Harman P43 tips?

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smithg

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Jan 2, 2012
43
Upstate NY
A neighbor just had a Harman P43 installed. I'm an Englander person myself, but he is looking to me for help on getting his stove running as best it can. I checked out his stove/install and all seems good. He feels it is going through too many pellets and not really warming up the house. He has the stove set where the install crew set it up - running on the room sensor, and the room blower down low. He has been keeping the temp sensor at 70, then turning it down to 60 at night, and turning the stove off when he leaves the house. I know what I would advise him, but I wanted to see what you guys might have for tips!
 
A neighbor just had a Harman P43 installed. I'm an Englander person myself, but he is looking to me for help on getting his stove running as best it can. I checked out his stove/install and all seems good. He feels it is going through too many pellets and not really warming up the house. He has the stove set where the install crew set it up - running on the room sensor, and the room blower down low. He has been keeping the temp sensor at 70, then turning it down to 60 at night, and turning the stove off when he leaves the house. I know what I would advise him, but I wanted to see what you guys might have for tips!

sounds like he is keeping everything kinda low but we don't know the size of the house he is heating..
Feed rate should be 3.5 or 4...
I would raise the blower speed at least to half way and turning it down to 60 at night is pretty chilly I would think.
My glass get's dirty brown when I burn at lower temps..
I run a Harman P61 and the 1st year I would shut down at night and start up approx 6-7 hrs later in the morning..
it took at least 3 hrs or so to re-heat the house again so my pellet savings we're not really that much.
prob using a lot of pellets .just to bring the house temps up to normal.
as far as pellets, the average here seems to be 1 bag to bag/half a day....and that is for 24/7 burning..
Milage will vary depending on stove, pellets, size of house and Insulation[ or lack of]..
 
I would get the fan up on high if trying to do catch up and maybe even leave the stove temp a bit higher. These stoves don't act like furnaces and may need to leave on during the day..
 
I wood guess his house is about 1700 sq ft. I gave him the same advice as described above! I told him I imagine the stove having to work pretty hard to play catch up.
 
Where is the room sensor located? Is it on the floor or on a wall?
Where is the feed rate dial set?
Room sensor is coiled up on the back of the stove. Feed rate was set at 4
 
Room sensor is coiled up on the back of the stove. Feed rate was set at 4
Room sensor is coiled up on the back of the stove. Feed rate was set at 4
Ok.. that is similar to many other Harman users.. shouldn't be any problem there..
P43 is not a big BTU Stove and needs to be run a little harder..
 
Put that fan in high. Also a 10 degree swing is pretty big from day and night. Deoend on the type of house it will chew through pellets at a fast rate to get back to 70 and maintain. Try a 5 degree swing instead.
 
I started my P43 Jan 1st of last year.
I run room temp-auto-feed rate at 4, and blower almost all the way up.
Sensor is coiled up at back of stove, just alittle above the floor, and away from the vent pipe.
We set it on 70* when we go to bed, and 75* during the day if it's going to be cold.
We have a 2200 sq ft. open floor plan cape chalet, and it keeps our house between 69 and 74* all through the heating season. I scrape the burn pot once a day, and usually do a good cleaning weekly during the heating season, although it could go longer.
The P43 will burn any grade pellet you feed it and produce great heat.This thing is the best investment we've made on our home.
Your friend should be very happy with his new stove.
Good luck.
 
Sometimes when people try to run a stove with the main thought being save pellets they shoot themselves in the foot instead. Those huge swings in house temp eats through pellets. If he kept it more constant he would be more comfortable and use no more than now and maybe less.

As to blower, a low blower will keep the room warm that the stove is in, it also will cause early room temp shut down never allowing for heat to get out into the rest of the house. The result is a cold feeling house and one warmish room. A high blower will push the heat out into the house more, that's why it has a blower. He needs to sacrifice a few pellets to get to know the stove, turn the dial up to about 72 ish and the blower on high. I know this only because I've been through it !! Once the house is caught up and the stove starts cycling turn the blower to medium and leave the temp alone. Let the stove cycle to maintain even temps in the house. All that up down, on off stuff accomplishes nothing but discomfort with lot's of high burning rates and tall flames in the stove.. When a P series Harman plays catch up it can clean the hopper out fast ! From there he can decide what mode he ultimately wants to run the stove in. But he could be cruising along with a warm house and the stove sipping on a steady diet of pellets instead guzzling them to catch up all the time. . I understand it's hard to program ones head to think steady, constant heat uses less fuel.

