Harman 52i feed rate question

[seacarlson]

Hello, long time reader, first time poster here. First off, thanks for the Tons of Great info you all have provided me on these forums. My question is, With the stove temp dial on 1, and feed rate on 1 for a full 24 hour period, how many pellets do you think I am burning. The pellets Im using this season would be LaCrete – 8800 btus/lb and less than 0.4% ash (softwood). Any ideas if I kept my stove on that setting what I could caculate as far as fuel consumption goes? Thanks in advance. Oh, and this stove is a work horse by the way. I have a small little ranch, 1500 square foot house, this is in the living room, and with it being 28 outside, the house is at a consistant 71 with the settings at 1 on stove temp, with 50% distribution fan speed, and 1 on the feed ratio. This week comming the temps outisde will be droping to single numbers so Im sure I will have to bump the stove up to counter. But anyways, Thanks again

 

[chken]

Hello, long time reader, first time poster here. First off, thanks for the Tons of Great info you all have provided me on these forums. My question is, With the stove temp dial on 1, and feed rate on 1 for a full 24 hour period, how many pellets do you think I am burning. The pellets Im using this season would be LaCrete – 8800 btus/lb and less than 0.4% ash (softwood). Any ideas if I kept my stove on that setting what I could caculate as far as fuel consumption goes? Thanks in advance. Oh, and this stove is a work horse by the way. I have a small little ranch, 1500 square foot house, this is in the living room, and with it being 28 outside, the house is at a consistant 71 with the settings at 1 on stove temp, with 50% distribution fan speed, and 1 on the feed ratio. This week comming the temps outisde will be droping to single numbers so Im sure I will have to bump the stove up to counter. But anyways, Thanks again

I'll take a WAG and say a stove rated for 52k btu would burn about 1.5lbs an hour on its lowest setting. In that case you'd burn about a bag in 24 hrs.

 

[Harman Lover 007]

Do yourself a favor and read the Harman info in the link in my signature. You need to understand the feed rate on a Harman. Setting it at 1 will have your stove consistently underperforming.

 

[Phoenix Hatchling]

Not certain if that set up is efficient for you. The stove temp and feed rate both are very low, considering Lacretes burn efficiently and hot. What you have is a very low maintenance burn setting, which won't falter when the temps drop. Your stove will be calling for more pellets cause it will be freezing its ass off, but your feed rate is like having a governor on a gas pedal and won't allow any more to feed. Even if you jacked up the feed rate, the stove will still maintain its temp (not the ambient room temp). For me, that setting would last about 36 hours for a Baggie regardless of outside temp. Even when the temps drop, I have never used more than a bag and a half in 24 hours using room temp, with zero degrees and a chilling constant convective cooling wind blowing on the house. Inside would stay 70/72.

 

[seacarlson]

Ok, thanks for the input so far. Im new to a pellet stove, I upgraded from a Pacific summit wood stove insert. It was getting to be a little too much for my wife to keep going while i was at work. Of course I had no problem keeping the house up too temp with that thing. So now Im giving the pellet a good run, and so far I love it. But I'm confused about a couple things. Why, if I'm running my stove on 1 feed rate, and 1 on stove temp and distribution blower at 50% is that not efficient for the stove. Im only heating a very well insulated 1500 sf house. As from what I understand, having the stove temp set to one will keep the stove temp at a constant 100 degrees or so, what ever it is. and if its heating the house when its not all that cold out, whats the downside here? Im not sure, new stove for me, please walk me through this. The way I had it, was stove temp to 1, feed rate to 4, and distribution fan to 50% and kept the living room around 75 deg. too hot. so I turned down the feed to 1 and it keeps the room perfect, but how is this not effecient? Thanks so much for the info so far.

 

[IHATEPROPANE]

Ok, thanks for the input so far. Im new to a pellet stove, I upgraded from a Pacific summit wood stove insert. It was getting to be a little too much for my wife to keep going while i was at work. Of course I had no problem keeping the house up too temp with that thing. So now Im giving the pellet a good run, and so far I love it. But I'm confused about a couple things. Why, if I'm running my stove on 1 feed rate, and 1 on stove temp and distribution blower at 50% is that not efficient for the stove. Im only heating a very well insulated 1500 sf house. As from what I understand, having the stove temp set to one will keep the stove temp at a constant 100 degrees or so, what ever it is. and if its heating the house when its not all that cold out, whats the downside here? Im not sure, new stove for me, please walk me through this. The way I had it, was stove temp to 1, feed rate to 4, and distribution fan to 50% and kept the living room around 75 deg. too hot. so I turned down the feed to 1 and it keeps the room perfect, but how is this not effecient? Thanks so much for the info so far.

Keeping the feed rate at one doesn't allow the Harman to adjust to any variables. If it gets colder out your house will get colder....and the colder it gets the colder your house will get. All the while your Harman will be calling for more pellets but unable to feed any faster because the feed limit is 1. Set the feed to 4 and everything else whatever you want. That way, when the stove needs more pellets as it gets colder it will be able to adjust for it correctly.

 

[P38X2]

Do yourself a favor and read the Harman info in the link in my signature. You need to understand the feed rate on a Harman. Setting it at 1 will have your stove consistently underperforming.

