Bought this Harman Accentra insert ~7 years ago and other than a replacement ignitor has been great. Recently the stove has not been shutting off from the wall timer and resorted to opening hopper lid to stop feed of pellets. I read the threads on here and did the 5 minute shutdown / hard reset but same results. Had down a thorough cleaning (so I thought) at beginning of heating season and minor cleaning since then. I don't use as much recently since pellet boiler install, just 2 hours in morning & evening.
Last year I built a cleaning / sliding frame from some posts I saw on here from 1" square tubing. This enables me to slide complete unit out so easy. Using the cleaning brush supplied with the stove, I had previously only pushed the brush in the left exhaust port maybe 3/4's it length, it was not enough, I thought it had hit a 90degree port that fed into the right side port and could go no further. When I removed the cleaning plate at the rear where the esp sensor / exhaust fan lives, the end of the brush was not coming into that chamber. The brush was pushing / moving ash into that chamber from a port I had not noticed before, oooops. Reshaping the brush end a bit so could get round a bend or angle, I was able to push the brush all the way to the chamber at the rear, it came with quite a bit of ash. The handle end of the brush was almost all the way into the entrance of the left port, way further than I had ever pushed the brush. I cleaned out all the ash, thorough clean everywhere, including the distribution blower underneath. The esp sensor was not that dirty.
It has been 3 days and stove has been shutting off correctly ever since maybe its first ever real clean.
I am hoping the ash build up was causing the stove to not shut down and it is now fixed.
Having the cleaning frame certainly helped in seeing what I was doing wrong.
Hopefully this will help other Accentra insert folks.
Last year I built a cleaning / sliding frame from some posts I saw on here from 1" square tubing. This enables me to slide complete unit out so easy. Using the cleaning brush supplied with the stove, I had previously only pushed the brush in the left exhaust port maybe 3/4's it length, it was not enough, I thought it had hit a 90degree port that fed into the right side port and could go no further. When I removed the cleaning plate at the rear where the esp sensor / exhaust fan lives, the end of the brush was not coming into that chamber. The brush was pushing / moving ash into that chamber from a port I had not noticed before, oooops. Reshaping the brush end a bit so could get round a bend or angle, I was able to push the brush all the way to the chamber at the rear, it came with quite a bit of ash. The handle end of the brush was almost all the way into the entrance of the left port, way further than I had ever pushed the brush. I cleaned out all the ash, thorough clean everywhere, including the distribution blower underneath. The esp sensor was not that dirty.
It has been 3 days and stove has been shutting off correctly ever since maybe its first ever real clean.
I am hoping the ash build up was causing the stove to not shut down and it is now fixed.
Having the cleaning frame certainly helped in seeing what I was doing wrong.
Hopefully this will help other Accentra insert folks.
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Now I'm going to work off the roast beef sandwich by chasing the snowblower in -5 degree winter bliss
Better?