A lot of us Harman people tape the room temp probe to the back of the hopper. The probe itself, the very end should be out in the air, not touching a surface and should be well up off the floor. I have mine level with the top of the hopper back and sticking out maybe 3 inches away from the hoppers metal surface. That's a good starting point anyway.

FWIW, I heat 1800 sq ft with a P61, I put the temp on about 73 and leave it there all winter long. If the weather outside starts dropping down to 0 I might bump it up a bit and or turn the fan up from medium to high. The only time I run low fan is if we have company visiting in the living room and I may well put the stove in stove temp mode then too.. If the weather warms I might lower the temp to 70 at night. But average day in and day out in the winter, the stove is set to 73 and the main house is 73. I can't stand being cold sitting in my own house. The only variable really is pellet use as the weather changes. On those cold 0 days, ya I'm going to burn nearly 3 bags of pellets, it's cold out and the demand on heat is high. On warm days a bit over one bag. On average two bags a day overall, so I just plan my pellet use on two bags a day. My house is rather loose with so so insulation. He has the right stove for his sq ft, he just needs to learn to use it and ya it's going to burn some pellets, probably less of them than I do..
 
Sometimes when people try to run a stove with the main thought being save pellets they shoot themselves in the foot instead. Those huge swings in house temp eats through pellets. If he kept it more constant he would be more comfortable and use no more than now and maybe less.

As to blower, a low blower will keep the room warm that the stove is in, it also will cause early room temp shut down never allowing for heat to get out into the rest of the house. The result is a cold feeling house and one warmish room. A high blower will push the heat out into the house more, that's why it has a blower. He needs to sacrifice a few pellets to get to know the stove, turn the dial up to about 72 ish and the blower on high. I know this only because I've been through it !! Once the house is caught up and the stove starts cycling turn the blower to medium and leave the temp alone. Let the stove cycle to maintain even temps in the house. All that up down, on off stuff accomplishes nothing but discomfort with lot's of high burning rates and tall flames in the stove.. When a P series Harman plays catch up it can clean the hopper out fast ! From there he can decide what mode he ultimately wants to run the stove in. But he could be cruising along with a warm house and the stove sipping on a steady diet of pellets instead guzzling them to catch up all the time. . I understand it's hard to program ones head to think steady, constant heat uses less fuel.

A lot of us Harman people tape the room temp probe to the back of the hopper. The probe itself, the very end should be out in the air, not touching a surface and should be well up off the floor. I have mine level with the top of the hopper back and sticking out maybe 3 inches away from the hoppers metal surface. That's a good starting point anyway.

FWIW, I heat 1800 sq ft with a P61, I put the temp on about 73 and leave it there all winter long. If the weather outside starts dropping down to 0 I might bump it up a bit and or turn the fan up from medium to high. The only time I run low fan is if we have company visiting in the living room and I may well put the stove in stove temp mode then too.. If the weather warms I might lower the temp to 70 at night. But average day in and day out in the winter, the stove is set to 73 and the main house is 73. I can't stand being cold sitting in my own house. The only variable really is pellet use as the weather changes. On those cold 0 days, ya I'm going to burn nearly 3 bags of pellets, it's cold out and the demand on heat is high. On warm days a bit over one bag. On average two bags a day overall, so I just plan my pellet use on two bags a day. My house is rather loose with so so insulation. He has the right stove for his sq ft, he just needs to learn to use it and ya it's going to burn some pellets, probably less of them than I do..

Good info for newbies..
I used to shut mine off at night.. 12pm-6am to save pellets last year but took 3 hrs or so to warm everything back up..
So what mode are you in during a normal cold day?...I tend to do room/manual overnite since I don't see the stove shutting down much but wondering if I should just keep it on room/auto for same reason that it prob won't shut down.. colder at night..
 
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Another thing to consider with Harman stoves is the weak convection fan less than 150 cfm that makes it hard for them to make up lower temps when trying to heat a large space. Biggest weak point of the stove line.
 
