UPDATE: New Harman Advance pellet stove, rumbling noise and auger motor noise

[superchips]

...NAMZ111: Interesting that yours rumbled when you opened up the feed hopper door. Mine does the opposite, it stops rumbling when I open up the hopper door. It also stops when I crack open the front door or the ash bin door. It's like there is so much vacuum in the stove, just relieving that pressure a little bit stops the rumble.

After talking to the Harman tech yesterday, clearly the issue is well known by the folks at Harman, but maybe there is no definitive fix across the board on every stove. My tech has been to the Harman training classes and he seems very well versed in the stove's technology.

Well sure looks like you need an oak.

 

[Lineman30]

Your chances it curing your woofing is probably slim. I've got an OAK on my Accentra and it still does it. But a OAK sure will help in the efficiency of your home.

 

[mepellet]

Your chances it curing your woofing is probably slim. I've got an OAK on my Accentra and it still does it. But a OAK sure will help in the efficiency of your home.

+1 My OAK is integral to my venting (Selkirk) and I get the woofing pretty frequently. Mine however is not loud enough to hear in the next room. Can barely sense it when sitting in the same room. I find the visual "strobe" effect more annoying than the audible woofing sound.

 

[bcb1]

Yep, I'm pretty much at peace with the fact that the woofing might be a non-curable thing with the stove. But installing an OAK for a minimal cost of $50 and having it operate more efficiently, using cold outside air rather than my nice warm inside air seems like a very good thing to me.

 

[greg13]

Newbe here. Our's rattled so bad the other night that it woke me up a few times. One thing I did find was the flame guide did not appear to be fully seated in the grooves. I wiggled it around and it did seem to help.
Now I question the door gasket, I can slide a paper sheet easily between the door & stove body in places, not at all in others. like others, if it move the door handle slightly the noise stops. I have outside air and the temp. was down around 5* that night, so that may raise a temperature differential question.
Wide open for ideas.

I just found part of the rattle - the metal strip between the glass panes is loose.

 

[greg13]

Replaced the glass gaskets & resealed the metal strips between the panes, BIG difference

 

[bcb1]

Ok, update as of today, Jan 12:

Harman tech was just at the house and brought a new auger with him. Before he installed it I had him plug it into a test cord and plug it into the wall so we could hear it run. It was silent! He pulled out my auger motor, then we plugged it into the test leads and ran it. It was much noisier, it made the rotisserie oven type sound. So the new auger motor is now installed, it's silent (or nearly silent), and all is well with the universe again. Happy customer!

So for all you fellow Harman owners with loud augers - no, it's not your imagination. Some auger motors are nearly silent, some are loud. If yours is loud, then swapping it out will help. But a word of advice - before you go to the trouble of pulling the old one and installing the new one, take a test lead and plug it into the wall and make sure your new motor is quiet.

As far as the train rumbling, subwoofer noise: Not as much success. He brought his magnahelic gauge, it was pegged when the stove first turns on, which is normal. But even after it calmed down it was still far too much draft. He turned down the draft adjustment setting, and for 5-10 minutes - until he left, it burned just fine. No woofing at all. I thought wow, problem fixed. But a few minutes later, after I turned the stove off, guess what? It started woofing again, just like before.

I can see how the woofing noise is a draft issue, and I guess turning down the draft adjustment screw helped in some regard, but still it's obvious that it's not totally resolved. I'm not even sure if it's fixable, since so many other Harman owners experience the same thing.

So basically I'm batting .500. Noisy auger totally fixed. Woofing noise not totally fixed.

The noisy auger was by far my most annoying issue, so I'm still happy.

 

[Dougsey]

Glad to hear the auger issue is fixed!

 

[Honda]

Have the same whoofing issue on a 5 year old p61. same as all the rest does it on low to med burn, worse right after cleaning. have OAK. not sure of the brand but it is a double wall flue pipe, sucks the intake air through the space in the double wall. 7" outside, 3" inside. Going to do hopper lid gasket, it is the only suspect one, all the rest seem fine. Also have a noisy auger motor, has been since stove was new, I always just assumed that was the way it was supposed to be. Great to read about other people discovering that there is a quieter solution. Just wondering if this is a warranty job or not. I'm coming into my last year for warranty replacement, would like to get anything cleared up before it expires.

