Harman P61A

[rpm4112]

I bought my Harman P61A in April. It's been sitting in my garage since then. I built the Hearth and tomorrow I install the stove. I hope to have pictures up tomorrow. My house is 2,000 sqft colonial, I am hoping the heat makes it upstairs without any problems. As it stands I have 4 tons in my garage. I'm thinking of getting one more.
2 NEWP
1 Wood Pellet CO
1 Stove Chow
Why do most people say that Harman's have no issues with cheaper pellets? Why are Harman's so good on cheaper pellets?

 

[Bigjim13]

Not sure why but it seems to be true. I have a P61 and have burned all sorts if pellets. Biggest difference I see is the amount of ash, heat difference is negligible from what I can see.

I'm sure somebody will be along shortly with a great technical answer as to why Harman's work so well, I'll leave it to them.

 

[RhodyPelletRook]

One more ton in that beast-- DO IT

 

[Boomer Sailor]

I have 2,300 sq. ft. and I need every ounce of BTU's I can get... so I go for the higher btu pellet. I agree with BigJim - the biggest difference will be the amount of ash.

As for why Harmans do well with any type of pellet - IMHO from what I have read - is due to what Harman calls it's PelletPro system and the other thing I don't remember the name of... but simply put is that your Harman will automatically adjust itself around the quality of fuel you put in it (cheap pellets have ~7,700+ btu/lb and the best pellets have 9,000 btu/lb), so depending on what heat setting you choose, if / when your stove needs more air, more pellets, etc., the stove will do it's best to get what it required out of what you're putting into it.

Better pellets will still be better pellets

 

[Boomer Sailor]

maybe another example could be.... on some stoves, you have to manually adjust the air intake, etc. to optimize the burn to account, say, for a different quality pellet you are using- on a Harman, you can't adjust the air intake if you wanted to - it's all automatic

 

[Don2222]

Hello
Yes, I have 2 - Harman P61a-2 stoves and the haram control panel will adjust the feed rate to keep the room temperature to the set point. No other stove that I know of can do that! Therefore it does not matter the BTU output of the pellets because the feed rate is adjusted automatically to keep the room temp constant!

 

[erzeez77]

I just purchased this stove(very excited) Waiting for it to come in. I moved into my house a year ago and currently heat with a oil furnace. Needless to say after a brutal winter and ridiculous oil prices I felt the need for the P61a. I feel like a little kid before xmas. The anticipation is killing me lol. This site has been very helpful with a lot of different questions and concerns of mine. Thanks for that.

 

[Boomer Sailor]

I just purchased this stove(very excited) Waiting for it to come in. I moved into my house a year ago and currently heat with a oil furnace. Needless to say after a brutal winter and ridiculous oil prices I felt the need for the P61a. I feel like a little kid before xmas. The anticipation is killing me lol. This site has been very helpful with a lot of different questions and concerns of mine. Thanks for that.

True - we are all that way - even those among us with wood stoves, pellet stoves, etc - we basically all look forward to that first burn! I had my stove on this morning for about 2 hours to take the chill of the house (42 outside - 60 inside) and the forecast calls for lower 40's each morning through Friday (27 on Thursday!).

I have electric baseboard heat - I was thrilled not to be turning THAT on this early in the year! (it's still technically summer you know)

 

[alternativeheat]

I bought my Harman P61A in April. It's been sitting in my garage since then.
Why do most people say that Harman's have no issues with cheaper pellets? Why are Harman's so good on cheaper pellets?

Why ? Because the P61a burns cheap pellets. Not all stoves get along with them or require deeper cleaning way more often to survive the cheap pellet routine. Some just snuff out on them. Now visualize yourself with a ton or two of those pellets with that combo of stove and coming home to clean it all out every other night to get heat. Don't mistake it though, the cheap pellets make a mess inside your stove non the less, just the Harman system keeps ticking.

 

[Harman Lover 007]

As others have said, its a combination of the bottom feed auger system and the exclusive control of the burn utilizing the ESP (Exhaust Sensing Probe) in the "tailpipe" of the stove. A Harman automatically adjusts itself and as Don said, no other stove has that technology. We all "paid" for that technology but to us Harman owners, it's well worth it in trouble free operation and much less frequent cleaning and maintenance. Using the cheaper grade pellets does require more frequent cleaning of the fines compartment however. Enjoy the stove, you're going to love it.

 

[lessoil]

Not sure why but it seems to be true. I have a P61 and have burned all sorts if pellets. Biggest difference I see is the amount of ash, heat difference is negligible from what I can see.

I'm sure somebody will be along shortly with a great technical answer as to why Harman's work so well, I'll leave it to them.

Same here

 

[rpm4112]

Install complete!! No more $800 electric bills when I only keep my house at 60 degrees.

 

[Boomer Sailor]

Install complete!! No more $800 electric bills when I only keep my house at 60 degrees.