I would leave that stove running all the time.
 
I keep my P61a on full blast for the blower. Room temp is set at 75 in the evening (keeps it high 60's upstairs in this weather), and turn it down to 70-72 before I leave for work (or when the sun rises during the weekend). IMO, the only thing accomplished by keeping the blower on low is to waste heat out the exhaust pipe (but then, I'm a newbie and if I am incorrect, I'm sure someone will chime in).

I would also advise that he leave it on during the day as it will turn off at 60. Plus, I might even advise that he only turn it down to 65 if he's going to turn it up to 70 later since the stove has to work harder to heat up all the surrounding furniture and walls than it would work to just maintain the heat. this I am confident of because my stove is in an unfinished basement and I use way less pellets keeping it at a constant 70-75 than when I tried turning the stove down a lot during the day.
 
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Good info for newbies..
I used to shut mine off at night.. 12pm-6am to save pellets last year but took 3 hrs or so to warm everything back up..
So what mode are you in during a normal cold day?...I tend to do room/manual overnite since I don't see the stove shutting down much but wondering if I should just keep it on room/auto for same reason that it prob won't shut down.. colder at night..
If I want a long steady rise in heat in the house I will use Stove temp mode, manual or auto doesn't matter if running over level 4 and in cold weather it will be over 4. For general all winter long steady heat I use Room Temp Manual in the dead of winter or even now if the temp will stay in the 30's or less. To run constant heat has proven to use less pellets to me, not turning that dial up and down. However when the weather outside is in the 40's and I need some heat I use Room Temp auto then but leave that dial alone for the temp setting !. Let the stove cycle and do it's thing. I have found in that case to use less pellets than in manual. The day time temp might spike to 50 and the stove just shuts down for an hour or more. when it does relight it only has to raise the house temp maybe 1 deg.

Incidentally, you want to watch pellets disappear ? Turn your feed rate up to about 5 or 5.5 and the room temp all the way up as far as it will go !! I did this for the ash line test last year and cleaned out about a 1/4 of the hoppers worth of pellets in 40 minutes before I gave that up as a foolish test. I would say that puts your stack temp at close to 500 deg and you really don't want to stand too close to the stove with much exposed skin. 26 deg outside with an open window in the living room to stand it. I got a line of ash that I knew wasn't running off the burn pot, good enough. I set the feed back down to 4, been there ever since for the most part. Sometimes in really cold weather I might turn it up to 4.5 but that's rare.
 
If I want a long steady rise in heat in the house I will use Stove temp mode, manual or auto doesn't matter if running over level 4 and in cold weather it will be over 4. For general all winter long steady heat I use Room Temp Manual in the dead of winter or even now if the temp will stay in the 30's or less. To run constant heat has proven to use less pellets to me, not turning that dial up and down. However when the weather outside is in the 40's and I need some heat I use Room Temp auto then but leave that dial alone for the temp setting !. Let the stove cycle and do it's thing. I have found in that case to use less pellets than in manual. The day time temp might spike to 50 and the stove just shuts down for an hour or more. when it does relight it only has to raise the house temp maybe 1 deg.

Incidentally, you want to watch pellets disappear ? Turn your feed rate up to about 5 or 5.5 and the room temp all the way up as far as it will go !! I did this for the ash line test last year and cleaned out about a 1/4 of the hoppers worth of pellets in 40 minutes before I gave that up as a foolish test. I would say that puts your stack temp at close to 500 deg and you really don't want to stand too close to the stove with much exposed skin. 26 deg outside with an open window in the living room to stand it. I got a line of ash that I knew wasn't running off the burn pot, good enough. I set the feed back down to 4, been there ever since for the most part. Sometimes in really cold weather I might turn it up to 4.5 but that's rare.
Never did the ash line test...
always looked normal to me since day 1....
I run at feed rate 3 until someone can convince me that I'm using less pellets at feed rate 4..set at roomtemp 70-72. thermostat in ajacent room shows 74 degrees.

btw: off topic..
saw a post somewhere[not here] where a guy changed out his Harman ignitor a quicker way..
he dropped the ignitor out of the burnpot, pulled the wires out just enough to cut the 2 wires and installed the new ignitor.
he used 2 High temp rated Ceramic wire nuts to connect, then put it all back.. don't know if that's good or bad way...but deff quicker..
I'm thinking more stuff in the burnpot compartment to get covered in ash but he said he tucked the 2 wirenuts in the furthest corner..... whaddya think....?
 