 

[bcb1]

Update after three days with new auger: It's started to make that low-hum grinding noise again every time it feeds pellets, I'm beginning to think it's just a Harman trait of all their stoves, it's just that some of us notice it more than others. The new motor is a little quieter than the old one - it doesn't make that annoying rotisserie oven sound nearly as much, but I still notice the low hum every time it feeeds pellets.

Yeah and as far as the woofing noise goes, that most definitely seems to be a trait of all the Harman models. Since I've been searching these threads and google for the past couple weeks, I've run across people having that issue on their Accentra, Advance, P61, P63, and P43 stoves so it's definitely not model specific. Probably just something we'll have to live with.

 

[lbcynya]

Update after three days with new auger: It's started to make that low-hum grinding noise again every time it feeds pellets, I'm beginning to think it's just a Harman trait of all their stoves, it's just that some of us notice it more than others. The new motor is a little quieter than the old one - it doesn't make that annoying rotisserie oven sound nearly as much, but I still notice the low hum every time it feeeds pellets.

Yeah and as far as the woofing noise goes, that most definitely seems to be a trait of all the Harman models. Since I've been searching these threads and google for the past couple weeks, I've run across people having that issue on their Accentra, Advance, P61, P63, and P43 stoves so it's definitely not model specific. Probably just something we'll have to live with.

Yep. As the grease goes out of the gears, the noise comes back. I packed a "surplus" gear motor with wheel bearing grease and I'm waiting for the stove to cool down and do the exchange. We'll see. They run soo silent for the first few hours, I know it's possible to quiet these things down...

I think this is more a Gleason Avery gear motor issue vs. a "Harman" issue. Yes, they choose to use GA, but these motors are crap, IMO. Maybe they're reliable, but they aren't a good fit with Harman since the noise can be amplified through the auger. If this doesn't work, I'm probably going to try a different MFG of gear motors.

I'll report back in a week or so to see how my packed gearbox performs.

 

[bcb1]

Ibcynya, let me know about greasing the motor. You're right, the new motor was dead silent for a few hours - probably about enough time for the grease to work its way through all the gears and get spread out. Once it does that, I guess the noise comes back. If packing it full of grease helps yours, I'm going to try it on mine too.

And I'm still thinking about ordering the Merkoff motor. They make 4rpm counter-clockwise motors, but the thing is, my GA motor has the motor and the auger drive on the same side of the case. The pictures I've seen of all the Merkoff motors have the motor on one side, and the auger drive pin on the other side. They'd probably make me what I need though if I ordered it directly through their company...?

 

[lbcynya]

Just put the old gear motor with new grease in. This one was removed for originally being too noisy. Not silent like I hoped, but acceptable. Pretty sure the gear box is 99.5 percent filled, so I can't believe there will be any deterioration in sound level, but my expectations are low. Amp draw was the same as the old one, so no worries there. Only possible issue is a small leak after everything heats back up. We'll see.

If this doesn't work, duct tape or chicken wire are the next options aside from trying another brand of gear motor.

 

[bcb1]

You know, I was just listening to my stove feed pellets a little while ago and now I'm trying to figure out if there is a way to isolate the noise.

My initial thought was dynamat. I cut out a piece and put it on the outside of the auger cover. That might dampen it a bit? Or how about a rubber or RTV silicone gasket where the auger bolts to the stove? Somehow the noise of the auger seems to be amplified by the metal structure of the stove. I've even thought about getting some foam/rubber isolation pads and sitting the stove on those. You can get heavy duty ones that are used for HVAC equipment and could handle the weight.

I just can't believe that the big brains at Harman can't come up with a relatively simple, low-cost way to isolate the noises the stove makes. Years ago when I had a problem with my Quadrafire stove I made some phone calls and eventually got through to factory tech support, and they helped me right away. I wonder if could somehow get through to Harman tech support and get some advice from them?

 

[fmsm]

You know, I was just listening to my stove feed pellets a little while ago and now I'm trying to figure out if there is a way to isolate the noise.