Well, that's the first time I've heard that nonsense Forget the sticky, this needs to be permantly inlaid into the background of the pellet forum.

 

[Hoot23]

I'm running the same pellets and the feed is at 3.5 in room temp/ manual at 72. With these warm temps I'm getting 20+ hours on a bag of pellets. The stove will adjust itself. Set your feed rate using the 1" rule and let it ride and enjoy the holidays.

 

[seacarlson]

Keeping the feed rate at one doesn't allow the Harman to adjust to any variables. If it gets colder out your house will get colder....and the colder it gets the colder your house will get. All the while your Harman will be calling for more pellets but unable to feed any faster because the feed limit is 1. Set the feed to 4 and everything else whatever you want. That way, when the stove needs more pellets as it gets colder it will be able to adjust for it correctly

Yes, this is correct in room temp mode, but not correct for stove temp mode i believe /shrug, unless im reading your link the wrong way. But everything im reading points to what im doing fine as long as my house remains up to temp

 

[Harman Lover 007]

Yes, this is correct in room temp mode, but not correct for stove temp mode i believe /shrug, unless im reading your link the wrong way. But everything im reading points to what im doing fine as long as my house remains up to temp

You are reading it the wrong way....your feed rate should be somewhere between 3.5 and 4.5. It can be hard to understand the feed rate setting on a Harman. It is a set it and forget it adjustment. The reason you think you are OK is because you have a large capacity stove heating a relatively small space. Set the feed rate according to the procedure in the link. I promise you, if you leave it on 1, when it gets really cold out, you won't be happy.

 

[lbcynya]

Hello, long time reader, first time poster here. First off, thanks for the Tons of Great info you all have provided me on these forums. My question is, With the stove temp dial on 1, and feed rate on 1 for a full 24 hour period, how many pellets do you think I am burning. The pellets Im using this season would be LaCrete – 8800 btus/lb and less than 0.4% ash (softwood). Any ideas if I kept my stove on that setting what I could caculate as far as fuel consumption goes? Thanks in advance. Oh, and this stove is a work horse by the way. I have a small little ranch, 1500 square foot house, this is in the living room, and with it being 28 outside, the house is at a consistant 71 with the settings at 1 on stove temp, with 50% distribution fan speed, and 1 on the feed ratio. This week comming the temps outisde will be droping to single numbers so Im sure I will have to bump the stove up to counter. But anyways, Thanks again

Hello, I see a couple things going on here... You have a pretty large stove for a smaller, well insulated house. Because of this, at moderate temps, you can basically idle the stove and keep the space comfortable. While, fundamentally, there's nothing wrong with idling the stove to meet the heat needs, this will reusult in less overall efficiency and a dirty stove, pot and flue. You won't be getting the most of you investment and you will need to thoroughly clean the entire system often...not ideal...

Moving from a woodstove, you first instinct is to run your pellet stove like a woodstove... You paid for good technology, so why not take advantage of it..?

Based on your comments, you are a good candidate for ROOM TEMP AUTO, feedrate set to 3. This will not overheat the space, but will allow the stove to cycle between off, low burn and hi burn to keep things more constent with designed stove operation. See my Harman Works sticky for details on proper operation and calibration for Room Temp mode.

Learning how to get the most of your stove with your house does require a little trial and error, but stick the the fundamentals and you should find the right settings in no time. Enjoy!

 

[seacarlson]

Awesome, thanks for the reply's everyone. Very helpfull, I just ordered a sky-tech. Your so right ibcynya lol, I am running it like a wood stove.. I believe I will be best off setting room temp up and leaving it. Thanks again

 

[Crizzoft]

I'm a room temp manual setting kind of guy when it's real cold. Until recently I kept my feed rate at 3. My reasoning was trying to conserve pellets. Finally figured out heat output was more important than being cheap. Stove runs so much better by turning my feed rate up to 4- 4.5. Holds temp 100x better

 

[Proud Sub Vet]

I'm new to all this too - Just had my Harman 52i installed when it was 50 degress out (now it will be about -3 tonight) and this stove is really kicking out a bunch of heat! (it's heating my entire 2,300 sq. ft. house with ease). Ok, it may be 70/72 in the family room where the stove is... 67/68 on the other side of the house... and 62/63 upstairs, but to me that's heating the enitre house For having this stove for less than 2 weeks in REALLY COLD WEATHER, I am more impressed than I expected to be!

So... when the stove was installed, the guys said the feed rate should be left on 3 and it was better to leave the stove set to stove temp versus room temp. I did read in several places to set the feed rate to 4, so I tried setting it there and my burn pot seems to have fewer clickers and seems to be buring a little better (granted, I'm new so I'm still learning what things look like and act like).

OH for what it is worth - my first 20 bags were Barefoot pellets.... tonight I will be loading my first bag of Energex (I've been reading here to try different pellets and see what I like best...) I know getting a stove installed and first running in basically January is a heck of a time versus in the Fall, but trust me, with having a 2,300 electric-baseboard heated house, I've been able to turn off every thermostat in every room (and in a house like mine, there is one in every room - all 12 of them)