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Never did the ash line test...
always looked normal to me since day 1....
I run at feed rate 3 until someone can convince me that I'm using less pellets at feed rate 4..set at roomtemp 70-72. thermostat in ajacent room shows 74 degrees.

btw: off topic..
saw a post somewhere[not here] where a guy changed out his Harman ignitor a quicker way..
he dropped the ignitor out of the burnpot, pulled the wires out just enough to cut the 2 wires and installed the new ignitor.
he used 2 High temp rated Ceramic wire nuts to connect, then put it all back.. don't know if that's good or bad way...but deff quicker..
I'm thinking more stuff in the burnpot compartment to get covered in ash but he said he tucked the 2 wirenuts in the furthest corner..... whaddya think....?
I think in your house since you have proven it to yourself already that feed rate 3 is fine. But I think if you put it at feed rate 4 you won't see any difference at all unless you do a lot of ramping up of flame. Obviously if the stove is calling for heat and it needs the feed higher and you have it set higher then it will take the pellets at that rate. If it burns mostly in moderate to low burn then it may never call for that much feed. Higher feed rates on a Harman go into effect when the stove really needs to ramp up the heat, the wider the swing in demand ( like our OP's message going from 60 to 70 deg) then the more it is likely to use a higher feed rate. A low feed rate may heat the house on ramp up but comparatively speaking it will take longer. This is all about flame ramp up. It doesn't matter where the feed is set in a Harman if the stove never ramps up because the house isn't calling for it. Generally speaking feed rate 4 fits most folks. Some do use 3 and 3 will restrict feed more if the demand is called for.

I wouldn't want wire nuts in my air passage that feeds air to the burn pot personally. If I did cut the wires to replace an igniter I would then solder in the new one and use heat shrink tubing to insulate it. If you think about though, why high heat wire nuts anyway ? The wires themselves are just insulated in regular wire coating as far as I know. If it was that hot in there wouldn't that melt ? It's fresh air blowing through that passage and the heat is above the passage for the most part. Well anyway moot point, I probably wouldn't do this, I probably would replace it per instructions.
 
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Never did the ash line test...
always looked normal to me since day 1....
I run at feed rate 3 until someone can convince me that I'm using less pellets at feed rate 4..set at roomtemp 70-72. thermostat in ajacent room shows 74 degrees.
In the 11 months (and 850+ posts) that you have been with us here, I often times feel that you don't fully understand the Harman feed rate and how it really works. You won't necessarily use less pellets at a feed rate of 4 but set at 3 all the time, you are definitely restricting your stove's potential. I'll use the same example that I've used here many times....set the feed rate at 4 and forget it. Anything less than that is like putting a brick under the accelerator pedal of your car. Do yourself a favor and try the ash line test this winter when it gets colder. Start at your preferred feed rate of 3, Stove Temp 7. The ash line won't come close to one inch from the lip of the burnpot. Reason? Brick under the accelerator. Set it at feed rate 4, Stove Temp 7 and the stove will reach the desired set point quicker (and the one inch from the lip) and still won't waste pellets. If you don't think you'll ever need (or potentially need) the full 61K your stove will deliver, then you can tell me to buzz off. I'm just sharing the knowledge of 18 plus years of Harman ownership.....
 
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I think in your house since you have proven it to yourself already that feed rate 3 is fine. But I think if you put it at feed rate 4 you won't see any difference at all unless you do a lot of ramping up of flame. Obviously if the stove is calling for heat and it needs the feed higher and you have it set higher then it will take the pellets at that rate. If it burns mostly in moderate to low burn then it may never call for that much feed. Higher feed rates on a Harman go into effect when the stove really needs to ramp up the heat, the wider the swing in demand ( like our OP's message going from 60 to 70 deg) then the more it is likely to use a higher feed rate. A low feed rate may heat the house on ramp up but comparatively speaking it will take longer. This is all about flame ramp up. It doesn't matter where the feed is set in a Harman if the stove never ramps up because the house isn't calling for it. Generally speaking feed rate 4 fits most folks. Some do use 3 and 3 will restrict feed more if the demand is called for.

