Harman PF-100 flame shape and behavior

exoilburner said:

I have seen a few forum posts that had a problem with the PF100 flapper plate in the outside air connection, sticking. Would not matter if you had outside air hooked up or not it would still restrict the airflow through the burnpot. If I remember correctly the problem was corrosion on the pivot ears of the flapper plate or one of the ears might have had a bur not cleaned off the plate at mfr. I believe the fix was to clean up the ear and put a small drop of oil on both pivot points. Then make sure the plate would swing freely

In the picture the arrow is pointing at the flapper (damper) plate.

Click to expand...

This is interesting. I'm out of town this week but I'll take a look at that when I return home.

I called the dealer this morning and he asked if I had the flame guide in place. I honestly don't know. I don't remember seeing it anywhere... can anybody tell from my video if it looks like it's there? He also said he'd order a new low fuel sensor. Hopefully that'll fix that problem.

Update

I'm back from my week away and have spent some quality time with the stove. I'm honestly not sure if I have a flame guide or not; all the diagrams are very confusing to me. Anyways I determined that the main reason it wasn't working well at ALL while I was gone is that it wasn't feeding much of anything. I pulled the hose off the fitting in the hopper and sucked on it; the pressure switch seems to work ok. I gave it some suction and then pinched and ziptied it for now and the unit worked better than it ever has. Heated the house up very quickly. So now I'm wondering if a) my pressure switch is faulty (e.g. not sensitive enough) or b) I don't have enough draft. I have no idea what to do about (b). The air inlet flapper is wide open and as far as I can tell the stove is working fine, although even with the feeder feeding correctly my flame is still vertical. The dealer didn't seem to think that was a big deal, and now that it has run the way it's supposed to, I'm less concerned about it as it seems to be working pretty well. I'm concerned about the pressure switch issue though -- what is it really for? Is it just a safety thing? If so, what is it protecting against? The stove won't overfire itself, and the combustion motor runs constantly -- is it a double-check that the combustion motor is working? I don't have a problem bypassing it but if it's a safety hazard, I don't want to do it that way. I'm calling the dealer next to see what they have to say.