P61a Strange Behavior - Any Ideas?

[Sawduster]

I did my regular weekly cleaning on my 2 1/2 year old Harmon P61a, and when it was all over the stove would not start again. I have had zero problems with this stove and am pretty meticulous about cleaning it. It was warm here this weekend so I did an extra good cleaning taking off the back panels and vacuuming everything I could get at with the hose. When I went to turn the stove on a day later and nothing happened. All the lights lit up normally and yet no pellets would fall, no auger would turn nothing. I unplugged it and plugged it back in a few times and nothing. I took all of the pellets out, worked the slide plate back and forth, opened the box (forgot what it was called) on the back with the wingnut, and vacuumed out a tablespoon of fines. Put it back together and nothing.

I was about to call the stoveshop for a service call, and tried to figure out one more time what I had done to cause this problem. I retraced my cleaning steps from the day before. I had put the vacuum on the back of the combustion fan motor and vacuumed it so that the fan spun with the vacuum suction and wondered if that could have caused a problem. I then felt the back of the fan motor and it was very hot, but would not turn when plugged in. I unplugged the stove and manually spun the fan motor with a screwdriver blade. Plugged the stove back in turned it on, and she started right up.

I have a couple of questions. If the combustion fan motor does not immediately come on, does the stove do nothing? Does spinning the fan motor with a vacuum do any damage? I got no blink errors when the stove would not operate.

 

[Delta-T]

if the combustion motor does not spin, then nothing else will happen. vaccing the motor shouldn't hurt it. might have just landed the motor in one of those mysterious neutral spots between the magnets.

 

[Sawduster]

Thank you Delta-T. I like that explantation, and I'm going to go with it. Anyhow it is working normally now, and that is the main thing.

 

[Bigjim13]

Thank you Delta-T. I like that explantation, and I'm going to go with it. Anyhow it is working normally now, and that is the main thing.

I also have the P61A and so far am very happy with it (knocking on wood). It's amazing to me though how much more cleaning should be done regularly VS. what the dealer showed me how to do when they installed it! Thanks to all the members of this site, I got a bit of education!

As for the temps, how do you like 52 degrees on Saturday and now 13*. Gotta love it! and thank God for the Pellet stove!

 

[Sawduster]

Big Jim, I agree 100% about the amount of cleaning that the dealer talked about before and during the installation. It seems like after every cleaning I tell my wife, as much as I love the pellet stove, they are clearly not for everyone. I can't see any of the people that I happen to work with ever being able to cope with the maintenance and work of a pellet stove - of course they all have the luxury of being able to be on natural gas. I however would never be able to go back to freezing, always being afraid to turn up the thermostat, with my oil fired boiler - I worship my stove - this morning 10° outside and 76° inside.

 

[maglite67]

When you cleaned your stove you knocked something loose when you fired your stove it got sucked into your combustion fan and stalled it. after 32 mins it would have gone out on failed ignition as the harman does not have a Vac switch error code. Your version of control board does not check the circuit newer boards only combustion light would have been on. Your board has no idea if a motor is there or not just sends power the vac switch is connected to the auger motor and ignitor if the stove can't make neg pressure no power will go through the switch no feed or ignition.

 

[Bigjim13]

Big Jim, I agree 100% about the amount of cleaning that the dealer talked about before and during the installation. It seems like after every cleaning I tell my wife, as much as I love the pellet stove, they are clearly not for everyone. I can't see any of the people that I happen to work with ever being able to cope with the maintenance and work of a pellet stove - of course they all have the luxury of being able to be on natural gas. I however would never be able to go back to freezing, always being afraid to turn up the thermostat, with my oil fired boiler - I worship my stove - this morning 10° outside and 76° inside.

When we bought our house we knew that we would need to eventually do the furnace. We ended up with a pellet stove though when we got our pre buy price in 2008. It was some crazy amount like $4.99/gallon. It would have cost us well over 5k to heat our house (oil and propane for hotwater).

I agree that they are not for everybody. I have kind of made it a hobby to keep the stove clean and running smoothly. I like taking the time to figure it out. I can definitely see though where people would not be happy with the amount of cleaning and upkeep involved when you have a dealer that says "set it and forget it" and scrape the burnpot and empty the ashpan.