Clean the Harman Fines Box Annually

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Harman Lover 007

Harman Lover 007

Minister of Fire
Dec 31, 2010
1,803
Eastern Mass & Lakes Region of Maine
So I cleaned my P61A today. I purposely waited to clean the fines box until I reached the one year mark (13 months actually). It was my own little test. I know....I'm whacked. As has been mentioned here a lot lately there were pellets mixed in with the fines. I never had a single pellet in the fines box of my Invincible RS. Anyway for those of you using the likes of Stove Chow, NEWP, Green Supreme, etc, in your Harman you should clean the fines box ANNUALLY, if not sooner.
 
I second that motion! Annually at the Least, If not bi-annually. It doesn't seem to matter what you burn.....fines will get in there, although I have never had any pellets in there. On a side note, Harman could have made it a little easier to clean that box out.....it's a PITA!! At least on the Accentra, NOT user friendly.
 
Harman Lover 007 said:
Anyway for those of you using the likes of Stove Chow, NEWP, Green Supreme, etc, in your Harman you should clean the fines box ANNUALLY, if not sooner.
Click to expand...

Do you think SC, NEWP, GS have more fines then most pellets? Is that why you listed these?
 
clean mine each burning season
really easy to get to
never ever found a pellet in it
the more I read about Harman stoves
the more I think the Invincible RS was thier perfect design
changes probably had to be made because of govt safety regs.
 
Just curious....since i never had a Harman, just how big is this "fines box"? How often does Harman recommend cleaning it out? Is that it's sole purpose....just to collect fines?
 
Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly is a "fine" and where exactly is this "fine box" on my Harman Accentra Insert?
 
The Harman fine box on my P35i is about 5 x 5" and I thought easy to get to. My manual does not have a recommended cleaning schedule. But this is interesting: it says in the manual that the deflector shield in the box "is sitting loose and can be removed." But my deflector is welded to the shaft. Has anyone else encountered this. I couldn't figure out why it is like that or how that shaft turns because I couldn't run the auger with the fine box open. (I'll have to take a picture next time I have the insert out.)
 
Enigma869 said:
Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly is a "fine" and where exactly is this "fine box" on my Harman Accentra Insert?
Click to expand...

'Fines' are the left over sawdust in the bag, or stuck to the pellets..
 
Enigma869 said:
Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly is a "fine" and where exactly is this "fine box" on my Harman Accentra Insert?
Click to expand...

'
imacman said:
Fines' are the left over sawdust in the bag, or stuck to the pellets..
Click to expand...

Thank you imacman. Any idea where this "fine box" is on the Accentra Insert? It must be well hidden, because I haven't come across anything that obvious while cleaning the stove once a week.
 
I just cleaned mine for the first time (Nov11 install) and it was full of sawdust and fines. Plan to vacuum every 2-4 weeks as it is easy to get at once the insert is pulled out halfway.
 
I just cleaned mine for the first time (Nov11 install) and it was full of sawdust and fines. Plan to vacuum every 2-4 weeks as it is easy to get at once the insert is pulled out halfway.
 
It's roughly in the middle lower part of the stove, above the auger, with one big wing nut at the bottom of the box.
 
mepellet said:
Harman Lover 007 said:
Anyway for those of you using the likes of Stove Chow, NEWP, Green Supreme, etc, in your Harman you should clean the fines box ANNUALLY, if not sooner.
Click to expand...

Do you think SC, NEWP, GS have more fines then most pellets? Is that why you listed these?
Click to expand...

Yes and No. I listed those because that is what I am burning and although they don't appear to have more fines when I pour them in the stove, the fines box discovery today tells me otherwise.

I took some pictures but I just can't seem to figure out how to post them due to file size.
 
imacman said:
Just curious....since i never had a Harman, just how big is this "fines box"? How often does Harman recommend cleaning it out? Is that it's sole purpose....just to collect fines?
Click to expand...

The box on my stove is about 3" x 4". My manual recommends cleaning at least annually. It is part of the feeding system and houses the feeder mechanism. This area is prone to collecting fines. Based on what I've seen, I would not go over a month without cleaning. But then again, I clean the stove every week instead of the every three weeks as recommended by Harman.
 
when I have files that are to big
I e-mail them to myself
than it usually works
 
Harman Lover 007 said:
So I cleaned my P61A today. I purposely waited to clean the fines box until I reached the one year mark (13 months actually). It was my own little test. I know....I'm whacked. As has been mentioned here a lot lately there were pellets mixed in with the fines. I never had a single pellet in the fines box of my Invincible RS. Anyway for those of you using the likes of Stove Chow, NEWP, Green Supreme, etc, in your Harman you should clean the fines box ANNUALLY, if not sooner.
Click to expand...

