Harman Advance shutting down on Room Temp (Manual Ignite) with T-stat = I'm cold

[abrucerd]

Earlier this year, I hooked up a 7-day thermostat to my harman advance, and have been enjoying my stove automatically going into occupied and unoccupied mode. I keep it at room temperature mode, with the igniter set to manual so that it only goes into low burn mode when it cools down. It should not shut down completely.

Over the past few weeks, I've come home from work to a cold stove, even though the hopper is full of pellets. I usually fill the hopper before I leave for work... when I come home and the stove is off, it looks like it's only burned an hour or two in low burn mode before it shut itself down. Sometimes the status light indicates no pellets, and sometimes it's not blinking at all.

I thought maybe it was a jam (never had that before, 5th year burning), so yesterday I didn't touch hopper at all (didn't disturb the pellets), and just set the stove to start back up. It did, started feeding pellets without issue, which makes me think a jam isn't the issue.

Has anyone heard of this before, or think they know what could be causing it? It doesn't happen every day, maybe once or twice a week. It's only happened once during the evening while I'm sleeping... the majority of the time it happens during the day while I'm at work.

Let me know if you have any ideas. Thank guys!

 

[smwilliamson]

When the stove goes to idle, there os a chance that either it osnt producing enough heat and the esp os shutting down, not likely. Perhs you have too much draft amd the feed cannot keep up on idle, so the fire goes out, perhaps...

Does your advance have the feed box air cross over tube? You may have the early onset of gummy stove which os restricting the feed enough so that when you hot idle, especially for an extended period, the unti cannpt suppy enough fuel for the air. Clean the unit out, if theroblem persists then you may need to dial down the low draft, setting. Though if you have gummy stove, fixing that issue will return things more normal.

*very hard to type on phone....sorry for poor spellong

 

[Delta-T]

what is your feed adjuster set to? If its below 3 you can sometimes get underfeeding in low burn over extended periods.

 

[Turbo-Quad]

I didnt think thermostats worked with Harman.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

I didnt think thermostats worked with Harman.

There are plenty of things you can do with wire and bit of curiosity.

 

[Andy P.]

same thing happens to my advance. extended idle it seems it does not feed enough pellets to keep the fire going and i end up with a 6 flash status light. i dont know what my draft setting is as i bought the stove used and im not sure if i have that tube either. i just went back to room temp/auto igniter and dont have any more problems. igniters are fairly cheap and easy to replace.

 

[bcb1]

Yeah, a thermostat works just fine with a Harman and it's very easy to do. Just unplug one of the ESP sensor wires from the back of the stove and hook it to one side of your thermostat wire, put a spade terminal on your other thermostat wire and plug it into the ESP in the back of your stove (the one you just unplugged).

Set the stove on or slightly above the same temperature that your thermostat set point is on, and that's it.

I keep my Harman stove set to just above 70 degrees, and my programmable thermostat is set to 68 or 69 degrees, depending on the time of day.

 

[Jim H.]

also try putting the thermostat to hold.....that is what I do to keep it running all night. I have mine programmed to go off at 9 :30 pm then back on around 6 am when it is not as cold at night. I am thinking even in the manual mode the thermostat overrides it???? Just thinking not sure......

Jim

 

[bcb1]

also try putting the thermostat to hold.....that is what I do to keep it running all night. I have mine programmed to go off at 9 :30 pm then back on around 6 am when it is not as cold at night. I am thinking even in the manual mode the thermostat overrides it???? Just thinking not sure......

Jim

Jim, I have mine set to 66 degrees between 10:00pm and 3:45am. Saves some pellets that way.

It's set at either 68 or 69 the rest of the day. I like the way my wall thermostat is more accurate than the built-in Harman thermostat, but the best thing is being able to automatically set back the temperature in the late evening/night time hours.

You can run the stove in Auto mode or Manual mode with the thermostat, it doesn't matter. In Auto mode, the stove will fully shut down when it reaches the set point and then start back up when the thermostat calls for heat. In Manual mode the fire stays on a low "maintenance" burn - but the blower turns off when your set point temp is reached so it doesn't overheat the room.

 

[abrucerd]

Yesterday I took the stove apart and did a full cleaning and last night I decided to try setting it to Stove Temp. It was still warm from the beautiful day we had yesterday, so I set it between 1 and 2 (which I would do last year all the time, before getting my thermostat)

Woke up today and the stove was off... same thing, pretty much a full hopper. 6 blink status. So I'm fairly certain the low burn (room or stove temp mode) is at the heart of the issue.

