Having a problem with Harman Pellet Stove

[infinity_blues]

Okay so the first thing I should mention is that this is NOT my stove. I am currently housesitting for a family who went away for Christmas. I have been here since before Christmas and am due to be here for another 5 days. I don't know anything about their habits with the stove, how often they clean all the areas, when they bought it, the model name (although I think it is a P-series), etc. All I know is that I have been starting it EXACTLY how they showed me, and I faithfully clean the ash out of the burning area after each burn. I always have pellets loaded and ready to go. The stove has worked fine for the last 2 weeks. It was even working fine this afternoon. The last time I used it was around 2 PM. I turned it off around 2:30 or 2:45. I hung out for a little bit, went out to dinner with my family and came back. It was cold so I went to turn on the stove and waited. It struck me as odd that after a few minutes, there was no hint of the pellets beginning to ignite, and the pellet feeder seemed to be continually feeding pellets, whereas before it seemed to feed it in increments. There was a weird burning smell though, so I turned off the stove and opened the door. Some of the pellets seemed to be burned, and the burn pot was warm. I googled the problem and a lot of people seemed to say that cleaning the igniter by loosening the wingnuts, removing the front plate and cleaning out that area should solve the problem. I did this and turned the stove back on. Again, the pellets seemed to be constantly fed through the auger, so I turned the feed speed down from 4 to 2, and it seemed to make no difference in how quickly the pellets were being pushed into the burn pot. Again, no fire began, but the weird burning smell was back. I waited maybe 3 more minutes and gave up and turned off the stove. The main difference this time was that the stove had begun to fill with a pretty thick smoke. At this point I am at a loss as to what the problem is or how to fix it. Any ideas??

 

[alternativeheat]

Usually on start up the pellets feed for a minute or a little more then more in intervals, pretty close intervals. Then smoke fills the inside of the stove for a little bit and a fire shows up clearing the smoke on start up. If you have been there two weeks , the stove could need cleaning but the main thing would be the burn pot, the burn pot holes and that compartment you opened up. Also you should scrape the pot daily and bang on the burn pot with the scraper tool to shake down any ash that has built up on the igniter.. if you have not banged on the burn pot to shake down that ash off the igniter you can get a mis fire.A good indication of if the stove needs cleaning or not would be how full the ash pan is.

Is there another heat source in the house meanwhile ?

 

[bogieb]

Just before the pellets ignite, the chamber will fill with thick smoke - the bottom of the pile of pellets starts smoldering before the flame finally appears.

I don't believe the stove really cares what feed rate is set at when it is trying to start up, it will feed at a programed rate until it senses fire has been made.

My basement stove can take up to 8 minutes before fire is made (sometime only a couple of minutes), so could it be that you are just not giving it enough time? The stove will shut itself down if no fire is sensed after a programmed amount of time, so I wouldn't force a shut down unless there are other things obviously wrong.

The weird burning smell would be the worrisome part to me and I am unqualified to comment on that. The only thing that I would suggest is to go back under the firepot (behind the cover that has the wingnuts) and make sure the wires are pushed a little towards the back of the chamber. They won't go too far back but it is best if they aren't directly under the burn pot. Also, sometimes things get into the motors (for the fans) and may just need to work themselves out. Maybe come dust bunnies got sucked in?

 

[rickwai]

scrape the bottom of the burn pot. Probably has a carbon build up that is insulating the igniter from the pellets in the pot.

 

[infinity_blues]

Okay I have not banged on the burn pot. I will give that a try. Scraping was the only method of cleaning I was shown. The ash catcher was very full, so I emptied it, so I will give everything else a shot. It's possible I'm just not giving it enough time to start burning, but for the last 2 weeks, it seemed to ignite much more quickly than what was happening last night. I had also never really noticed how it functioned, so I had never noticed the smoke before.

And yes, there is another heat source here. These people are just obsessed with being "eco-friendly", so they urged me not to resort to other methods of heating the house.

 

[Deezl Smoke]

scrape the bottom of the burn pot. Probably has a carbon build up that is insulating the igniter from the pellets in the pot.

