Harman XXV taking too long ignite

[escobarmj]

My igniter on my XXV has been taking longer to start lately. I have only had the stove for a few weeks. When I start the stove, the burn pot fills all the way to the top before the pellets ignite. I had to set the feed to 1 to avoid having unburned pellets fall into the ash pan. I gave the burn pot a thorough cleaning. I also opened the door to the igniter and cleaned that comparment out. Is it normal for the burn pot to fill to the point of spilling pellets? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[imacman]

Well, I don't own a Harmon, but that doesn't sound right.

My Astoria gets about 1/4 full before the ignitor gets the pellets hot enough. It's never come close to filling the burn pot.

 

[flashbang]

My Advance fills about 1/4-1/2 full then the smoke and fire happen in about 4-6 minutes. Setting is at 3. I heard on this board the setting is much like a govener in auto mode for start only then will feed at a higher rate to get to your set temp.

 

[escobarmj]

My Advance fills about 1/4-1/2 full then the smoke and fire happen in about 4-6 minutes. Setting is at 3. I heard on this board the setting is much like a govener in auto mode for start only then will feed at a higher rate to get to your set temp.

My auger turns continuously until the stove ignites. Does the advance do the same, or does the auger stop at some point and wait for a flame temp? I am wondering if my circuit board needs a dipswitch setting change?

 

[flashbang]

Dip it if you must. My auger does not spin non stop.

 

[cantman]

Have you scraped your burn pot thoroughly? Make sure all the air
holes are clear. Also, tap on the side of the burn pot with your
scraper to dislodge any ashes/flyash. Lastly, make sure the burn pot clean out
is not filled with ashes.

 

[escobarmj]

I did scrape the burn pot thoroughly, but have not tried tapping the sides with the scraper. I will try that tomorrow. I think that I did clean the burn pot clean out, but only used my finger. I will try the vacuum also.

 

[Kenny1]

Well, give the whole pot a good scraping, and also clean out under the pot. On my P61, there are two wing nuts that allow access under the pot. That is where the ignitor is located. If it is full of ash, it will take longer to ignite. Check you manual, it describes this better than I can.

I do notice that my stove will light faster after the 1 ton cleaning, and when it is getting dirty it will take longer to ignite (yes, sometimes there are pellets pushed out of the burn pot).

Cheers

Kenny

 

[Kenny1]

Oh, and here is a cleaning guide for the P38/P61 - yours may be similar. Also the photos are a nice reference.

(broken link removed to http://www.harmanstoves.com/maintenance/p38&p61cleaninginstructions;.pdf)

 

[BignBeefy]

Dont forget the 4 holes near the auger in the pot I never knew they were there till I used a big flathead as a scraper for nooks and crannys LOL

 

[GVA]

No we mean REALLY scrape it................ the klinkers that form on the burnpot sometimes are not easily removed.....
Make sure the intake flapper is swinging free too.
Tapping the burnpot loosens the ash build up on the igniter.
A quick way to clean the ash under the burnpot that you can't get to with your finger, is to put a shop vac set to blow air, and blow it into the fresh air intake with the access cover removed under burnpot.
I would do this at the end of the season
DISCLAIMER:
*******Do this with the stove door closed, the stove off (or in test to have the comb blower running exhausting the dust that is created)and the stove cool********

 

[lecomte38]

Your auger should not turn continuously until it starts. you have a control problem. My insert fills the pot about 1/4 full then stops until the flames start ( about 4 minutes)

 

[escobarmj]

Thanks all, I did some additional scraping and tapped the burn pot. Seems to work better. Kenny, thanks for the cleaning guide.

 

[Hammerjoe]

That sounds like the dreaded dead ignitor syndrome that the Harmans suffer from.

From your reports the ignitor is about to blow anytime soon.
From my experience (believe me, I am on my sixth ignitor on my accentra) if the stove fails to ignite, or if the pot fills with pellets then it means that the ignitor is not producing enough heat.

You should contact your dealer to make sure they have ignitors because you will need one soon and the really cold days are coming.

