harman accentra air adjustment smoke smell in room

[buffresources]

Well the new Harman accentra installed in May has a good flame, starts and shuts down just fine BUT the heat coming out the vent in the front has a "smokey smell" and you can smell it in the basement when the basement door is opened.

Called Harman and they said to adjust the air clockwise 1/4 turn so here are the questions:

1) Does this fix sound right?

2) Customer service says air adjustment is a screw in hole next to igniter light on the panel. But the hole appears to be covered by some white material ...so before I start sticking a screw driver in the to puncture whatever it is thought I'd better check with those in the know?

By the way of a gripe: seems odd to me that the company, Nixa Hardware, springfield, mo considers this an "adjustment" and so they want to charge me a service call plus mileage on an under warranty stove that was set up in May and not run since. I can just imagine my 96 year old dad doing this "adjustment" on his stove because the dealer considers it a customer "adjustment"

 

[jackman]

The dealer should have checked the low draft setting (page 11 of my manual) as part of the install. My dealer came back to check it (without a charge) after it had been run for a few weeks.

If you have the freestanding model there are a pair of bolt holes in the bottom of the stove that are used for mobile home installations. Make sure the bolts are installed to fill in the holes.

 

[Bioburner]

Fix does not sound right as the adjustment pot switch controls the exhaust fan to get a correct draft if possible. Sounds more like a venting leak and the room fan is sucking up the offending smoke.
Good luck on trying to find and seal the leak. On startup in a darkened room with a flashlight you may find the leak in a seam or joint. Give a good wrap with silicone self bonding tape or a healthy film of silicone.
I don't know but was told that customer service has totally changed and now you get an operator trying to read the manual. 11/6

 

[buffresources]

Fix does not sound right as the adjustment pot switch controls the exhaust fan to get a correct draft if possible. Sounds more like a venting leak and the room fan is sucking up the offending smoke.
Good luck on trying to find and seal the leak. On startup in a darkened room with a flashlight you may find the leak in a seam or joint. Give a good wrap with silicone self bonding tape or a healthy film of silicone.

I think you are probably on to something. We have an "air kit" installed and just talked to the tech who originally installed the unit. He said to look for smoke at pipe joints on startup when the unit first fills with smoke....Tried this with flashlite and blinds down...couldn't see any.
The smoke smell is definitely coming from the hot air vent in the front. it does not occur on startup or when the fire is really high at the beginning of the heat cycle. You can really smell it when the fire kind of dies down and the unit is just heating.
The tech said it may be the pipe and he may have to upgrade it. It seems they might of had some trouble with the pipe they were using...I don't really profess to understand the physics of how smoke can get into the heat vent from a pipe leak? Oh well, its just a service call...right? Sure to be cheap since I bought the stove from them...ha!
thanks for the help.

 

[bogieb]

The Harman I got installed last February has always had a slight smoky smell upon start up, then it goes away. I did the light test recently (after reading about it on this forum), with exactly no signs of smoke. It never worried me before as it is a lot less than the woodstove I had previously, and it goes away quickly, so I checked more from curiosity than anything. If it continued to smell smoky, now that would be a different story altogether in my mind. And naturally YMMV

 

[alternativeheat]

The Harman I got installed last February has always had a slight smoky smell upon start up, then it goes away. I did the light test recently (after reading about it on this forum), with exactly no signs of smoke. It never worried me before as it is a lot less than the woodstove I had previously, and it goes away quickly, so I checked more from curiosity than anything. If it continued to smell smoky, now that would be a different story altogether in my mind. And naturally YMMV

It took me several times with the flashlight and start up to fund my leak and I had a suspicion where it was at. But it didn't always smell on start up either. Anyway, I thought it might be my clean out cap since I had not siliconed that. Sure enough finally found it. Well one time I was looking in the right spot, it was one little spot in that caps joint. I expected to see a more global haze but not, it's this tiny stream of smoke that just kind of curls up out of that spot. The convection blower isn't far away, it picks that smoke right up and blows it out the air outlet. But my problem is compounded by my neighbors wood stove. He stinks up the entire area when he starts that up or reloads it and we can pick that odor up in the house sometimes in a light NW wind..