trying to fix it for 3 days after work, I was at my wits end and ready to trash it if it didn't work and didn't want to spend $200-$300 on parts if it didn't work because I only bought it for $250 brand new back in 2019. I found a big storage box from costco in my garage. It's the black storage boxes with the yellow lids and I filled it up with water and submerged my auger assembly box. After 24 hours, I pulled it out and it still took a lot of force but I was able to turn my auger counter clockwise until it came all the way out. From there I chiseled the pellets out of the auger tube which was still pretty hard even after 24 of soaking. Some people said to attach a drill at the end but I wouldn't even know how to attach it to the auger, not to mention it's pretty soft metal on the motor side. Some said to throw a few small pieces of charcoal in the auger tube and start a small fire to burn it off but the metal is pretty thin especially compared to the fire pot and I didn't want it warp. It was literally cemented from one end to the other with pellets. With the grill spending months outside with no cover in the rain and now 100+ degree weather I put everything back together and she turned right back on and started running as if nothing ever happened.
I know some people talk shit about PitBoss saying it's cheap garbage but for it to go through one of the most severe storms in recent California history and now a few days of 100+ degree weather with the back of the control board exposed for a while plus all the shit I put it through and it still works? I'd say that's quality right there. I'll never make this mistake again that's for damn sure but I hope this post helps somebody who is dealing with the samething. Don't give up and make sure you take a short video of where everything is plugged in to reassemble it faster.
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