Hello everyone,
I just joined the forum as a proud new owner of a Harman PB105 pellet boiler and thought I'd share some pics of my install along with some information on how its been working out for me.
A little background info: I live in northeast PA and bought my current house last summer, a 2500 ft^2 two story colonial with an electric heat pump central air. December last year the heat pump compressor dies so I get it replaced with a newer more efficient model. The new heat pump works great if it is 30 degrees or warmer out but when it gets colder than that it has to run 24/7 to barely maintain 68 in the house. Throw in the high winds of living on top of a hill and on comes the electric resistance coils, which pretty much negates the efficiency of the heat pump. So I began to look into a wood heat source to supplement the heat pump in the coldest parts of winter. To keep it short I pretty much decided on pellets due to their availability here, ease of transport and handling and it would be the easiest for my wife to keep running when I am gone on business for a week. The basement already had an unused flue so putting a pellet stove down there would be easy to vent. I decided to go the route of a pellet boiler and tie it into the central air with a water to air heat exchanger. I also could heat the household hot water with it and the pool in the summer which was a big selling point with the wife! From what was available nearby and the models offered my best bet looked to be with the Harman PB105 boiler as it met the heating requirements I was looking for and the dealer was pretty close to me.
I've been following the forum for a couple months now reading up on other owners experiences with the PB105 and this gave me a great deal of knowledge about its issues (burn pot, igniter) and how to get get it running good with dip switch and feed rate settings. So I took the plunge and ordered it up taking a chance with the burn pot hoping that it would get fixed soon. When it came in I was expecting an updated model with the pressure ignition and all but nope, I got one from early 2009, with a 13 fin iginiter! Oh well at least it had the newer control board for what that's worth. The temperature gauge was reading 100 degrees or so at room temperature so I unscrewed the clear cover, grabbed the needle and turned it clockwise until it hit the bottom out post, lifted it over the post and kept moving it until it jumped, kind of like a gear slipping a tooth. I moved it back over the post to its normal range and viola! it read about 68 degrees!
Anyway it took a while but I got it all wired, vented and plumbed up, checked the draft, and got a few bags of Lignetics, Barefoots and Instant Heat to try out. I filled it up with water, pellets and fired her up! It was a little smokey at first but the fire was going in a couple minutes and it cleared right up. The vent pipe connections and elbow needed some aluminum tape and silicone to seal it up good. Didn't take too long to warm the boiler up to temperature and I turned up the thermostat to call for heat and turn on the circulator and central blower. Boy did this thing put out the heat!!
I've had it running over a week now on manual mode. I tried auto mode for a bit but didn't really like all the starting and stopping of the fire; it seemed to produce more black marks inside the boiler as well. As long as it stays cold out the manual mode should be fine. I've had the feed rate at 4 which seems to be working good and the max water at 155 but the average water temperature is around 180. Overall everything has been working great. I've been stocking up on Lignetics since they've been 185 a ton this past week (up to 4 tons now) and have been burning about 2 to 2.5 bags a day depending on how cold it is out keeping the house at 70 pretty much all day and night.
Enjoy the pictures and if there is anything I forgot to mention I will post it. I look forward to sharing my experience with this boiler in the future and will let you know if (when?) my burn pot bubbles and cracks! Hopefully I can apply some of my engineering knowledge and help get this problem solved!
I just joined the forum as a proud new owner of a Harman PB105 pellet boiler and thought I'd share some pics of my install along with some information on how its been working out for me.
A little background info: I live in northeast PA and bought my current house last summer, a 2500 ft^2 two story colonial with an electric heat pump central air. December last year the heat pump compressor dies so I get it replaced with a newer more efficient model. The new heat pump works great if it is 30 degrees or warmer out but when it gets colder than that it has to run 24/7 to barely maintain 68 in the house. Throw in the high winds of living on top of a hill and on comes the electric resistance coils, which pretty much negates the efficiency of the heat pump. So I began to look into a wood heat source to supplement the heat pump in the coldest parts of winter. To keep it short I pretty much decided on pellets due to their availability here, ease of transport and handling and it would be the easiest for my wife to keep running when I am gone on business for a week. The basement already had an unused flue so putting a pellet stove down there would be easy to vent. I decided to go the route of a pellet boiler and tie it into the central air with a water to air heat exchanger. I also could heat the household hot water with it and the pool in the summer which was a big selling point with the wife! From what was available nearby and the models offered my best bet looked to be with the Harman PB105 boiler as it met the heating requirements I was looking for and the dealer was pretty close to me.
I've been following the forum for a couple months now reading up on other owners experiences with the PB105 and this gave me a great deal of knowledge about its issues (burn pot, igniter) and how to get get it running good with dip switch and feed rate settings. So I took the plunge and ordered it up taking a chance with the burn pot hoping that it would get fixed soon. When it came in I was expecting an updated model with the pressure ignition and all but nope, I got one from early 2009, with a 13 fin iginiter! Oh well at least it had the newer control board for what that's worth. The temperature gauge was reading 100 degrees or so at room temperature so I unscrewed the clear cover, grabbed the needle and turned it clockwise until it hit the bottom out post, lifted it over the post and kept moving it until it jumped, kind of like a gear slipping a tooth. I moved it back over the post to its normal range and viola! it read about 68 degrees!
Anyway it took a while but I got it all wired, vented and plumbed up, checked the draft, and got a few bags of Lignetics, Barefoots and Instant Heat to try out. I filled it up with water, pellets and fired her up! It was a little smokey at first but the fire was going in a couple minutes and it cleared right up. The vent pipe connections and elbow needed some aluminum tape and silicone to seal it up good. Didn't take too long to warm the boiler up to temperature and I turned up the thermostat to call for heat and turn on the circulator and central blower. Boy did this thing put out the heat!!
I've had it running over a week now on manual mode. I tried auto mode for a bit but didn't really like all the starting and stopping of the fire; it seemed to produce more black marks inside the boiler as well. As long as it stays cold out the manual mode should be fine. I've had the feed rate at 4 which seems to be working good and the max water at 155 but the average water temperature is around 180. Overall everything has been working great. I've been stocking up on Lignetics since they've been 185 a ton this past week (up to 4 tons now) and have been burning about 2 to 2.5 bags a day depending on how cold it is out keeping the house at 70 pretty much all day and night.
Enjoy the pictures and if there is anything I forgot to mention I will post it. I look forward to sharing my experience with this boiler in the future and will let you know if (when?) my burn pot bubbles and cracks! Hopefully I can apply some of my engineering knowledge and help get this problem solved!