Have a Harman PB105? Lets Compare

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Chris04626

Minister of Fire
Hearth Supporter
Sep 19, 2008
521
Maine
familytraditionwreaths.com
This is a thread for us Harman Pb105 owners. To Compare our settings, any isses we have and offer help to those that have had issues that you have had and resolved.

First Lets state what we have our settings on

Max Temp 175 Min Temp 140

Auto Ignite

Feed Rate 4.5

Dip Switches OFF ON ON(Factory Default)

How many pellets are you burning a day?
Right now roughly 1 bag a little more. Mostly heating hot water and a few hours of heat a day.

What size is your home?
2000 SQ Foot

Do you have out door sensor hooked up? If not why?

Do you have outside air kit installed?

How long have you owned your PB105

Problems?

Right now i get alot of smoke on start up, to the point my neighbors think we are on fire. and feel im burning more pellets than i should.
 
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Another issue i seem to have is the temp guage on the pellet boiler seems to be off. I have max set at 170 but it didnt shut off until about 185

Also when my thermostat is calling for heat and the pellet boiler is running the temp guage on the oil boiler is always alot lower than the one on the pellet boiler. Is that normal? Like pellet boiler was showing 185 and oil boiler was a little over 140

Does the speed of the circulator going to retun of pellet boiler effect anything? Right now its on the middle selection.

This thing is frustrating, getting to the point i just wanna have them take it out and sell it and go back to oil. Not knowing if its running correctly is driving me nuts, find myself going down to check on it all through the day when im home. Seems to take a ton of pellets to get it up to temp and seems to cool off quick and fire back up
 
Chris
this is a high mass boiler. That said its going to take some time to heat up'. as for the speed the water goes through the boiler is not going to be a factor. All my 6 zones have circulators and I have never had a prob. as for your gauges it is not uncommon for some inaccurate readings .gauge to gauge. I recommend a laser temp gun ..(cheap at box store) It is my experience the dials next to your feed rate dial will be close...

This time of year is kinda tough...
 
Ok it seems though anytime i look at it the pelelt boiler and oil boilers temp guages are always not even close. Like right now oil boilers temp is a125 and the pellet boilelr just turned on, i have it set at Min 150 max 170
 
There should be no water flow between the pellet and oil boiler when your system (thermostats or boiler mate) is not calling for heat. That would cause excess heat loss by heating the water in the oil boiler all the time (which is connected to a chimney leading outside). If there is no call for heat, the temperature in the oil boiler should not be the same as the pellet boiler. After the call for heat, when the water circulates between the two, the temperatures should slowly start to correspond.

The gauge on top of the PB105 is misleading too. The large needle on the gauge is for pressure and won't move much and the units printed on it are similar in range to a temperature gauge. The smaller needle is for temperature.
 
I only mention the temperature gauge thing because I had mine for a week before I looked closely enough to notice that it was backwards. It's a pressure gauge with temperature as an added bonus.
 
The boiler will smoke on startup. Softwood pellets seem to light up a little quicker than hardwoods, so they may smoke a little less. My max temp right now is 160, but I'll move that up to 180 once the outside high temps fall below about freezing. Since I adjust the maximum boiler temp, I don't need the outside sensor. I don't have an OAK. The house is about 2300 square feet, half of it is over a century old and the other half built in 1995. I've never touched the dip switches, and ignition is always on auto.

I tend to keep my feed rate below 4. I've been burning Somerset hardwoods and noticed that the tips of the flames were slightly dark at 4, so I backed it off to 3.5 or so. The flame doesn't quite wrap around the vertical heat exchange tubes, but I'm OK with that. I believe the hottest part of a fire is just beyond the flame tips anyway.

I'm burning about a bag of pellets a day right now, about 15 so far this season. This is our second season with the boiler. I think a bag a day isn't bad for a 2K square-foot house, especially with a hot water coil (I don't have one). Drop your max temperature to 160 and you may save a few pellets.

The only problem I've had so far is the dreaded burnpot bubble. The pot seemed to operate fine even with the warpage, but it started to crack toward the end of the season. My dealer replaced it free during the summer. I had one or two startup failures last season but I blame one on poor pellet quality.
 