I clean mine every 4 weeks. Less than a handful of fines and a few pellets. My sister has a p68 and burned 2ton of green team and fine box had more pellets than fines. She switched over to vermont's and she's down to about the same as what I've got. Don't like the green team pellets
 
Hoot23 said:
I clean mine every 4 weeks. Less than a handful of fines and a few pellets. My sister has a p68 and burned 2ton of green team and fine box had more pellets than fines. She switched over to vermont's and she's down to about the same as what I've got. Don't like the green team pellets
Click to expand...
I find it odd that pellet brand has much to do with it. Pellet length however may be the key.
 
Yep, good tip. My older P38 was a PITA to clean the fines box. I'm not a petite guy, but either way you have to be kind of a contortionist to get to and loosen that wing nut that holds the cover on, and thats the easy part. Trying to get the wing nut threads started again will likely push you into the red zone. Brilliantly stupid design on Harman's part. Supposedly my new P38 has a relocated wingnut. I only have around 15 bags through it so I'll find out down the road a bit.

It's a no-brainer that different brands of pellets affect the rate at which it fills up. That top layer is 1 tons worth whereas the 3 darker layers below it are 3 separate tons. Here is a pic of my old P38 after approx 4 tons of pellets of various brands. You can see where I burned a few bags, bought a ton and burned em, ran out and burned a few misc bags, bought and burned another ton....etc.

Fines Box.jpg
 
P38X2 said:
It's a no-brainer that different brands of pellets affect the rate at which it fills up.
Click to expand...

I was commenting on the pellets/fines ratio. I think pellet length has more to do with the ratio. That is all...
 
I didn't mean any disrespect mepellet and I apologize if I offended you. I should have worded it differently. It wasn't meant to discredit your idea. It was a statement directed towards the fact some brands contain more fines than others, and that can and does change across brands and production runs.

I do agree with your pellet length theory though. If the pellets, during production, were coming out of the die with that length then I'd imagine some "parameter" was off somewhere and more fines were being produced and bagged directly. What makes even more sense is if there were a lot of short pellets in any given bag, perhaps the bag was over-handled or got damp during S&H and got broken down thus creating the fines that way.
 
I clean my fines box every 2 weeks when I do the vent but have never found more than a teaspoon of saw dust in a fines box that would hold 3 cups.
 
P38X2 said:
I didn't mean any disrespect mepellet and I apologize if I offended you. I should have worded it differently. It wasn't meant to discredit your idea. It was a statement directed towards the fact some brands contain more fines than others, and that can and does change across brands and production runs.

I do agree with your pellet length theory though. If the pellets, during production, were coming out of the die with that length then I'd imagine some "parameter" was off somewhere and more fines were being produced and bagged directly. What makes even more sense is if there were a lot of short pellets in any given bag, perhaps the bag was over-handled or got damp during S&H and got broken down thus creating the fines that way.
Click to expand...
No worries. No offense taken. Its all good. :)
 
P38X2 said:
Yep, good tip. My older P38 was a PITA to clean the fines box. I'm not a petite guy, but either way you have to be kind of a contortionist to get to and loosen that wing nut that holds the cover on, and thats the easy part. Trying to get the wing nut threads started again will likely push you into the red zone. Brilliantly stupid design on Harman's part. Supposedly my new P38 has a relocated wingnut. I only have around 15 bags through it so I'll find out down the road a bit.

It's a no-brainer that different brands of pellets affect the rate at which it fills up. That top layer is 1 tons worth whereas the 3 darker layers below it are 3 separate tons. Here is a pic of my old P38 after approx 4 tons of pellets of various brands. You can see where I burned a few bags, bought a ton and burned em, ran out and burned a few misc bags, bought and burned another ton....etc.

View attachment 64367
Click to expand...

We have had a loud noise/squeal which I traced to the fines box (Bushings/End of Auger)
Would happen only when auger was running.
I sprayed the bushings with lubricant. Noise stopped.
This may have been caused by fines so clean 1-2 times annually.
 
P38X2 said:
Yep, good tip. My older P38 was a PITA to clean the fines box. I'm not a petite guy, but either way you have to be kind of a contortionist to get to and loosen that wing nut that holds the cover on, and thats the easy part. Trying to get the wing nut threads started again will likely push you into the red zone. Brilliantly stupid design on Harman's part. Supposedly my new P38 has a relocated wingnut. I only have around 15 bags through it so I'll find out down the road a bit.

It's a no-brainer that different brands of pellets affect the rate at which it fills up. That top layer is 1 tons worth whereas the 3 darker layers below it are 3 separate tons. Here is a pic of my old P38 after approx 4 tons of pellets of various brands. You can see where I burned a few bags, bought a ton and burned em, ran out and burned a few misc bags, bought and burned another ton....etc.

View attachment 64367
Click to expand...

Thats a pretty cool pic given your description.
 
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