Turned the pellet stove way up to Heat setting 3 last night. Anyone else have it up high?

I burned my new Accentra FS at about 64 degrees (room temp) , feed rate 2 1/2; and fan at mid-line to low. House was warm and comfy. Temp at 5AM here was 31, living room (adjacent to stove) was 68 degrees, upstairs felt (but was not measured) about the same.

I have no idea - that's why I read this forum so much and count on the guys (gals) who know what they are doing!

Man, you guys like it cold in your houses! I have mine dialed up to 76 in my living room. Anything less feels cold to me. I wish 75F was too hot. I could go to 80F and be perfectly happy. :lol: (Of course, I grew up in AZ)

I remember as a kid we had a wood burning stove for heat. We got it so hot that my Mom's candles would start drooping...no joke! Our family used to tease us about it when they came to visit.

Edit: I did a test and found that to keep it 76F with outside temps in the mid 40's, my stove was averaging about 2.5lbs/hr. Most of the time it was burning on low with an occasional automatic bump to heat level 3 during that time. My stove has hi/low capability so that is what I have it set for. It stays on low until it calls for heat, then goes to heat level 3 and back to low once it hits 76F.

Dunno how many lbs per hour but have been burning
on #2 (1-5 settings) and it's been 75 in my living room where the stove is.
Went down to about 31F last night I guess.

My stove is generally on 3 unless its warmer than 40ºF during the night time. 3 is usually as high as I need to go, Except for iffy pellets. Only time its seen 5 is to set the draft.

My
#1 is 1.7
#3 is 3.8
#5 is 7.6

Having no power since Saturday, Pellet stove sits idle while the wood eater is taking lead heat duty. Feed rate on that is 7 splits every 3 to 3 1/2 hours. ;-)

Don2222 said:

RKS130 said:

I burned my new Accentra FS at about 64 degrees (room temp) , feed rate 2 1/2; and fan at mid-line to low. House was warm and comfy. Temp at 5AM here was 31, living room (adjacent to stove) was 68 degrees, upstairs felt (but was not measured) about the same.

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That seems good. Do you or some else know how many lbs/hr that is for the Accentra FS? Then you can calculate pellet usage.

What number is the low setting (That would be .75 lbs/Hr) and what number is the high setting (That would be 4.75 lbs/hr.

Then extrapolate to get the intermediate numbers.

From this site http://harmanstoves.com/products/details.asp?cat=stoves&prd=pellet-stoves&f=ACCPSTV&nav=specs
Specifications
Fuel: Bio-Mass Pellets
Feed Rate: .75 lbs per hour (minimum)
4.75 lbs per hour (maximum)

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I started a new thread looking for info on the .75 lb/hr feed rate on the harman last week & didnt really get any info
I ran mine on 1 last fri & filled the hopper to the gills. figured i had about 60 lbs in it & i think it lasted 27-28 hours.
I went through alot more than i though i would in a 24 hour time. I thought the min. .75 lb/hr would be at the #1 setting.

I'm actually having the opposite problem. I have my Quad Mt. Vernon set to 73, and it hasn't kicked on on a day and a half because I've got my wood insert in the basement cranking.... Right now that thing is heating the entire house!! However, its only about 40 degrees outside. Wait until its 20 degrees or so every day.....

The good part though is none of my electric baseboard heaters have turned on yet this season...


J

I have mine on hi/lo....just went on to high this morning around 5 with it 20 degrees out. My stove on setting 2 burns 3.25/hr and on 1 it is about 1.9.

I will probably adjust the high to level 3 for hi/low...that is 5.2lbs/hr...

Keeps my house between 68-72....if it goes over 72 on low I shut it off.

No, same setting , thermostat figures it out , smarter than me.

flynfrfun said:

Man, you guys like it cold in your houses! I have mine dialed up to 76 in my living room. Anything less feels cold to me. I wish 75F was too hot. I could go to 80F and be perfectly happy. :lol: (Of course, I grew up in AZ)

I remember as a kid we had a wood burning stove for heat. We got it so hot that my Mom's candles would start drooping...no joke! Our family used to tease us about it when they came to visit.

Edit: I did a test and found that to keep it 76F with outside temps in the mid 40's, my stove was averaging about 2.5lbs/hr. Most of the time it was burning on low with an occasional automatic bump to heat level 3 during that time. My stove has hi/low capability so that is what I have it set for. It stays on low until it calls for heat, then goes to heat level 3 and back to low once it hits 76F.

Click to expand...

Are you related to my wife? LOL. Anything below 78 is cold. If it gets to hot i get a sick feeling.
She is use to 80's-90's year round in cebu philippines.

Sheesh its gonna be a long hot winter in my house. Im going to have to strip down to my boxers or have her wear thermal underwear. Will see.

Nope, the label next to the number three light on my stove is broil.

Well, I have a BSEE so according to the Accentra Manual the feed settings go from 1 to 6 so by doing the math assuming the knob (Potentiometer) has a linear Taper. That means the resistance as you turn the knob increases proportionally. Which is probably true since Audio Taper potentiometers are only used in Audio equipment. Those pot's resistance increases exponentially so people can hear the sound increasing better as the dial is turned up.

Anyways using simple math interpolation the lbs/hr is as follows:
Please ask the Harman Tech, but this chart below is most likely true. (No guarantee since I do not work for those guys!)