I'm burning MWP, and I've noticed a lot of ash like others have said. When I cleaned the stove, I didn't clean the exhaust because I don't have a "T" pipe... I usually take it apart for my year end cleaning. Do you think that if the exhaust is full of ash, then that might cause it?

I have no idea how old the stove is since it came with the house and the previous owner gave me no information. I'm really hoping it's not a sign that my stove is past it's peak

UPDATE: Feed rate is set at 4

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Snip ...

Do you think that if the exhaust is full of ash, then that might cause it?

... snip

It certainly can.

 

[Lineman30]

I purchased a used Accentra this year. I too was having recurring blinking errors 6. How I cured it was increased my OAK to 3 inch and installed the crossover tube kit. Since then no problems and it's worked like a charm.

 

[abrucerd]

What's a crossover tube kit? I don't have an OAK, either.

 

[bcb1]

Snip ...

Do you think that if the exhaust is full of ash, then that might cause it?

... snip

It certainly can.

That's what I was thinking. If it's plugged up, so to speak, and not getting proper airflow that would explain why it's going out during the maintenance burn on manual mode.

 

[abrucerd]

Roger that.

I'll shut it down this weekend and open up the exhaust. I'll report back.

As always, thanks to everyone who's chimed in

 

[abrucerd]

I took the exhaust apart on sunday... It wasn't backed up much at all (I've seen it much fuller in other years), but I cleaned it out anyway. Turned the stove on last night and let it go through it's normal occupied to unoccupied cycle when I went to bed. Woke up this morning and the stove was off again.

Maybe it's just that been so warm that the stove doesn't stay hot enough because it doesn't have to heat the space...? That's the only thing I can think of, OTHER than my stove might be crapping the bed.

Anyway, I'll keep an eye on it and try Stove Temp mode again to see if that will run in low output mode (1-2 setting).

 

[Lineman30]

Is it giving you an error blinking 6?? If so maybe you combustion motor is getting weak for a low burn. Just a thought...

 

[Andy P.]

any updates? im still having the same problem almost daily in this warmer weather? can someone post the link to the crossover tube info? i dont know if mine has one or if thats the problem. one thing i can say is, i dont here the pellets dropping out of the hopper like i used to. im not sure if that has something to do with it or not.

 

[Lousyweather]

crazy idea, and my apologies if you've tried it...try just usning the room sensing probe on the thing, no Tstat....does it operate normally this way? Just trying to knock out the obvious issue (tstat)

 

[Andy P.]

no thermostat on my unit and the problem the op describes is exactly the same problem that im having so id guess that his problem isnt a tstat either. its like the stove isnt feeding enough pellets at low burn/idle to keep itself running

 

[Lousyweather]

no thermostat on my unit and the problem the op describes is exactly the same problem that im having so id guess that his problem isnt a tstat either. its like the stove isnt feeding enough pellets at low burn/idle to keep itself running

I guess then check the fines container and at the same tim epull the slide plate and ensure its clean....if it isnt, and has a residue on it, look up "gummy stove syndrome".......ack! Do you have any deposits in the bottom of your bin? Yellow-brown, and water soluble? Whats the slide plate look like? (youll need to remove it to tell)

 

[Andy P.]

thanks for the reply lousyweather. i empty the fines every week as part of my routine cleaning. i have not figured out how to access the slide plate yet although i have a feeling that will be tomorrows project. ive never noticed anything in the hopper for residue although i must admit im kind of ocd about keeping the hopper full.

 

[Andy P.]

ok. i just read the thread where vferdman put the bypass tube on his, it looks like a doable job although a major pita. after that i just watched the stove run. it appears that the slide plate runs off of a cam on the back of the auger gear which would lead me to believe that it is operated mechanically. i dont understand how the potential of a gummy stove is affecting the operation of that slide door when i looks like its mechanically opened and closed. my other question is, how does the esp factor into controlling the idle feed rate? im wondering if the esp is dirty or malfuctioning and not giving the proper feed rate information to the control board

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Andy the gummy stove issue prevents proper fuel flow, pellets sticky to the gummy, this can be a problem especially when the stove throttles back to a maintain fire burn.

It is also likely that your esp is dirty if you have a gummy stove and that will cause the esp to report the wrong exhaust temperature which will in turn fake out the control board program.

 

[Andy P.]

thanks for the info smokey. looks like im going to do some disassembly tomorrow morning