My initial thought was dynamat. I cut out a piece and put it on the outside of the auger cover. That might dampen it a bit? Or how about a rubber or RTV silicone gasket where the auger bolts to the stove? Somehow the noise of the auger seems to be amplified by the metal structure of the stove. I've even thought about getting some foam/rubber isolation pads and sitting the stove on those. You can get heavy duty ones that are used for HVAC equipment and could handle the weight.

I just can't believe that the big brains at Harman can't come up with a relatively simple, low-cost way to isolate the noises the stove makes. Years ago when I had a problem with my Quadrafire stove I made some phone calls and eventually got through to factory tech support, and they helped me right away. I wonder if could somehow get through to Harman tech support and get some advice from them?

You can reach a Harman tech, try 717-362-9080 or 717-896-8077.

 

[bcb1]

Hey, that's cool! Thanks for the phone numbers, fmsm! It's worth a shot giving them a call and seeing what they say.

 

[lbcynya]

You know, I was just listening to my stove feed pellets a little while ago and now I'm trying to figure out if there is a way to isolate the noise.

My initial thought was dynamat. I cut out a piece and put it on the outside of the auger cover. That might dampen it a bit? Or how about a rubber or RTV silicone gasket where the auger bolts to the stove? Somehow the noise of the auger seems to be amplified by the metal structure of the stove. I've even thought about getting some foam/rubber isolation pads and sitting the stove on those. You can get heavy duty ones that are used for HVAC equipment and could handle the weight.

I just can't believe that the big brains at Harman can't come up with a relatively simple, low-cost way to isolate the noises the stove makes. Years ago when I had a problem with my Quadrafire stove I made some phone calls and eventually got through to factory tech support, and they helped me right away. I wonder if could somehow get through to Harman tech support and get some advice from them?

Hmmm, chain drive conversion to make it like the good old days. That would isolate the auger...........................grrr...

 

[timjk69]

I had bad auger noise and re-greased the box and replaced the front motor bearing. A lot better now. One thing I noticed is the motor is almost silent with the fan removed. Seems to act like a megaphone. Wondering how much difference in motor life with the fan removed?

 

[bcb1]

I had bad auger noise and re-greased the box and replaced the front motor bearing. A lot better now. One thing I noticed is the motor is almost silent with the fan removed. Seems to act like a megaphone. Wondering how much difference in motor life with the fan removed?

You must have one of the older models? Mine is a direct drive, auger motor directly to the auger. My auger motor doesn't have a fan on it. There is no question that my noise is coming from my auger motor though.

 

[gfreek]

Wondering how much difference in motor life with the fan removed?

The tech told me that the fans were causing the bearing to wear..

 

[timjk69]

Interesting. I could see how the fan could put load on the bearing. I'll go ahead and pull mine off.

 

[jabo]

Hello fellow pellet pirates. I have been a lurker and a burner for 10 years. I have gained a wealth of knowledge through everyones trial and errors. Thank you.
Now to the point. A friend has a harman accentra manufactured 2003. Auger motor failed. Went to Grainger to get motor and gear box assy. The concern is that the old motor is 1.5 amps,120 volts and 1 3/16 thick. New motor 1.19 amps, 115 volts and 1 3/4 thick. The fan is bigger,motor sticks out further but fits and has plenty of clearance. Will difference in amps and volts affect circuitry short or long term? Thanks in advance.
Jabo

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Hello fellow pellet pirates. I have been a lurker and a burner for 10 years. I have gained a wealth of knowledge through everyones trial and errors. Thank you.
Now to the point. A friend has a harman accentra manufactured 2003. Auger motor failed. Went to Grainger to get motor and gear box assy. The concern is that the old motor is 1.5 amps,120 volts and 1 3/16 thick. New motor 1.19 amps, 115 volts and 1 3/4 thick. The fan is bigger,motor sticks out further but fits and has plenty of clearance. Will difference in amps and volts affect circuitry short or long term? Thanks in advance.
Jabo

Nope, as long as the new motor doesn't pull any more amps than the OEM one, the rotation direction, and RPMS match you are all set to go.

 

[jabo]

Thanks for the quick response. Will install and follow up with results and part # from Grainger if it works.

 

[Lousyweather]

Nope, as long as the new motor doesn't pull any more amps than the OEM one, the rotation direction, and RPMS match you are all set to go.

Pay particular attention to the RPM's....probably the most important aspect after direction.......