I have a brand new Timberline 1300. Have had it 3 weeks. @ my getaway house so have only used it three times. This flameout has already happened TWICE in 3 cook's. Both times smoked steaks on 165 with super smoke., then turned the thermostat to 375 to grill them. Kept dumping pellets. I could hear them falling., but no smoke and temp actually went down. Then TONS of white smoke and temp started going up rapidly. Opened the lid and nothing but smoke and a lot of fire in the back. Turned off the power and closed the lid to snuff the fire. When it finally went out I opened it up and looked. There were still flaming pellets scattered around the bottom of the grill, not just in the firepot. The firepot was almost 3/4 full with smoldering and half burned pellets.
I've talked to Traeger both times. No good answer. Think MAYBE it's a fan problem. Of course there are no service people within 100 miles of me. I told them I dont think I should have to lay on my back in 115 degree heat changing parts in a brand new grill.
Has anybody else had this problem?
I told them I think this thing is a fire hazard and they should send me a new one, but so far no luck on that one.
These are not super complex machines, once the glowplug/hotrod gets the fire going, the fire is maintained by feeding pellets into the fire while monitoring the temperature. They can vary the air flow and pellet feed rate.
If the grill is messing up I would check the following things;
1- Air flow, I would really clean the firepot, make sure that the hotrod is clear of all debris and that the air holes in the pot are clear. Personally, I would look under the hopper at least once to make sure that nothing was obstructing the fan intake. Does the fan sound like a normal blower? If you did have to change it, the process is about 5-10 min, super easy. But if it sounds normal it's not the fan, as long as the air passages aren't restricted.
2- Fuel, I'd make sure that the pellets were fresh, no swelling or crumbly looking ones. What pellets did you use? Was there any possibility of moisture involvement?
3- Firmware, Do you have current software? They have improved startup performance and general operation with the latest version.
It's certainly not normal to overfill the firepot to the point of them blowing out! I've never seen that. If I did see a big overtemp spike, I would press and hold the power button to invoke shutdown, this halts the auger and keeps the fan running to burn up the pellets.
I would clean the grill and run it with no food, to just go thru different temperature settings and observe its behavior.
Let's see what happens.