Great pics! OMG EXACTLY!! My $940.00 January payment to Connecticut Light & Power alone convinced me I should find another way! (and that's $940 during a 'normal' January - I would have hated to see what this past winter would have cost me)

I turned my stove on yesterday morning and this morning for about 2 hrs to take the chill off the house... have you fired your stove up yet?

 

[railfanron]

Mine has been on for the last three days. The programmable thermostat has kept the house at 69 in the day and 65 at night. The stove has been on a dozen or so times. You're gonna love your new Harman.
Ron

 

[Arti]

Thx for the pics. I like a raised hearth, seems to look better when it is burning.

 

[lessoil]

Looks good!
I had to go with a raised pad as well so as to keep exhaust above the hot water baseboard.
Link to my post in 2008: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/p61a-2-installed.19298/#post-287199

Enjoy the stove! We have since added a 2nd stove.(Basement) Our oil usage for the last 14 months was 300 gal for hot water only.
If we had been burning oil the last 14 months for heat/hot water, probably would have gone through 1000-1100 gal.
Went through about 6 tons last Winter.

 

[erzeez77]

Question. My stove isnt installed yet and im a total newbie to this but I am trying to figure out what kind of pellets to use.

My plan.

The local store where I plan to buy from sells 4 different kinds. Should I buy a bag of each and monitor howmuch heat/ash/burntime etc with each bag? Any suggestions?

 

[Harman Lover 007]

Question. My stove isnt installed yet and im a total newbie to this but I am trying to figure out what kind of pellets to use.

My plan.

The local store where I plan to buy from sells 4 different kinds. Should I buy a bag of each and monitor howmuch heat/ash/burntime etc with each bag? Any suggestions?

Try a couple of bags of each. One really wont give you a good sample size. What kind of stove are you getting? Edit: I see you are getting a P61A....good choice.

 

[MikeNH]

The local store where I plan to buy from sells 4 different kinds. Should I buy a bag of each and monitor howmuch heat/ash/burntime etc with each bag? Any suggestions?

What were the brands? Just curious. I would take Harman Lover 007's advice and try different brands. I bought 5 bags of each brand I could find locally and that gave me a good few days of burning with each. It was a good way to get a sense of ash, heat, how dirty the glass gets, etc. I eventually settled on one

 

[erzeez77]

What were the brands? Just curious. I would take Harman Lover 007's advice and try different brands. I bought 5 bags of each brand I could find locally and that gave me a good few days of burning with each. It was a good way to get a sense of ash, heat, how dirty the glass gets, etc. I eventually settled on one

What were the brands? Just curious. I would take Harman Lover 007's advice and try different brands. I bought 5 bags of each brand I could find locally and that gave me a good few days of burning with each. It was a good way to get a sense of ash, heat, how dirty the glass gets, etc. I eventually settled on one

Not sure if you would know the brands seeing I reside in the great white north. But the brands are Lacwood, Pinnacles, LG Granules and Pinnacles fir.

 

[MikeNH]

Not sure if you would know the brands seeing I reside in the great white north. But the brands are Lacwood, Pinnacles, LG Granules and Pinnacles fir.

Gotcha....I've never tried any of them but if you've got time on your side, try sampling each. A few days worth of each would give you an idea.

 

[erzeez77]

Finally finished the installation today. Have had a fire on since 4pm. That baby throws some serious heat. I think I am really going to like this stove. Bring on the -30 old man winter.

 

[Big papa]

Yeah what they said!! Your gonna love your worrie free ironclad harman burn happily and congrats on the new stove its a heating powerhouse.

 

[alternativeheat]

Not sure if you would know the brands seeing I reside in the great white north. But the brands are Lacwood, Pinnacles, LG Granules and Pinnacles fir.

Congratulations on the P61 install, they run great !!

About the pellets and not sure what you have done for pellets yet but the LGs are the only ones I'm familiar with in your list. They are a decent pellet, light up well in the P61A, give good heat . They do seem to burn up a bit quicker than some, like LaCrete for instance but act similarly otherwise. I burned about a half a ton of those last year during the late winter pellet crisis. LG and Okanagan Platinum I found to be similar and the LG cost less.

 

[Ctcarl]

I bought my Harman P61A in April. It's been sitting in my garage since then. I built the Hearth and tomorrow I install the stove. I hope to have pictures up tomorrow. My house is 2,000 sqft colonial, I am hoping the heat makes it upstairs without any problems. As it stands I have 4 tons in my garage. I'm thinking of getting one more.
2 NEWP
1 Wood Pellet CO
1 Stove Chow
Why do most people say that Harman's have no issues with cheaper pellets? Why are Harman's so good on cheaper pellets?

From my experience with my p35i with pellets is this.with green supreme they were ok but after doing my full cleaning the flu and all.buckets of ash up the flu and stove was dirty.when burned green team night and day difference.burned hotter the heat was better and after cleaning the stove much less dirty.So yes your harman will burn most to all types of pellets.For me it was worth spending more this year getting 4 tons of the green team vrs the lesser priced green supreme.i also picked up 30 more bags of stove chow.