Harman TL 300 test

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Definitely the 300 is overkill for that climate. Id go with a regular stove like a 30 which operates nicely on a weaker draft. Perhaps even a cat stove that can be dialed way back.
 
Thank you so much :) you all just saved me a lot of trouble in picking the wrong stove for my climate and chimney height. I do wish it would have fit, I was looking forward to cooking some burgers inside. again thank you all very much
 
You can cook on any wood stove... Just add cast iron griddle! I'm installing a Tlc300 this week... Pretty stoked about it!
 
Thank you so much :) you all just saved me a lot of trouble in picking the wrong stove for my climate and chimney height. I do wish it would have fit, I was looking forward to cooking some burgers inside. again thank you all very much

You might want to look at the Jotul F50 Wintergrill.
 
We have a TL300 as well...has anyone had the issue of the stove basically "backfiring" when you close the damper? It has only done it a few times, but once we get the stove top to 550 degrees, we shut the damper and it will give off a puff of air that put a little smoke out the top of the stove. It has done it with our extreme cold temps with a large coal bed. Could it be the afterburner is covered up too much with coals for it to activate? I try to pull coals away from it, but it varies each time I put wood in.

Also, do most of you stir the coals around from the top or open up the front door to allow coals to fall through and get a bulk of the fine ash out? We don't like the fine ash building up in the corners. Any help is appreciated.
 
I try to stack the wood so the AB opening does not get blocked, as the wood ash tends to block the air holes. No never had a backfire/backpuff. I dont let the damper open too long as the flue gets too hot. About 30 min from a cold stove is all it takes to get reburn. And i dont let the air all the way open while the stove is coming up to temp. Startup wit the damper open it seems is the time you have to watch you dont overfire the stove.Iv seen warped damper doors from this. Once the damper is closed its harder for the stove to overheat. As far as the ash, i dont need to burn 24/7 so when the fire is down to ash and coals almost out i rake the coals around to let the ash drop thru the grate slots from the front door.
 
I have had mine back puff once in a while not very often once about 2-4 times per year. Certain conditions must be in place in order for that to happen. Basically what is happening is the gasses are igniting causing the back puff.

A few questions:
What temp is your stove top when you close your draft?
What temp is your flue?
Is your stove fully loaded?
Is the Is the load fully engulfed when you engage AB?
What are the temps outside?
 
We shut the damper at 550 degree for a stovetop temp. The stove is fully loaded and most generally the wood is fully engulfed but there are times if the wood is positioned just right, it won't be. The outside temps on the most recent times have been at 20 degrees or less. Another problem we are having is getting the afterburner to activate and then we get the smokey smell in the house. We have had the stove for 5 years. I am wondering if either it needs cleaned thoroughly or it needs replaced. I have an email into Harman but will check with my dealer next week for any ideas he may have.
 
I had aTL300 also,a trick I learned to get the fire dome to kick in was to make a small channel in the hot coal bed from the front of the stove to the back in front of the entrance to the fire dome. I could load the stove full without worrying about logs covering the fire dome entrance.The fire dome would usually kick right in because all the smoke would be drawn under the log stack across the hot coals.As far as the smoky smell goes, it's probably the the top load door gasket,I went through several gaskets in a season because the gaskets flatten out and the top load door hits the top of the stove before the gasket is fully compressed.
 
As far as the smoky smell goes, it's probably the the top load door gasket,I went through several gaskets in a season because the gaskets flatten out and the top load door hits the top of the stove before the gasket is fully compressed.
I have my Tl-300 for 5 years and the top load door gasket seals fine.
I wonder if overheating the stove is what make the gaskets brittle. All my gaskets are good and seal fine. Another thing is the top load door would probably suck air in if not sealed. Unless you can see visible smoke exiting ,i dont think its the top load door.
 
The only time I have seen visible smoke is when the afterburner gives out the big "poof". It is very minimal but it is there, but we get the smokey smell whenever the afterburner does not kick in. Again, it isn't visible but the smell is there.
 
We shut the damper at 550 degree for a stovetop temp. The stove is fully loaded and most generally the wood is fully engulfed but there are times if the wood is positioned just right, it won't be. The outside temps on the most recent times have been at 20 degrees or less. Another problem we are having is getting the afterburner to activate and then we get the smokey smell in the house. We have had the stove for 5 years. I am wondering if either it needs cleaned thoroughly or it needs replaced. I have an email into Harman but will check with my dealer next week for any ideas he may have.