I wouldn't want wire nuts in my air passage that feeds air to the burn pot personally. If I did cut the wires to replace an igniter I would then solder in the new one and use heat shrink tubing to insulate it. If you think about though, why high heat wire nuts anyway ? The wires themselves are just insulated in regular wire coating as far as I know. If it was that hot in there wouldn't that melt ? It's fresh air blowing through that passage and the heat is above the passage for the most part. Well anyway moot point, I probably wouldn't do this, I probably would replace it per instructions.
I assume he was thinking about the Hot burnpot above the compartment and was being extra carefull just in case?
that said, I doubt if I would do it that way either..
 
In the 11 months (and 850+ posts) that you have been with us here, I often times feel that you don't fully understand the Harman feed rate and how it really works. You won't necessarily use less pellets at a feed rate of 4 but set at 3 all the time, you are definitely restricting your stove's potential. I'll use the same example that I've used here many times....set the feed rate at 4 and forget it. Anything less than that is like putting a brick under the accelerator pedal of your car. Do yourself a favor and try the ash line test this winter when it gets colder. Start at your preferred feed rate of 3, Stove Temp 7. The ash line won't come close to one inch from the lip of the burnpot. Reason? Brick under the accelerator. Set it at feed rate 4, Stove Temp 7 and the stove will reach the desired set point quicker (and the one inch from the lip) and still won't waste pellets.
If you don't think you'll ever need (or potentially need) the full 61K your stove will deliver,.
That there is a true statement... I am deffinitly oversized for my dwelling and prob would never see the full potentiall.
If I had bought the P43 that my dealer claimed was all I needed, I think it would be a different story.
But I wanted to be sure I could push the warm air up to my 2nd floor without having to go full boar with a smaller stove. Not very well insulated here in this 90 yr old house..
we both went back/forth about this issue for a while before I decided on the P61A.
To this day I have never had my blower speed past half way.... would be just too damn warm downstairs...
hey.. I may try #4 soon just to see the results....you'll be the 1st I let know....>>
 
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The fan on a 43 pushes the same amount of air as a 61 into the room. Both rated at 150cfm. If you use room temp then you won't be blasted out of the room. A ceiling fan for me helped tremendously for me as I have 11' ceilings in my 1880's home. It distributes the heat evenly so it is not 20 degrees warmer on the ceiling. I have it running up in winter so not as much draft.
 
The fan on a 43 pushes the same amount of air as a 61 into the room. Both rated at 150cfm. If you use room temp then you won't be blasted out of the room. A ceiling fan for me helped tremendously for me as I have 11' ceilings in my 1880's home. It distributes the heat evenly so it is not 20 degrees warmer on the ceiling. I have it running up in winter so not as much draft.
yes.. I have 11 foot ceilings also downstairs and a ceiling fan at the top of the steps going clockwise/low fan for the 2nd floor bedrooms.
Not sure if I am pushing cooler air down or pulling warm air up but either way it works.
Prob why I don't have to push it so hard downstairs..also use room temp..auto only if the sun is going to warm things up.
Stove temp would chase me out [if I wanted to heat the upstairs] and I don't want to run stove temp on low settings.It's like the kiss of death for me.
it gunks up the stove and glass..
 
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That there is a true statement... I am deffinitly oversized for my dwelling and prob would never see the full potentiall.
If I had bought the P43 that my dealer claimed was all I needed, I think it would be a different story.
But I wanted to be sure I could push the warm air up to my 2nd floor without having to go full boar with a smaller stove. Not very well insulated here in this 90 yr old house..
we both went back/forth about this issue for a while before I decided on the P61A.
To this day I have never had my blower speed past half way.... would be just too damn warm downstairs...
hey.. I may try #4 soon just to see the results....you'll be the 1st I let know....>>
I was going to say in my other post that I think a P43 would have done fine in your house. But many folks over size their stoves here. I actually have myself but it works well, I don't run over 2/3 of full out on the coldest days. If an XXV radiated more heat I might have bought that ( it's 90% convection though or so). A P43 would max out in my house I think, but only a few days a year. And I have more sq ft than you do of what sounds like similar construction...
 
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