Harman Accentra FS - new owner questions

[jenileigh]

We are new owners of the Harman Accentra freestanding model with the OAK. Have only had it for 7 days & never owned a pellet stove before. I have read the manual, watched the dvd, looked at the Harman sticky on the forum but I have a few questions. I have the stove in room temp Low mode, Feed rate 3, room temp 70 & we tried Hamer pellets but are currently using Lignetics. I am sure I need to better fine tune my settings. We are getting ready to clean the stove on Wednesday. There is a lot of build up on the compass design.. is that normal? And can you have a flame that is too high? I sent a pic to someone & they thought the flame was high... they don't own a Harman though. I get a lot of ebbs & flows with the flame being low then being high. Any & all input is greatly appreciated.

 

[jackman]

What you describe all sounds normal to me. If the flame is too high I usually just turn up the distribution fan speed to get the heat out of the stove and into the room. I always run my stove in room temp mode. My room temp sensor is installed about 5' high and not near any sources of cold such as a window. I scrape the burn pot every time I dump another bag into the hopper. About every 2 weeks I shutdown the stove and give it a light cleaning using a shop vac and an old paintbrush to wipe the ash off the compass rose. I do a deep cleaning after burning about 2 tons which is about the mid point of my heating season.

 

[Harman Lover 007]

If you are just 7 days in, you don't need to do much other than scape the burnpot and give a quick brush to the "compass" area that you are worried about. You will find that is just flyash and it will come right off. What you see is normal and will vary with the type of pellets you use.

 

[thebigo]

Another Accentra FS owner here in central NH. Played around with the settings the first couple of months, ultimately set the feed rate at 4, room temp max blower and only adjust the temp guage as needed.

Three years of burning box store value pellets and not a drop of oil has taught me the following:

Scrape the burn pot once a week, maybe more if a speedbump is noticed
Get a small paint brush to knock down the 'beard' one a week
Get a nylon bristle vac attachment to clean the compass
Run a leaf blower on the exhaust once a month - stove door open
The harman scraper is not the best design, pick up a 'dominator' scraper at tractor supply
Suspend the temp probe 5' - 6' above the floor on an outside wall
The stove will burn value pellets if properly sized, we burn mostly mwp, newp and geneva value labels - low quality pellets in many minds
A simple moist paper towel is sufficient to clean the glass
Pull the ESP and clean thoroughly once per year
Clean the rear fines box once per ton

 

[Phoenix Hatchling]

Another Accentra FS owner here in central NH. Played around with the settings the first couple of months, ultimately set the feed rate at 4, room temp max blower and only adjust the temp guage as needed.

Three years of burning box store value pellets and not a drop of oil has taught me the following:

Scrape the burn pot once a week, maybe more if a speedbump is noticed
Get a small paint brush to knock down the 'beard' one a week
Get a nylon bristle vac attachment to clean the compass
Run a leaf blower on the exhaust once a month - stove door open
The harman scraper is not the best design, pick up a 'dominator' scraper at tractor supply
Suspend the temp probe 5' - 6' above the floor on an outside wall
The stove will burn value pellets if properly sized, we burn mostly mwp, newp and geneva value labels - low quality pellets in many minds
A simple moist paper towel is sufficient to clean the glass
Pull the ESP and clean thoroughly once per year
Clean the rear fines box once per ton

This came from a bag of "super premium" pellets this morning. Shut my stove down in the middle of the night and temps dropped. Woke to 58 degrees where normally we would be around 72. Thought that great, this is to be the coldest week since owning the stove and it crapped out on me! Emptied the hopper and found this chunk jamming my pellet feed. I have the same stove as the OP and normally as I say, you can feed these things dog food and they'll burn. I guess it met its match with this little addition. Now my feed drop doesn't function properly, is squealing, and probably has more pieces deep in grinding away. Have to get back in there and poke around, open the back up and see what's to find.

 

[RKS130]

This is my third season with the Accentra FS and couldn't be happier. We clean once a week but only remove the plates and do a full cleaning every other week. After each ton we clean out exhaust vent. You will be happy happy so long as you burn decent pellets (we use HD Fireside ultras and they are great for us) and keep it clean.

 

[Dougsey]

Welcome Jeni! The high and low flame you speak of may be evened out with proper placement of the room sensing probe. You don't want it laying on the floor or in the warm air path exiting your stove. I added wire to mine and moved it to the other side of the room.

Scrape the burnpot every couple days (with stove running). Shut her down every two weeks and pull out the two plates on either side of the compass and clean back there using a vac and paint brush. Those are your heat exchangers so cleaning them will keep efficiancy high. Put the stove in test mode while doing this part and most of the ash will get sucked out.

Every 4-8 weeks, pull the cover that's below the plates and clean combustion fan/ESP area. Do not attempt this while in test mode... ash will blow everywhere!

Keep your vent pipe clean by running a brush through it every ton or two.

I clean my glass, when it's cool, by taking a damp paper towel, dipping it into the ash and scrubbing the glass with ash.

Room temp auto, feed rate 4... set it and forget it.

Enjoy your stove!

 

[jenileigh]

Thank you everyone for the suggestions / steps. As a first time user I am just being a nervous Nelly & don't want to do something wrong & kill my pellet stove in the first year. I am still trying to find the best place for the room sensing probe. I did up the distribution fan rate to high.. big difference in the room temps. Found I did not like the Hamer hot ones pellets.. the flames are so tall. And I didn't clean the stove last week but will be on Sunday. Thanks again!!