That sounds like a great place to start. I have a different stove, but when I posted a picture of my burn pot that had a build up, it was told to me that carbon will build even inside the holes which on some stoves, may hinder ignition and burn quality. It's a place to start anyway after 2 weeks with a strange stove. IMO

 

[infinity_blues]

I banged the burn pot and cleared out the dust that fell down. I turned on the stove again to try. The burn pot filled with so many pellets that they were falling into the ash catcher. I noticed smoke start, and then a fire caught, but it was unlike any of the other fires I have seen for the last 2 weeks. What usually happens is a small fire starts and then it gets bigger and bigger and a fan like mechanism usually turns on when it ignites. This just erupted, and kind of near the top of the pellet pile and no exhaust system seemed to kick on with it. I'm just super paranoid about house fires, so when this stove has randomly started acting strange, it makes me extra nervous about a fire. Is there anything I can do to make the burn pot not fill to the point where it's dropping pellets into the ash tray?

 

[infinity_blues]

This flame is also MASSIVE. Like, it has never been this large. Maybe because there are so many pellets in the burn pot? Luckily the exhaust did eventually kick on and cleared the smoke out. Ultimately, it does seem to be working, so thank you for all your suggestions. My paranoia about house fires just got the better of me, especially with a stove that is not my own.

 

[Deezl Smoke]

This flame is also MASSIVE. Like, it has never been this large. Maybe because there are so many pellets in the burn pot? Luckily the exhaust did eventually kick on and cleared the smoke out. Ultimately, it does seem to be working, so thank you for all your suggestions. My paranoia about house fires just got the better of me, especially with a stove that is not my own.

This sort of thing does appear to happen in many brands. I have had it happen a time or two in my stoves. I'm starting to think there are "bad spots" in a bag of pellets, or even occasional bags of pellets that had an issue at the manufacturer. They just wont ignite as quickly as the several previous bags did and then when they do ignite, the chamber had filled with smoke and it makes a sort of a whoosh noise, then flame like a wood stove more than a pellet stove, then when things settle down, it works normal.

 

[infinity_blues]

Yes that is exactly what happened. Everything seems to be working normally now. Like I said, I'm always freaked out about house fires, especially in a house that is not my own.

 

[Deezl Smoke]

You are wise to be afraid of house fires. That's certainly nothing to be ashamed of. If anything be proud of it. It will keep you much safer.

 

[FirepotPete]

This flame is also MASSIVE. Like, it has never been this large. Maybe because there are so many pellets in the burn pot? Luckily the exhaust did eventually kick on and cleared the smoke out. Ultimately, it does seem to be working, so thank you for all your suggestions. My paranoia about house fires just got the better of me, especially with a stove that is not my own.

I'd guess that after banging on the burnpot it cleared some air holes and you are just seeing that the pellets are now getting more air than before and burning better, probably the way they should have all along.

 

[bags]

Sounds like being a bit paranoid did get you somewhat. Better to be safe than sorry though. These stoves can handle the big flames and at times they burn that way to produce more heat and this does occur when more pellets are fed or if higher temps are desired which requires more burning fuel. Sometimes start ups take awhile and that is fine also as mentioned above.

You could for simplicity sakes flip the igniter toggle down to manual once the stove has a fire going and then you do not have to deal with start ups from that point forward. The stove will run the same but the fire will not go out but may become very low at times. Doing this you must not let it run out of pellets though.

Otherwise you'd need to flip the igniter toggle back up to auto so it could reignite the fire if you happen to run out of pellets.

 

[bags]

This would be running in Room Temp and setting the Temperature dial to where you want the stove to heat at.

 

[bogieb]

Yes that is exactly what happened. Everything seems to be working normally now. Like I said, I'm always freaked out about house fires, especially in a house that is not my own.

Perfectly understandable. I was very paranoid when I had my first pellet stove installed in the basement. I had come from wood burning stoves, so every time the pellet stove acted just a tinge different I was worried something was wrong. I also wouldn't burn when I was out of the house for about a week. It takes some time to get used to them and be fine with them acting somewhat different as conditions change (inside or outside the stove, or even a pellet change). And not being your own stove, or house, you are being appropriately cautious.

Hey, and welcome to the forum, - you came to a great place for help!

 

[Peterfield]

Maybe you can teach the owners something when they return. The pellets catching all at once is something that occasionally happens in my stove and I wouldn't worry about it. Cleaning out that area under the burn pot allowed more hot air to reach the pellets so the combustion is much better. If you have time read the posts in the beginning of the forum about what you don't know about your Harman. Lot of good info in those sticky threads.