 

[Tom D]

had my harman xxv for a year now and love the stove but i just
replaced igniter. have 2 years left on warranty. i guess when it
is up i will have to buy couple extra.

 

[escobarmj]

After a thorough cleaning of the burn pot and the ignitor compartment, I lit the stove twice and found that it takes between 6 and 7 minutes to ignite. It also seems that ignition is preceeded by lots of smoke. That could be because the burn pot is full of pellets. Fortunately the stove is smart enough to stop feeding pellets until it senses heat. I am interested if any other harman owners are seeing ignition times in the 6 to 7 minute range? If this is totally abnormal, then I will contact the dealer on Monday. I suspect that he will do absolutely nothing until I report that it no longer functions.

Assuming that the ignitor ultimately fails, I am wondering if this is something that I will have to wait for the dealer to do, or is it easy enough to get the part and swap it? I hate to wait the typical 2 weeks for this especially since i just had the thing installed last month.

 

[cantman]

I've never timed my igniter on the XXV, but 6 to 7
minutes sound about right to me. The chamber does
fill with some smoke until the pellets "catch fire".

 

[Bushbuck]

I don't know if this is the same thing, but I will tell you what I just went thru on my P61.
The stove took a while to light and then after a couple weeks was timing out and I had to keep trying to start it. My stove was also dumping quite a few pellets into the ash pan without lighting. It got to a point that it would not light after 45 minutes of trying. This was on a stove about a month old.
My dealer installed a new igniter.. Same problem. They tested the igniter and it was heating correctly. We had conversations with Harman back and forth, and I will say they were real helpful.
First, on the cradle that holds the ignitor, there is a piece that looks like a stick of gum. Come to find out that stick of gum looking flat piece was installed backwards. we flipped that around the right way and reinstalled only to find out it still did not light..
Then upon inspection we noticed about a 1/8" gap between the ignitor and the burn pot. Come to find out due to the flat piece of metal I was talking about being installed incorrectly, it bent the cradle just enough to allow to much air to pass between the ignitor and the burn pot.
We switched out the cradle that hold the ignitor and the new cradle put the ignitor much closer to the pot..
Success!! this stove now starts right up in under 5 minutes every time.
Just that little extra space between the ignitor and the pot made a huge difference. This was on a 2008 stove. I don't know if your ignitor is set up the same way. but it may be worth a look..

 

[tinkabranc]

I have the same stove but never really timed when it fires up.
Usually ignites around 5-6 minutes tho.

 

[escobarmj]

Thanks for the replies. I took my ignitor out and it looked like it was installed properly. I was curious as to how to disconnect the ignitor since the connectors are so far inside the stove. I hope that the burn pot doesn't have to be removed. Can the connectors be pulled out the back of the unit? Looks like they are buried under high temp silicone? If that is the case, then it would be relatively easy to replace an ignitor. Has anyone done this on a XXV?

Thanks again.

 

[greeby]

I've just burned my 7th bag of pellets in my new XXV and was surprised to see a ton of clinkers and unburned pellets in my ash pan.

I've been burning the stove on room temp mode with the temp set to about 75, feed at 3.5, fan switch on high and the blower control set to about 1/2 way between H and L and igniter on auto.

I've been scraping the burn pot every time I poured a new bag of pellets in (scrape the burn pot and heat exchanger and tap the side of the burn pot to get the ash off of the igniter).

I have been noticing that when the stove lights off I get a HUGE fire in the burn pot (so much fire in fact that it is "rolling over" the top of the stove and "licking" the glass on the door). This has been causing a huge amout of soot and ash on the door glass. Having never owned a pellet stove I thought this was normal...but after much reading here I am thinking that this is a bad thing.

I am also seeing ash being expelled from the stove vent pipe outside (not a huge amount but enough that I has to hose off the back porch today).

So today we did a thourough cleaning. We scraped the burn pot and heat exchnager and vacuumed out the burn pot, igniter area and exhaust as well as all the areas inside the stove.

After I cleaned the stove I set the stove to stove temp mode and left the other settings as they were.

