P43...anyone else ?

[allFIREDup]

Fired up the new Harman P43 and it does a fine job of heating up the place but I've found the combustion/exhaust motor to be the noisiest of all the motors on the thing and can be annoying at times. Anyone else have this experience? Has anyone tried sound deadening material on the metal covers to reduce the noise? I would think in this day and age they could have found a quieter motor to use.

 

[dw06]

I thought same thing when I 1st got mine, now I guess I got used to them as I don't notice as much anymore. Do enjoy the warmth tho.

 

[gfreek]

Darn I was thinking the same thing about non flammable sound deadening material. How loud is your auger motor??

 

[lock&load]

after 2-3wks it just fades into the background,just like the wife used too !got to agree, love the heat

 

[76brian]

Mine is louder than I expected as well. I don't mind it so much I guess, would be nice if I could make it quieter... but what really annoys me is hearing the pellets fall into the auger.

It's like someone's pouring a bag of frozen peas onto a plate... and I HATE PEAS!

 

[mepellet]

Mine is louder than I expected as well. I don't mind it so much I guess, would be nice if I could make it quieter... but what really annoys me is hearing the pellets fall into the auger.

It's like someone's pouring a bag of frozen peas onto a plate... and I HATE PEAS!

The fan noise does fade away after you get used to it but the pellets dropping is the most annoying thing I can think of. Oh and the crunch of an occasional pellet

 

[PJPellet]

I always thought it was a quiet stove. I sit 3 feet from the stove in the living room and have gotten used to all the noises. The tv is across the room and I have no problems. My propane furnace is actually louder than the blower on the P 43. My furnace sounds like a jet engine.

 

[allFIREDup]

The auger motor noise is fine...can't really hear it because of the combustion blower motor. The combustion blower is on the whole time the stove is going and then some. The other motors are on ocasionally. I'm looking for some high quality noise deadening material to put on the covers. I was just wondering if anybody else had done this. I'm a bit dissapointed with the noise after spending 3K but will try to reengineer it to make it quieter.

 

[Lousyweather]

cannot really deaden that motor, but it MAY quest down after a week or two of use. Some motors do seem louder than others though, and you will always hear the auger motor, the pellets drop, the combustion blower, and the distribution fan.......pellet stoves are not dead quiet, due to the fact that fans are running. You can go to the dealers and listen to a working model they may be running, but thats difficult as stores are always noisier than the home (ambient noise)....I dont think you will have success dampening the unit tho.....and be careful with any really drastic mods.....any mod you make can invalidate the warrantee, as the unit wasnt UL tested with your mod. Small mods, no biggie, big mods, well, who knows?

 

[RidgeRunner56]

I never really noticed it, but then I have a hearing problem. Sitting here nice and toasty warm.

 

[referee38]

I got used to mine. Just thinking about how much heating oil cost makes it less noisy also plus the house is nice and warm.

 

[iron stove]

Compared to my old stove, the P-43 is much quiter, except fot the pellet crunching every so often.

 

[gfreek]

Think I may try Dynmat hood liner for heck of it. http://www.dynamat.com/products_car_audio_hoodliner.html And found this http://www.thefoamfactory.com/acousticfoam/soundbarriers.html

 

[allFIREDup]

not sure if Dynamat will work. i think it's only for stopping vibrations on metal...doesn't look like it has much mass to it to absorb sound. I'm looking for something for vibration and sound absorbing.

 

[76brian]

Dynamat is all about sound absorption and deadening, that's its primary purpose. It adds mass to sheet metal to stop it from resonating and passing sound waves. I've used it for car audio, its heavy stuff, lots of mass there.

Not sure how effective it would be for this though, the back of the stove is essentially wide open, with just a couple of shields covering the motors. If it was sealed I could see it helping some, but just putting some dynamat on the shields? I dunno... might be worth a shot, you wouldn't need much of it to try it out.

 

[allFIREDup]

I have no experience using dynamat...i dunno. The helicopter noise is probably from the way the exterior cooling fan blade cuts the air and not the motor itself. I'm still thinking what my options are with this. sound absorbing material, different brand motor or fan blade, fabricating another enclosure within the metal cover etc. etc.

 

[76brian]

Ok, wait... Helicopter noise? Something's definitely not right there.

You're sure its the combustion motor? Dunno what enclosure within metal cover you're talking about...

 

[allFIREDup]

I'm hearing a choppy fan blade sound and not just the hum of a smooth motor.

 

[Lineman30]

I'm hearing a choppy fan blade sound and not just the hum of a smooth motor.

Does your flame pattern change? Also, is the noise coming from the fire box area?

 

[allFIREDup]

flame pattern doesn't change and the sound is not in the firebox. It's the exterior cooling fan blade on the combustion motor.

 

[76brian]

Any chance you can take a video or something and put it on youtube so we can hear what you're hearing? Walk around the stove with the camera so we get sound from different angles.

Or, get your dealer out to look at the stove.

My P43 makes a bit of noise, but it's just your basic fan motor and air movement noise, nothing like what you describe. Yours doesn't sound like "normal" noise.

 

[bcb1]

The helicopter noise and the loud auger noise are two seperate issues. My new Harman Advance has both of them. The helicopter noise is caused by air draft - the flame pattern sort of jumps and vibrates at the very same time that you're hearing the helicopter grumbling sound. Though you may be able to calm it down, as far as I can tell there is no permanant fix for this issue. Lots of Harman owners have it.

The loud auger noise is a seperate issue and yes, I was also considering taking off all my sheetmetal panels and lining them with Dynamat extreme as well. It may help to some degree. You can get the dynamat extreme kit (enough to do two front doors of a car) on Amazon for about $50. But really, that would only be a bandaid fix. The problem is the auger motor, not the sound insulation of the stove. It really ticks me off that a stove that costs nearly $4,000 has an auger so loud that I can clearly hear it in the next room, above the sound of the blower motor when it's on high speed.

I'll keep updating as I find out more. My Harman dealer is making a service call soon, and I'm going to push him to swap out the auger motor. We'll see how that goes.

 

[Pelletfisky]

I am new to Pellet stoves and my P43 seems ok noise wise. A little fan noise and yes some noise from pellets falling into the pot but not that bad, but I have a wife and three little girls and an African Grey Parrot so yeah no big issue!

 

[bcb1]

Haha, good point. There is no doubt that some of us are more sensitive to sounds, creaks, rattles, etc than others. I bought a new Tahoe last year and I had a tiny but extremely annoying rattle in the headliner that drove me insane and my wife never even noticed it.

 

[76brian]

Just for reference, here's my P43 burning, with both blowers running, stove temp on high.