Just stopped at my dealer yesterday, he told me I should clean out the holes in the afterburner every time I shut her down. I laughed and told him I have not shut the stove down since I installed it. He looked at me a little funny. He also asked were I had the damper, I told him I have been running it at just a little over the second notch, he replied most people run it at half way or even a little more. I then replied if I were to run it there I would defiantly have an over-fire. I then told him he should be preaching the benefits of dry seasoned wood.

He did show me a little attachment he made for his shop vac. It was just an adapter down to a half in flexible hose. He said he holds the hose on each hole for just a second or to to clean them out. I will have to make one for when I shut my stove down this spring. ;lol
 
We have had the stove for 5 years. I am wondering if either it needs cleaned thoroughly or it needs replaced. I have an email into Harman but will check with my dealer next week for any ideas he may have.

You may get conflicting advice on how to proceed, but after five years there is a good chance you have ash buildup in the AB. You can not clean this out with a vacuum from the front... the AB would need to be CAREFULLY removed from the rear, and CAREFULLY cleaned to avoid damage.

When the AB is engaged and you go outside, do you see smoke? If you are burning smoke-free, then the AB is working properly.
 
he replied most people run it at half way or even a little more

Ask him what their flue temps are!

If I ran my stove with the air open over half-way all the time, I'd really be helping to heat the great outdoors, and using LOTS of wood to do it! Oh yeah... AND over-firing my stove, too. As it is, I can easily get the back of the stove to hit 800F with the air about a third open.
 
Ask him what their flue temps are!

If I ran my stove with the air open over half-way all the time, I'd really be helping to heat the great outdoors, and using LOTS of wood to do it! Oh yeah... AND over-firing my stove, too. As it is, I can easily get the back of the stove to hit 800F with the air about a third open.
Sounds like your running it right. If you have a strong draft you wont be able run too far open. I never even run half way. Its that way on most stoves with a strong draft. Dont overheat the stove and you will get many years of good service. Besides warranty is void on overfired stove. 800 sounds a bit high.
 
Ask him what their flue temps are!

If I ran my stove with the air open over half-way all the time, I'd really be helping to heat the great outdoors, and using LOTS of wood to do it! Oh yeah... AND over-firing my stove, too. As it is, I can easily get the back of the stove to hit 800F with the air about a third open.


Although he (dealer) is a nice guy, he doesn't impress me much on his knowledge of wood or pellet stoves. If I were to ask him about flue temps he would most likely him and haw just as he did when I asked him about stove top temp. He tends to be very non-committal on his answers. I would expect this from a regular sales person, but this guy owns the store.

I have never taken the temp at the back of my stove, At 800F that must be without the heat shield on. I have the heat shields on the back and both sides.

How would one remove the AB from the rear? On mine it appears that it would come out the front. Being this is my first year with this stove, is this something that should be done on a yearly basis?
 
How would one remove the AB from the rear? On mine it appears that it would come out the front. Being this is my first year with this stove, is this something that should be done on a yearly basis?
No way. Let that AB intact. It is very fragile and you dont want to mess with it unless you really have to. You can easily vac out the air holes from the front. Everything you can see from the front is covered with the hard ceramic and you wont damage anything but dont stick anything up into the AB where the fragile parts are. Just the holes along the bottom and a few on the sides near the bottom need the ash to be vacuumed out from time to time. I have my stove 5 years and thats all iv ever done and it works perfectly. I do it with a cold stove.
 
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PS Theres no need to take the stove apart unless you are replacing your AB combustion package. Any regular cleaning can be done from the front.
 
[quote="branchburner, post: 1670812, member: 6844"]You may get conflicting advice on how to proceed, but after five years there is a good chance you have ash buildup in the AB. You can not clean this out with a vacuum from the front... the AB would need to be CAREFULLY removed from the rear, and CAREFULLY cleaned to avoid damage.

When the AB is engaged and you go outside, do you see smoke? If you are burning smoke-free, then the AB is working properly
.[/quote]


Have you tried this and not had good results? Have you taken your AB out of your stove? How big of job is this? Do you know the price of replacement if you were to break something?

I am really not looking for anymore work, but do believe in proper maintenance.

I remember reading on another thread the AB usually needs to be replaced in about five years; since no one spoke up against it I assumed that to be an accurate statement.