When I started the stove again I kept the door open to see how many pellets were pushed into the burn pot before it stopped and waited for ignition. Well, the auger never stopped pushing pellets into the fire pot. When the fire pot was reaching full i started removing pellets by the handfull and throwing them back into the hopper so the pot never got over 1/3 full.

Once the igniter turned off I put the stove in manual mode.

Ignition took about 4 minutes and the fire has not gotten anywhere near as high as I have seen it in the past few days. Mater of fact it's only reached about 1/2 way up the heat exchanger.

The stove has been burning happily for about 4 hours just chugging along with a nice fire.

So I'm guessing that I should call the dealer tomorrow and get them out here?

 

[escobarmj]

I've just burned my 7th bag of pellets in my new XXV and was surprised to see a ton of clinkers and unburned pellets in my ash pan.

I've been burning the stove on room temp mode with the temp set to about 75, feed at 3.5, fan switch on high and the blower control set to about 1/2 way between H and L and igniter on auto.

I've been scraping the burn pot every time I poured a new bag of pellets in (scrape the burn pot and heat exchanger and tap the side of the burn pot to get the ash off of the igniter).

I have been noticing that when the stove lights off I get a HUGE fire in the burn pot (so much fire in fact that it is "rolling over" the top of the stove and "licking" the glass on the door). This has been causing a huge amout of soot and ash on the door glass. Having never owned a pellet stove I thought this was normal...but after much reading here I am thinking that this is a bad thing.

I am also seeing ash being expelled from the stove vent pipe outside (not a huge amount but enough that I has to hose off the back porch today).

So today we did a thourough cleaning. We scraped the burn pot and heat exchnager and vacuumed out the burn pot, igniter area and exhaust as well as all the areas inside the stove.

After I cleaned the stove I set the stove to stove temp mode and left the other settings as they were.

When I started the stove again I kept the door open to see how many pellets were pushed into the burn pot before it stopped and waited for ignition. Well, the auger never stopped pushing pellets into the fire pot. When the fire pot was reaching full i started removing pellets by the handfull and throwing them back into the hopper so the pot never got over 1/3 full.

Once the igniter turned off I put the stove in manual mode.

Ignition took about 4 minutes and the fire has not gotten anywhere near as high as I have seen it in the past few days. Mater of fact it's only reached about 1/2 way up the heat exchanger.

The stove has been burning happily for about 4 hours just chugging along with a nice fire.

So I'm guessing that I should call the dealer tomorrow and get them out here?

Let me see if I understand this. The burn pot is overfilling in under 4 minutes? Also, you are getting ignition in about 4 minutes? Sounds like the auger is feeding way too fast. Mine takes around 7 minutes to fill prior to ignition. when my ignitor is slow to start the auger actually stops feeding for a few minutes.

 

[GVA]

When I started the stove again I kept the door open to see how many pellets were pushed into the burn pot before it stopped and waited for ignition. Well, the auger never stopped pushing pellets into the fire pot. When the fire pot was reaching full i started removing pellets by the handfull and throwing them back into the hopper so the pot never got over 1/3 full.

So I'm guessing that I should call the dealer tomorrow and get them out here?

Yes you should:
for one the auger should not keep feeding pellets with the door open let alone Ignite.

 

[greeby]

From everything I am reading here it appears that the burn pot should only fill to about 1/3 full and then stop until ignition.

The stove usually takes about 6 or 7 minutes to start and then there is a ton of smoke when it does start. When the stove fires there is a HUGE flame that often reaches the front glass. This coupled with the fact there were a ton of unburned pellets in the ash bucket makes me think there is a problem.

Today...when I scooped out the burn pot to about 1/3 full today when the stove was igniting the stove started right up with no smoke and it took less than 5 minutes. The stove has burned at what I would think is a normal level all day and the basement is about the perfect temperature.

Does your stove have giant flames that touch the glass?

 

[cantman]

greeby,

Was the draft checked by the dealer? What is the flue vent configuration like? (length,size,90's,45's,horizontal,verticle)