1 - 0.75 lbs/hr
2 - 1.55 lbs/hr
3 - 2.35 lbs/hr
4 - 3.15 lbs/hr
5 - 3.95 lbs/hr
6 - 4.75 lbs/hr

So a setting of 2 1/2 or 2.5 would be a feed rate of 3.55 lbs per hour.

So for 12 hours overnight at the 2.5 feed rate setting, you would burn approx 12x3.55 or 42.6 lbs over 1 bag. That is if the pellets are continually feeding at that rate non stop.

Click pic below to enlarge:[/quote]

Well that was my thought exactly I figured I could fill the hopper & leave for the weekend & still have a fire going when i got back but not the case. Like i said with mine at least i was burning over 2 lb/hr on setting #1.

I didnt turn the igniter to manual though either maybe this changes some setting i dunno maybe ill try that & see what i get. I know i dont like manual light in room setting though because the blower doesnt run until the stove gets to 350 degrees.

My Afton Bay is rated at 3.15 lbs/hour on setting 3, which is where I run it most of the time. It heats most of 2400 square feet pretty well with outside temps around 35º. It will cycle on and off with the thermostat, keeping the area at 76º, and the further reaches upstairs at 68º. That's a lot better than I ever expected from it.

I find it funny how people figure out how many pounds they use by feed rate and not what really heats a house. You have to over come the heat loss in a house to get good heating. the only reason harman put a feed rate in is to adjust for fuel size not to save fuel. A larger pellet will need more feed because you can not fit alot of it between the flights in the auger. Smaller fuel you can fit alot between the auger flights. What you want is to set it so your fire on high is 1 inch to 1/2 inch from the edge of the burn pot. Once you figre this out and let the stove work you'll find you use less fuel. Might sound stupid but it works.

I bought mine to save from oil but not be cold, so I start my stove on 9-9 high, once it gets comfotable I lower it to heat range 1, blower 9, when I head to bed I lower the blower to 7 its about 74-78 in 1200sq ft its 27degrees out. I go throught about 40-45lbs a day. I clean it every 2days with vac and garden hose setup, I learned a lot on this board but also had to set stove to what made us comfortable. I feel when I start it up on high it gets the stove hot and home hot quick, than lower it seems to work. feel free to add to what each does to tweak their stove.

jedidiah578 said:

Well, I have a BSEE so according to the Accentra Manual the feed settings go from 1 to 6 so by doing the math assuming the knob (Potentiometer) has a linear Taper. That means the resistance as you turn the knob increases proportionally. Which is probably true since Audio Taper potentiometers are only used in Audio equipment. Those pot's resistance increases exponentially so people can hear the sound increasing better as the dial is turned up.

Anyways using simple math interpolation the lbs/hr is as follows:
Please ask the Harman Tech, but this chart below is most likely true. (No guarantee since I do not work for those guys!)

1 - 0.75 lbs/hr
2 - 1.55 lbs/hr
3 - 2.35 lbs/hr
4 - 3.15 lbs/hr
5 - 3.95 lbs/hr
6 - 4.75 lbs/hr

So a setting of 2 1/2 or 2.5 would be a feed rate of 3.55 lbs per hour.

So for 12 hours overnight at the 2.5 feed rate setting, you would burn approx 12x3.55 or 42.6 lbs over 1 bag. That is if the pellets are continually feeding at that rate non stop.

Click pic below to enlarge:

Click to expand...

Well that was my thought exactly I figured I could fill the hopper & leave for the weekend & still have a fire going when i got back but not the case. Like i said with mine at least i was burning over 2 lb/hr on setting #1.

I didnt turn the igniter to manual though either maybe this changes some setting i dunno maybe ill try that & see what i get. I know i dont like manual light in room setting though because the blower doesnt run until the stove gets to 350 degrees.[/quote]

FWIW, and I've tried to say this before, you guys are reading WAY too much into this. On a Harman stove you shouldn't be messing with the feed rate on a regular basis. It is a "set it and forget it" adjustment. The feed rate setting is not a measure of what the stove is feeding, it is a setting of what the stove will feed, when it is needed. Most Harmans work well with a feed rate between 3 and 4. The proper way to know if your feed rate is correct is to run your stove wide open (7) in STOVE TEMP mode. The pellets should feed and burn so that the ash line is within one inch of the top of the burnpot. If they get too close to the edge or spill over, you need to cut the feed rate back a bit. If the fire doesn't burn up to within an inch of the lip, turn the feed rate up a little. You should burn full throttle at least 15-30 minutes to determine this. After you have done this, you should never have to touch it again.
As Harman owners already know, our stoves will burn anything. Differing pellet quality (which equals differing burn temps) will be compensated for by the ESP signal back to the Control Board. Constantly adjusting the feed rate is not necessary and will affect the efficiency of your stove and the amount of pellets used.

HELP . . . potentiometers . . . linear tapers? . . . I am lost.

I think what I am taking away from all of this is to set the damned feed rate at 3 or 4 and leave it alone. The other controls can be fiddled with, but feed rate does not seem to affect pellet use.

What am I missing?

In the meantime I will do what I am doing and only fool with room temp high to low and temp (65 at night to 70ish in the morning and back to 65 when no one is home).

Regardless, we LOVE our stove and no matter how many pellets we burn we are way ahead of the oil curve and the house is comfy.

Just sayin.

I think what I am taking away from all of this is to set the damned feed rate at 3 or 4 and leave it alone. The other controls can be fiddled with, but feed rate does not seem to affect pellet use.

Click to expand...

I agree.
Great discussion and opinions in this thread
Helped me to move on.