Harman Accentra Insert Power Consumption

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bookpile

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Mar 27, 2010
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Southeastern PA
This is the first winter I've been using my new to me Harman Accentra Insert. I noticed when I turned it on around November that my electric bill nearly doubled. I always assumed it was something else we were doing differently over the winter, but I finally got around to checking out the Harman with the Kill-A-Watt meter.

I tested it over a 24 hour period and found it drew 10.56 kW, or 0.44 kW/ hour. The ignitor did not come on during this time period. This seems awfully high to me to run two fans and an auger. I was wondering if anyone else ever tested their stove so I could compare.

Thanks
 
I was just looking at the owner's manual and it said normal power consumption is 255 watts during run mode. According to the meter it is between 450-480, it bounces around a lot and I know it is not very accurate but it's almost twice what Harman says it should be.
 
Yes a pellet stove can chew up a fair amount of electrical juice, you have to compare that with whatever electrical juice your old heating system used.

I haven't put mine on a meter yet but suspect that some where slightly above 1/3 of my normal winter electrical usage is from the pellet stove.
 
That stove truely uses about 250-300 watts in run mode. Your meter must be off.I check these stoves all the time w/ A plug in watt meter that i use for trouble shooting and the readings are consistent. W/ that said your stove will use 1 KW every 3-4 hrs or 6-8 kws /day in my area that is .70-.95/day
 
I don't think my meter is off. I checked numerous other things around the house and they seem to be inline. If it's using 10 kWh/day than that's an extra 300 kWh / month. My electric bill went from from 450 kWh to 810 the month I turned the stove on, so that seems to be consistent. We are still heating with it now but I'd like some ideas to check this spring if anyone has any.

I know the ignitor draws a lot but I'm assuming if that's stuck on all winter it would have burned out by now.

That leaves the two distribution fans. Does anyone think that a fan motor going bad would cause that much power consumption?
 
I put the kill -a-watt meter on my Harman Insert. After running 24/7 for 190 hours from a complete cleaning at start up to ending with the next cleaning I had used only 28.26 Kwh. which averages out to 3.569 Kw/day.

Our other source of heat is a Buderus water boiler. It has a water pump to move the water and a fan. I figure they cancel each other out or are close to it.

During the winter we use a water heater for our horses/goats and have some for our chickens. Talk about spiking the electric usage. (check other things that consume electric you may be surprized!) (ie. when we first moved to this house the electrical usage was about 2,250 Kwhs. Moving from a house that only used about 750 Kwhs I thought was really high. Started to check and found an underground line from our barn to the garage was shorting out. Changed that and it dropped down to 1,500 Kwhs.)

Prior to our pellet stove we burned about 950 gals of oil/year. This year only 305-310 gallons. This is about what we burn in oil for the past 6 years now since pellet stove installed.

As far as savings go, if I add 5-1/2 tons pellets at $200/ton and 310 gallons at $3.00/gal =$2,030.
If I were not to use pellet stove 950 gallon at $3.00/gal = $2,850
So estimated savings at $820

The $3.00/gal figure is what I paid last time for oil, not the current price of close to $4.00.
 
Thanks for the reply Bantman.

My stove is using 10.56 kW/day.
Yours is using 3.569. kW/ day.
That's a big difference.

Just for comparisons sake, I put my meter on our other pellet stove, a quadrafire Santa Fe. Over the same 24 hour period, it drew 2.28 kW and was about 98 watts at any given time..

So at my electric rate of .1588 cents kWh my harman costs $50.31 a month to run. The quad costs $10.86.

Also I noticed that when I turn the harman off and the distribution fan has shut down but the combustion fan is still running, the power consumption drops from about 450 w to around 350 w. So that to me rules out the distribution fan.

My plan is to haul it outside when it's warm enough and run it in test mode. I'll unplug one component at a time and see if I can pinpoint anything. Has anyone ever seen the control board on a harman cause such an issue?
 
If a blower's output is blocked the load on that blower motor increases. You may discover that moving the stove outside and testing will no longer provide the same results you are getting with it installed where it is.
 
That's a good point about the blower. I'll keep that in mind.
 
Well I finally did some testing. Seems like the combustion blower is consistently drawing 330 watts. In test mode it is 480w total. With the combustion blower unplugged it is about 150w.

Also when the stove is in cool down mode and just the combustion blower is going, it's about 330w. Seems like a lot.

I'm thinking about replacing it. Can anyone recommend a suitable replacement or is an actual Harman blower the best way to go?

Thanks.
 
Just for reference.

I have a Kill-a-Watt Meter on my Harman XXV.

The max I see with the ignitor on is ~370 watts.

When running on Stove Temp 2, Blower on Low, Feed rate on 4, I see between 60-120 watts.

Depending on when the auger motor kicks in.
 
The problem is finally fixed. This spilled into another thread but the ignitor was stuck on the entire time, which was the source of the high power draw. Replaced the control board and it fixed the problem.

Thanks for the help everyone.
 
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