Does your burnpot have a bubble? Mine does after about a month of use. Dealer is coming today to replace it. My basement filled with smoke several times and I thought it needed to be cleaned. Then it happened on the first fire after a good cleaning. Watched the pot fill with pellets, over flow into the ashpan and once it finally ignited it went with a bang and pushed smoke out the intake.

Anyway, I called the dealer explained what happened and told them the burnpot was starting to form the bubble. They said that would cause my problem. I'll find out soon enough.
 
Chris04626 said:
I'm at work wife called said its filling basement with smoke. I just cleaned it Sunday

Thoughts
Click to expand...
Guessing, I'd look for poor ignition. If the pellets don't light, the burnpot eventually overflows with half-burned pellets. They drop into the ash pan, where they smolder. The boiler detects a combustion problem and shuts down. But the half-burned pellets continue to produce smoke.
 
tieafly said:
Does your burnpot have a bubble? Mine does after about a month of use. Dealer is coming today to replace it. My basement filled with smoke several times and I thought it needed to be cleaned. Then it happened on the first fire after a good cleaning. Watched the pot fill with pellets, over flow into the ashpan and once it finally ignited it went with a bang and pushed smoke out the intake.

Anyway, I called the dealer explained what happened and told them the burnpot was starting to form the bubble. They said that would cause my problem. I'll find out soon enough.
Click to expand...


Search the forum and you'll find a several threads about the burnpot bubble. I'm not surprised that yours developed so early. You'll note in another thread that Harman has a new burnpot design out.

I ran my boiler most of last winter with a burnpot bubble and had no significant ignition problem.

Have your service guy check the dip switches to make sure they're set correctly to limit pellet feed during ignition. Again, there are other threads on this forum that address dip switch position. I haven't messed with them myself. You might also back off the feed rate.
 
Mine was a rise in the center of the pot. Not very noticeable until I ran my hand across it. They replaced with a new stainless steel pot. Turned the boiler back on and had ignition in less than a minute. Tested the draft and checked the combustion blower, etc. No other issues could be seen, so I hope this fixes my problem.

I was also told I have the pressure ignition and there are very few problems with it, so they don't believe I had a weak ignitor.
 
Ok i just took the cover off below the hopper and cleaned out by the igniter. There was a bunch of what looks like pellets that had gotten wet in there. I cleaned that out, fired it up and the stove fed alot of pellets then alot of smoke and the it finally lit, after some smoke entered the basement.

Do i have a bad igniter or something?
 
Has your dealer done anything for you? I don't get no matter how bad things are your basement getting filled with smoke unless something is completely out of whack.
 
My settings are:
Max Temp 180 Min Temp 160
Auto Ignite (pressure ignition)
Feed Rate 4.5
Dip Switches : off on on
How many pellets are you burning a day?
Right now about 1 bag a day for DHW and heat a day.
What size is your home?
A little over 2200 sq ft
Do you have out door sensor hooked up? If not why?
NO, Using pellet boiler for DHW usage

Do you have outside air kit installed? NO
How long have you owned your PB105: Almost 7 years
Problems? Burnpot issues
.
Venting: directly into chimmney

Piping between boilers: Circulator on return at PB circulating water from the OB to the PB, PB output to OB output which is controlled by an aqustat set at 180* located in the OB, this keeps the water temp in both boilers equal. I realize by doing this a few more pellets may be used.

If you have a large amount of smoke at startup, smoke in the space where the boiler is located, where is the smoke comming from, leaks in the venting ????
How many pellets are fed into the burnpot at startup, excessive pellets cause slow ignition, lots of smoke. Look through the firebox door glass, when the auger stops feeding pellets, prior to smoke to see the quanity of pellets in the burnpot? If a lot of smoke is present in the space where the boiler is located, my guess its from the vent leaking. All pellet heating units create smoke at startup but the smoke should be exhausted out the vent, no smoke in the area where the unit is located.
 
Chris04626 said:
Smoke was coming from under hoped where you would attach outdoor air kit
Click to expand...
When you removed the cover under the hopper did you see exactly where the smoke is comming from? If the smoke is comming from the combustion air inlet it's possible that the flapper in the combustion air inlet is sticking partially closed which will create slow ignition with a ton of smoke, the flapper may not stick every time it fires. If the flapper is not opening like it's suppose all the time at startup, call your dealer to give you his thoughts.
 
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