Dirty stove? lazy flame? WAY TOO SOON

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ckage83

New Member
Feb 1, 2011
10
New Hampshire
I recently picked up and installed a Harman P61A. Its a great stove and it heats the whole house for the most part. I've been pretty religious about scraping the burn pot every time I fill the hopper. I have burned less than 1/2 a ton and I've cleaned the ashpan twice (full each time). I've shut it down and brushed and scraped the interior of the stove.

Lately I have had a really crummy flame, very lazy, and lots of unburned pellets and the burn pot filling with poorly burned pellets. I'm currently burning curran mixed.

The vent is a harman OAK direct vent that terminates to a jet cap. No vertical rise (per the dealer).

The manual says to give the stove a good cleaning and to clean the area behind the ashpan (where the fans are) once per ton. But I've not yet burned nearly enough to justify a tear down and cleaning. And the last symptom: Glass gets crazy dirty. I mean 1/2 way through a bag and most of the glass is covered with soot. Its dense enough to not be able to see the flame!

I picked up a small shop vac but it seems to be burning out the motor with minimal use. Seals are good, no odors in the house, top of the jet cap is dirty but not clogged. Seems like this is a lot of early symptoms of the stove being super dirty with not much use.

Any ideas or help would be great.

Thanks
-Chris
 
Here are some internal pics while it is cooling down:
IMAG0094.jpg

IMAG0092.jpg

IMAG0093.jpg
 
The black glass and the unburned pellets usually indicate you need more combustion air. Should be some way to adjust this on the stove. I'm not familiar with your stove so i can't help you in how to adjust this. Your manual should have something. I do know that on my stove, if I try to have to low of a feed setting, it is real tough to adjust it correctly to get it to not blacken the glass.
 
I had a similar problem on my XXV, turns out on mine there was a screen on the outside vent to keep birds/etc out, this was some what blocked by soot/ash. Once I brushed this off and made sure it was clear the stove went back to running normal and the window would stay clean for 3-4 days.
 
When you installed the stove did you remove the insulation on the OAK side of that Harman pass through you have in your wall?

Stove cleaning is based upon actual ash generated and is not precisely related to a specific weight of pellets burned.

Things that cause a dirty burn include but are not limited to the following:

Bad gaskets (any of them, hopper, door, door glass, and burn pot).

Ash build up in both the venting and the stove.

Insufficient combustion air which can be caused by: bad combustion blower, plugged air intake or OAK, improper set up of the stove.

A dirty esp.

Once you have bad burns occurring you need to both find the cause and do a full cleaning. If you find and fix the cause and don't do the full cleaning you'll likely be right back looking at more bad burns.

That ash and crud gets everywhere once the bad burns start.
 
I have the feed setting on mine set to 3. This is the required setting per the manual and the dealer. I can up it to 4 or more but I thought the feed setting was based on the feed rate and size of pellets, not the amount of air being drawn into the stove. I'm going to give it a super cleaning today since the temps are finally above freezing. I'll swing by the local stove shop and pick up a 3" brush too. Try and clean out the piping and the end of the vent.
 
Smokey: About a week ago I was throwing 6 blink codes which the manual says is bad combustion. The night that happened was really windy and I think we got a bit of restriction with 40+mph winds. I've gone over all the gaskets and they look fine. When I did the install we cleared all of the insulation out from the box we cut into the wall. There is a filter that is sandwiched between the innter and outer portions and that is fine too. This is a recent problem so I am guessing that it must be related to being needed to be cleaned completely.

Like I said, I haven't burned even 1/2 a ton yet so I think it is a bit early to need this kind of maintenance but the Curran pellets seem to be kind of dirty. I guess I will update this post this evening when I get it cleaned out and re-lit.
 
ckage83 said:
... I've gone over all the gaskets and they look fine.
Click to expand...

I hope that by going over the gaskets that means you tested them, you never judge gaskets by looks.
 
@ SB.."I hope that by going over the gaskets that means you tested them, you never judge gaskets by looks."

Gee.. we elect politicians that way.
Draft college players..
Marry our spouses..
Buy our cars and trucks..
walk on ice..
Buy that favorite fishing lure..
Hire our teachers..( sorry, couldn't help it)

So we test our pellets..
Our beer..
Most of our spouses..( :) ..)


I say we are far ahead of society already !
 
Taperbill said:
...
walk on ice..
Click to expand...

