Question for the Harman PF100 owners.

24 hrs on high with my new stove, not a harman though, doubt it matters much. had to open every window in the house, but its better to do it now before it gets too cold.

The furnace is a large unit. But remember. A large part is not going to get hot enough to stink.. If you are going to burn it in? Then do it the 1st time. Every time you reach a "New" High Temp... The stove will stink...

That being said. My Fahrenheit has more of a rough finish and the outer box/shell does not get Hot at all (air flowing around the actual firebox) . Wont stink from day one. Not sure on the Harman though.

Labrat said:

I'm getting ready to fire my PF100 within a few days and I was wondering how bad is the smell to set the paint? how long did you do the first burn to set the paint?

I am not hooking up the ducts yet as I have no desire to pump the smell around the house. I do have 2 children under 2 years and a wife that does not like chemical smells at all.

Thanks!

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I know a few dealers that will pre-burn a stove before the install to burn off oils and cure the paint.

My installers warned me about the smell after my Harman was first started but it was fine.

Been a while since I fired my PF100 off for the first time but if I remember correctly it took a few days for the paint smell to go away. Did not run it with a hi-temp. That sounds like it would speed up the process.

My bigger problem was the installers did not do a good job of sealing the furnace connection to the vent pipe and smoke was getting up into the house. What made it difficult to find was that there was no smoke escaping from the outside of that connection to the vent pipe or the rest of the vent pipe connections. The path of the smoke was inside the double wall vent pipe and back into the hot air supply section of the cablinet. I had to remove the sheet metal ducting from the top of the furnace and found smoke pouring into the furnace from it's vent pipe connection. If your ducting is not connected you could check this easily now.

If you run it without connecting it to the sheet metal ducting you might want to partially block the hot air supply opening of the PF100 to maintain some back pressure to the distribution blower. The install manual says this about the duct distribution blower.

NOTE: These Blower Motors are not designed to
be operated without any positive static back
pressure. OPERATION WITHOUT SUPPLY
DUCTWORK OR IN FREE AIR WILL CAUSE
MOTOR OVERLOAD AND PREMATURE
FAILURE.

Labrat said:

exoilburner said:

If you run it without connecting it to the sheet metal ducting you might want to partially block the hot air supply opening of the PF100 to maintain some back pressure to the distribution blower. The install manual says this about the duct distribution blower.

NOTE: These Blower Motors are not designed to
be operated without any positive static back
pressure. OPERATION WITHOUT SUPPLY
DUCTWORK OR IN FREE AIR WILL CAUSE
MOTOR OVERLOAD AND PREMATURE
FAILURE.

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Exoilburner or anyone else. I was going to put the plenum box on and cut a small hole lets say 4"x4" to let the hot air out. Does anyone have any thoughts on that? I would think that would supply enough back pressure so as not to burn out the motor.

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I don't know for sure. You could probably estimate the open square inches of the floor registers of your ducts and use that as a ballpark.

My first burn a few years ago, the neighbors (far away) thought that my house was on fire.
A heck of a lot of smoke.

As far as the back pressure goes, that specifically applies to the blower motor and directly connected to the running amps of the motor. All you have to do is make sure your blower motor doesn't exceed the max amps that its rated at... If you look at the motor itself it says what the max amp rating it is. I'm guessing they don't ship the same motor with each unit or it would probably tell what it was rated in the install manual... I have a 1638 cfm motor in mine and it's rated at 6.9 amps. Mine came in at 8.8 so I had to baffle my duct work even with it connected to the furnace. Hope that helps

I just started using my PF100 this weekend and notice as soon as the fire starts in the chamber, there is a smoke smell in the basement. Not a paint type smell. but a wood type smell. Then when the blower turns on, the smoke smell goes into the house through the heat vents. All the vent seams are sealed with metal tape. The seam to the first connection to the furnace was secured to the vent nipple on the furnace with tek screws through the outside into the flange and then sealed with high temp silicone. Can't see smoke in the house, but the scent is quite obvious.

Can someone please comment. Thanks.

Did you do a draft check on the furnace after you hooked up all your pipe? The instal manual say it's supposed to have between -.25 and .-35 ideally but would work up to -.55 vacuum. Any more than that would suggest an obstruction or a leak in the ventilation, which could cause smoke. To answere my own question on this topic you need a manometer to check this. I went with a digital but there are plenty of YouTube vids showing you how to make one.

archie79 said:

Did you do a draft check on the furnace after you hooked up all your pipe? The instal manual say it's supposed to have between -.25 and .-35 ideally but would work up to -.55 vacuum. Any more than that would suggest an obstruction or a leak in the ventilation, which could cause smoke. To answere my own question on this topic you need a manometer to check this. I went with a digital but there are plenty of YouTube vids showing you how to make one.

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Yes...the tech who installed it checked it and he could not get it below -.44 and it did not seem to change up or down when he turned the adjustment.

Did he check to see if your flue needed cleaning before installing the equipment? Either or .45 is within acceptable range. Unless the techs manometer was off. Check to make sure the hopper lid is closeing correctly and is sealed well. Other than that I'm kinda out of ideas.

Ejectr said:

I just started using my PF100 this weekend and notice as soon as the fire starts in the chamber, there is a smoke smell in the basement. Not a paint type smell. but a wood type smell. Then when the blower turns on, the smoke smell goes into the house through the heat vents. All the vent seams are sealed with metal tape. The seam to the first connection to the furnace was secured to the vent nipple on the furnace with tek screws through the outside into the flange and then sealed with high temp silicone. Can't see smoke in the house, but the scent is quite obvious.

Can someone please comment. Thanks.

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Did you see how the first vent pipe connection to the furnace vent nipple was sealed??? If there is only one bead of silicone around the outer wall of the vent pipe to the top of furnace that will not seal the seam of the black sheet metal to the nipple. Smoke may be traveling up the inner wall of the vent pipe around the furnace nipple and back into the furnace hot air supply from the inside of the outer wall of the vent pipe. That is what happened to me. I had the same smoke smell out of the ducts and in the house. The black sheet metal around the furnace nipple was not sealed to the nipple at the factory. When the distribution blower kicked on it really sucked the smoke back down into the hot air supply chamber of the furnace.

I fixed the problem by filling the void between the inner and outer walls of the vent pipe connector with hi-temp silicone and pressing the vent pipe back on to the furnace nipple and replacing the tek screws. This filled the void and prevented the smoke from circulating from the vent pipe back to the hot air supply chamber of the furnace.