Problem with Harman P68 wont burn hot

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Vistalite70

New Member
Jan 8, 2015
3
Scranton PA
Hello. I have a five year old P68. Before the start of the season, I did a thorough cleaning. It fired up and ran great as usual. Last week I noticed a low flame. It was a cold day and the house felt cooler then it should. I shut it down did a quick cleaning, fired it up and went to work. Later my wife called and said it shut off. After work I did a real good cleaning including the igniter box, behind the fenders ect. Start it up, the igniter takes much longer to get a fire. Again low fire. It shuts of. Yesterday, I buy a new ESP and change that. No change.
The stove is on the first floor of my two story house. It is direct vented. The stove pipe has a 90 degree bend then straight out the wall.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Im going to re clean it now to see if I missed anything.
 
Have you checked the door gaskets via the dollar bill test? Leaking door gaskets allow air in where its not supposed to and greatly affect the way these stoves run.
 
Hi. I inspected the glass door gasket as well as the hopper gasket. The glass door gasket is still nice and white. It didnt appear to have any defects but I did not try the dollar bill test. I will do that now. Thank you for replying !!
 
Hello

I had about 10 bags left of the Doug Fir pellets in the ton I purchased this year. They very soft softwood and must have absord moisture and did not burn hot. After I ran out, I burned the Okie Golds and now it is burning nice and hot again. So check the moisture content of your pellets.

However the stove should not be shutting down in the cold weather so I suspect the new ESP probe is try to bias the the circuit board to keep heating but it is not, so I suspect a bad thermal circuit on the circuit board.

Is the stove on a Surge Protector, not a cheap one but a good Tripp Lite Isoblok or equiv?
 
Did you check dipswitch settings for new ESP? Is the fines cover properly centered and tight? Try a bag or two of different pellets.
 
check the hopper lid to see if its not sealing correctly, and I second F4's suggestion of checking the fines cover/ fines box. foreign objects also end up at the bottom of the hopper obstructing the pellet flow...pieces of bag, a coiuple longish pellets...stuff like that can mess with it.
 
Delta-T said:
check the hopper lid to see if its not sealing correctly, and I second F4's suggestion of checking the fines cover/ fines box. foreign objects also end up at the bottom of the hopper obstructing the pellet flow...pieces of bag, a coiuple longish pellets...stuff like that can mess with it.
Click to expand...
Ever notice that these problems always seem to crop up after a cleaning? When that happens to me I retrace my steps to see what I may have done wrong.
 
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happens on stuff that you touch all the time too, we just go on autopilot and fail to align the igniter cover, or flip the hopper lid swell latch before its in place. I've put the combustion blower cover on askew and latched it in place...then spent an hour telling myself that there's no reason to check that because there's just no way I screwed that up.
 
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Delta-T said:
happens on stuff that you touch all the time too, we just go on autopilot and fail to align the igniter cover, or flip the hopper lid swell latch before its in place. I've put the combustion blower cover on askew and latched it in place...then spent an hour telling myself that there's no reason to check that because there's just no way I screwed that up.
Click to expand...
Yeah. Then you feel like a jackass when you figure out what you did wrong.
 
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By watching the indicator light, how many seconds is your auger motor running? Check this with feed rate 4, Room Temp mode, temp set to max. It should be feeding for about 40 seconds and fire should be raging.

And by "thorough cleaning", I assume the exhaust fan and venting?
 
Thanks for all the replies!!

My thorough cleaning included removing the ignitor door with two wing nuts. Removing the back two lower cover to get at the black box with one wing nut, cleaned that. I vacuumed then reversed the shop vac to blow air pressure then vacuumed again.
Did behing the ash pan, slid the blower motor cover up to clean there. I took a nail to the burn pot and pushed crud through. Did the stove pipe and exhaust vent where the ESP is. Removed the ESP. Cleaned that put it back in. Then lit. Still bad. Yesterday bought new ESP replaced it last night. Still bad.
So after my first post here I went back and re cleaned everything. Of corse it was all fine except for the carbon build ip in the burn pot behind the holes I cleaned before. I scraped the crap out of it down to the metal. Took all the pellets out (Legnetics). Filled it with American white pine fibers. Started up. Fired up!!! Its now better then Ever!!!
Now Im thrilled it working but I kinda wish I left the first batch of pellets in it after a better cleaning of burn pot. I dont know of the carbon in burn pot was the culprit or bad pellets.
Would carbon build up behind the hold cause this?? Or was it the pellets. Haha. Ill never know
Thanks for your time trying to help me!!!!
Tony
 
You could put the Lignetics back in. . . . I burn them and they work fine. Was -7 last night and toasty inside.

And consider that when you went back in you MAY have unknowingly corrected an error you made the first time
 
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