Seasoned Oak, Can you see the ash in the holes? I never really looked at the holes prior to putting it into service, can you see all the way through the holes?
 
The fire dome can not be removed for cleaning,if you remove it you have to replace it with a new one. The gaskets on the fire dome shrink from the heat and you can't buy just the gaskets.If you tried to clean it and put it back in it would not fit tight enough to seal properly.Also the fire dome becomes very brittle from the heat.When installing a new fire dome the gaskets come attached to the fire dome from the factory. There is a access cover to remove the fire dome behind the rear heat shield. When installing a new fire dome the access cover has to be bolted down evenly to compress the new gaskets.
 
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The fire dome can not be removed for cleaning,if you remove it you have to replace it with a new one. The gaskets on the fire dome shrink from the heat and you can't buy just the gaskets.If you tried to clean it and put it back in it would not fit tight enough to seal properly.Also the fire dome becomes very brittle from the heat.When installing a new fire dome the gaskets come attached to the fire dome from the factory. There is a access cover to remove the fire dome behind the rear heat shield. When installing a new fire dome the access cover has to be bolted down evenly to compress the new gaskets.

How long should it last?
 
Seasoned Oak, Can you see the ash in the holes? I never really looked at the holes prior to putting it into service, can you see all the way through the holes?
The wood and coals lays up against the ceramic so of course your going to get ash in the holes. I just use a shop vac about once a month with a cold stove.
It does a good jobs of pulling the ash out as they are not usually packed tight. The secondary air feed is relatively weak,so that alone wont pull the ash out. The installation manual states that you can vacuum out the ash. It even suggests if a thorough cleaning is necessary you can remove the shoe brick from the front to get access to the front of the combustion package to vacuum out the air holes but urges extreme caution as the material is easily damaged. Iv never had to do this yet as i just vacuum the ceramic in front so far. I would think it takes a number of years burning before you need to take out the shoe brick to get in there deeper.
 
How long should it last?
Iv heard 10 years of burning,but there are lots of variables. I guess if you stove starts smoking when its not supposed to. The whole ceramic area around the opening glows cherry red when it operating properly. Dont burn any treated, painted or green wood and you should be OK.
 
The fire dome can not be removed for cleaning,if you remove it you have to replace it with a new one. The gaskets on the fire dome shrink from the heat and you can't buy just the gaskets.If you tried to clean it and put it back in it would not fit tight enough to seal properly.

Of course you CAN do it without replacing it... the question is, SHOULD you. Regardless of whether the gaskets actually seal properly, some of us have removed the AB, carefully cleaned it, and replaced it with the result being improved secondary combustion.

There is no way to tell how many years of use one will get from the AB -- it depends on the user, his wood, how often and how hot he burns, etc. If one burns too hot it may deteriorate, too cool and it may clog.

Vacuuming the holes from the front is important to do as often as possible (when the stove is COLD, of course) but will not remove ALL the ash. This is easily confirmed if one regularly vacuums it whenever cold, and then removes the AB after a few years. There WILL be some ash in there (probably both loose and encrusted), though perhaps not enough to compromise combustion. What happens is the refractory material and the ash fuse together... this makes cleaning very difficult, as when you think you are going to just be removing a layer of encrusted ash you actually end up removing a layer of the refractory along with it!

While some (including myself at one point, but no more) suggest periodic removal for cleaning, I would only remove it if the stove is suddenly not performing well after several years of problem-free use -- which sounds like might be the case with ddklahr. If no other variables have changed -- wood dryness, burning technique, flue setup, etc. -- then there is a greater likelihood there is a problem with the AB. Rather than dropping $300 to replace it, there is no reason not to try cleaning it.

But brokenknee, being the first year with this stove, I do NOT suggest removing the AB. Do as Seasoned Oak suggests, clean and hope you can go ten years and not just two!
 
Have you tried this and not had good results? Have you taken your AB out of your stove? How big of job is this? Do you know the price of replacement if you were to break something?

When I say "after five years there is a good chance you have ash buildup in the AB. You can not clean this out with a vacuum from the front" I mean there will be some ash still in there that wasn't removed, and it won't simply come out by vacuuming. But you DO want to use a vacuum from the front for that entire five years prior, so there is not even MORE ash buildup!

It is not hard to take the AB out... it's also not hard to ruin it when doing so. The piece is $200-300.
 
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