Harman P43 Squeak and Combustion Blower Shutoff

[CoreyWilliam]

Hello everyone. I'm new to posting but have used this site in the past to troubleshoot. I have two issues going on with my stove that may or may not be related.

1. My Harman P43 has been squeaking like crazy for months. For a while I could get it to stop by turning the temp all the way up for a few minutes but recently it has been impossible to stop. I have done multiple deep cleans of the stove, scraping the burn pot with a screwdriver, poking the holes in the burn pot, using dry graphite powder on pellets, and cleaning the fines box. The squeaking occurs whenever pellets are being fed, leading me to believe the auger and auger motor needs to be replaced (the guy who works on our stove confirmed this too). Just as I was about to buy the parts for $150 to have them replaced, we ran into issue number 2...

2. Two nights ago I started the pellet stove as normal. Shortly after it ignited the combustion blower went off and the stove went silent. There were no error codes and everything else still seemed to be normal. The flame became lazy and a LOT of smoke seeped out of the stove into the house. Now despite it being cold out we refuse to run the stove because if that happened when we were asleep or not home it surely would have set off the smoke detectors and probably harmed our dog in some way. We had to open all the windows and run a fan in 20 degree weather.

Could the combustion blower need to be replaced? It is really loud when the stove is running. Could that have somehow caused the squeaking?

 

[mikkeeh]

The squeaky noise may be carbon buildup on the end of the auger. That stuff gets really hard. You’ll probably have to remove the auger to thoroughly clean it.
Was there any code lights flashing when the combustion motor shut down? Are all gaskets....both door and hopper in good condition?

 

[CoreyWilliam]

The squeaky noise may be carbon buildup on the end of the auger. That stuff gets really hard. You’ll probably have to remove the auger to thoroughly clean it.
Was there any code lights flashing when the combustion motor shut down? Are all gaskets....both door and hopper in good condition?

I'll be honest I'm pretty inexperienced with this type of stuff. There definitely wasn't any flashing when the combustion motor shut down - I made sure to check the panel for that. The gaskets seem to be okay but I'm not sure what to look for to see if they need to be replaced?

 

[mikkeeh]

Will the combustion motor run in test mode?

 

[greg13]

Try doing a deep clean on the unit. it could be just packed with crap. A little 3 in 1 oil on the motors couldn't hurt either.

 

[CoreyWilliam]

Will the combustion motor run in test mode?

Yes but it is very loud.

 

[CoreyWilliam]

Try doing a deep clean on the unit. it could be just packed with crap. A little 3 in 1 oil on the motors couldn't hurt either.

So I've never pulled the stove from the wall myself to take off the back panel but our guy does this when he comes out once per year to do a yearly clean. I'm not sure how the exhaust vent connects to the stove... What would I need to do to put it back together?

 

[mikkeeh]

Pull the ash pan out...and see if the combustion motor is free spinning. You don’t have to move the stove to do this. From there you can look out the exhaust pipe. When was it cleaned last and how many pellets since cleaning.

 

[CoreyWilliam]

Pull the ash pan out...and see if the combustion motor is free spinning. You don’t have to move the stove to do this. From there you can look out the exhaust pipe. When was it cleaned last and how many pellets since cleaning.

I cleaned it about 2 weeks ago and the blower was free spinning at that time. Putting the stove into test mode does turn the combustion blower on still. Every 1/2 pallet I clean it to the best of my ability but once per year have our guy really pull it all apart and clean it (so this was done last summer). When I last cleaned it I brushed the combustion blower, scraped down the walls, scraped the burnpot, cleaned fly ash under the burnpot by loosening the wing nuts, and pulled the right panel off to access the fines box and clean that.