Hi All--
We have a new Harman P43, about 2 months old. We have burned about 70 bags of pellets. It has been making augur noise, mostly audible on startup. This is probably in the gearbox, because the sound is pretty far back in the stove. We called the store last week about it, and they said they would come check sometime. I clean the burn chamber pretty much daily. But this last time we had a problem when it was starting up. There was a muffled bang, loud enough to scare us some. It seemed louder than the pop you get when the augur gets caught on a pellet. By the time I made it around the corner to see, you could see smoke venting from all sides of the glass door! It was coming out on all sides, curling away in a way that told me it was high overpressure. My wife was right there, and she thinks that it flashed.
I figure that it was a detonation at startup, caused by pellet dust swirling until it ignited. So I'm emptying the hopper right now, and vacuuming the thing out. It did contain the problem, but I worry about the glass and people sitting in front of that.
The store had told me it was safe to run, but now I'm not as sure. I guess I'm going to clean it and keep people away as it starts.
Anybody else had this problem?
We have a new Harman P43, about 2 months old. We have burned about 70 bags of pellets. It has been making augur noise, mostly audible on startup. This is probably in the gearbox, because the sound is pretty far back in the stove. We called the store last week about it, and they said they would come check sometime. I clean the burn chamber pretty much daily. But this last time we had a problem when it was starting up. There was a muffled bang, loud enough to scare us some. It seemed louder than the pop you get when the augur gets caught on a pellet. By the time I made it around the corner to see, you could see smoke venting from all sides of the glass door! It was coming out on all sides, curling away in a way that told me it was high overpressure. My wife was right there, and she thinks that it flashed.
I figure that it was a detonation at startup, caused by pellet dust swirling until it ignited. So I'm emptying the hopper right now, and vacuuming the thing out. It did contain the problem, but I worry about the glass and people sitting in front of that.
The store had told me it was safe to run, but now I'm not as sure. I guess I'm going to clean it and keep people away as it starts.
Anybody else had this problem?