Maybe you walk on ice after just looking at it, I want to be around to eat some good food and drink some good brews. I try to stay off of the ice.
 
yeah right....I have the equipment to test the seals on my stove. 99% of people do not know how to do that or want to know. I'm one of those people too.

Either way, spent an hour cleaning the stove from top to bottom and the exhaust vent. Local stove shop is closed on mondays so I just stuffed a shop vac down the exhaust. The Jet cap was very dirty. The tip was almost clogged. I verified the intake was clean and functioning. End result is a very stong flame, lots of heat coming out of the stove and no soot build up YET. Guess she needs to be cleaned twice as much as reccomended or I need to invest in a different brand of pellets next season.
 
I have no idea about how much time your stove spends in low burn mode, so I'll just mention this and push it no further.

There is a provision on the the stove to match the stove to house voltage and to clean up the low burn.

You can actually create a lot of crud that would not get created when in higher burn mode. This is over and above any inherent ash content differences in the pellets you burn.

Also continually burning a stove that is vented into the prevailing wind is the equivalent of burning with decreased combustion air flow.
 
This is just a shot, I have the same set up on my advance and you can adjust the OAK you have, just look where the flex pipe connects to the (black) wall plate you have there and you can adjust the air intake by removing the screw and twisting that outside air fitting I have mine set to 7 I think the higher the number the more air you get.
 
ckage83 said:
yeah right....I have the equipment to test the seals on my stove. 99% of people do not know how to do that or want to know. I'm one of those people too.
....
Click to expand...

Most gaskets can be tested using a simple strip of paper, the test is known as the dollar bill test.
 
Do you have a screen in the end of your jet pipe? Might want to remove that during the burning months and install when the heating season is over to keep the birds out.
 
How does one test a window Gasket?
Ours was replaced last year, needing to replace the glass on the Harman Accentra after the eight ball hit and cracked it.
Two days ago we had a power outage for a few hours before the stove was able to run again. In the morning the burn-pot was full, the flame director had been lifted off the top of the burn-pot, and a lazy fire was burning in the ash tray. We shut the stove down, with the combusion motor running the entire day. The stove was slow cooling down and still had embers burning in the ash pan today, close to 48 hrs after the power outage.
I cleaned the stove tonight and noted the top of the window gasket had "slipped" up and out enough to view a small gap between the glass and door.
I refitted the gasket and needed to tighten the bolts holding the glass in place against the gasket and window opening, yet
am still able to slide or move the gasket at the top of the window.
Before running the stove again, I think a new gasket is in order. The replacement gasket used was 3/8".
It looks like a fairly easy job.
Any thoughts?
(In the future I know I'm gonna be checking those "window fastener bolts")
 
ckage83 said:
Smokey: About a week ago I was throwing 6 blink codes which the manual says is bad combustion. The night that happened was really windy and I think we got a bit of restriction with 40+mph winds. I've gone over all the gaskets and they look fine. When I did the install we cleared all of the insulation out from the box we cut into the wall. There is a filter that is sandwiched between the innter and outer portions and that is fine too. This is a recent problem so I am guessing that it must be related to being needed to be cleaned completely.

Like I said, I haven't burned even 1/2 a ton yet so I think it is a bit early to need this kind of maintenance but the Curran pellets seem to be kind of dirty. I guess I will update this post this evening when I get it cleaned out and re-lit.
Click to expand...
 
ckage83 said:
Smokey: About a week ago I was throwing 6 blink codes which the manual says is bad combustion. The night that happened was really windy and I think we got a bit of restriction with 40+mph winds. I've gone over all the gaskets and they look fine. When I did the install we cleared all of the insulation out from the box we cut into the wall. There is a filter that is sandwiched between the innter and outer portions and that is fine too. This is a recent problem so I am guessing that it must be related to being needed to be cleaned completely.

Like I said, I haven't burned even 1/2 a ton yet so I think it is a bit early to need this kind of maintenance but the Curran pellets seem to be kind of dirty. I guess I will update this post this evening when I get it cleaned out and re-lit.
Click to expand...

you mentioned a "filter" sandwiched between the inner and outer portions of the intake kit (I assume)........there isnt one in the intake kit....no filters at all....could it be possible the insulation wasnt removed? There is a piece which needs to be cut out on the inside portion of the intake kit.........its white, would be just inside the smaller hole (intake hole) of the kit....my apologies if I misunderstood your post......
 
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