New homeowner, existing Harman PP38+

[slickcav]

Well let me first start off by saying I am a forum junkie! But boats/fishing/hunting. Needless to say, I reluctantly stumbled upon this wealth of information of a forum and am entering total noob status into uncharted territory of the knowledge of wood pellet stoves.

Just bought our first home with my new to me wife of 6 months, and after 1.5 years of searching, I can confidently say that we found our "forever home" if you will.

So the house came with all new HVAC updates which was very nice, as well as an existing Harman PP38+ pellet stove, placed in our large 9' ceiling walk out basement. In trying to understand the previous owners logic of how the house was assisted in heating by just heating an uninsulated basement, I guess with the heat rising into the rafters of the first level there was some heat disbursement that way.

Close friend of mine and master HVAC technician was able to help me out with disbursing this heat a little better as my big return for the HVAC was rather close to the pellet stove, came up with a good idea and ultimately He installed a grill with HEPA filter into the return, about 6' away from the stove, and since I have our main heat pump and thermostat set on a set degree say 65, but now instead of fan on auto, I keep it on low. This will slowly keep pulling the "warmer" air from the basement and pushing it through our ranch style home. While it sure isnt heating the entire house as the heat pump does kick on from time to time, I do believe that it is keeping a good baseline and with that the heatpump not working as often, thus lower electricity bills.

Now to get into the bulk of my inquiry, the pp38 stove is just a feed rate and blower control style pellet stove, that is it. As I try to wrap my mind around what "settings" work best, I realize that I am not exactly too sure. Not too sure how many pellets are too many pellets when coming down to inspect the burn pot, or if my rate is too slow or too fast, although with the frequency of refilling I cant imagine its burning too slow. I ended up getting a ton of the Southern States brand Statesman "hamers" to the note of 240$. I would say I am burning close to two bags a day with my feed rate set at 3, blower on max to get the most warm, not piping hot, air out furthest so the return grill we put in can draw it in and disburse through house.

At close to 5-6$ per bag, if I am running say 25 days a month straight in the winter, thats 10-12$ a day, and a significant amount of pellets burning, and considering this is a non main level pellet stove, I really dont immediately "feel" the heat, just think in my mind that I am relieving the heat pump of some duty and somehow offsetting some cost.

I have southern exposure on the back of the house and the house "self" heats when the sun gets up rather, and with being home today I finally saw the heat above where we have the thermostat set, and went and shut the pellet stove off. I do believe that maybe just running the pellet stove at night, and only all day on really cold days, would significantly reduce the pellets I am going through. Guess my real questions as I have answered a few for myself in typing this would be:

Anyone have the Harman pp38 stove with just Feed/Blower controls?

What do you find is optimum settings?

What should my burn pot look like for the "best efficient burn" ( I get hardened black chunks on the end of my burn pot after some time runnning and it bothers me to the point where I knock it off sometimes)

Are the 250$ a ton pellets (Statesman Hamers in my case) the go to pellets or should I look for cheaper?

I honestly couldnt tell you if you sat 5 difference pellet bags in front of me and I fed them in, which ones "burned hotter/cleaner/better/etc", all looks the same to me, pellets in the burn pot.


Sorry for the long read guys and gals, first post, lots of questions, lack of knowledge, and hoping to master my pellet stove and keep it functioning and burning good and warm

 

[bogieb]

My first stove, Harman p61A was placed in an unheated, unfinished, un-insulated basement last February. I kept that stove pumping out at 75 heat, 4 feed rate and on room temp mode (on really cold days, like single digits and lower, I put it on stove temp). It would keep the main level of the house at anywhere from 62-68, for the warmer rooms, with the assist of registers and fans. Now, you have the registers and fans thru your heating system, and set it up to help circulate air, so that is all helpful.

In looking at the manual online, it looks like you should have a stove temp / air temp control also. Which one are you running it on?

I don't think you are saving anything by turning off your stove when it gets warm enough upstairs, or during the day. The stove is trying to heat your foundation and concrete floor first (although some warm air will rise). Once the foundation and floor get to a certain temp, then it will allow the air to really heat up and get to your upper floor. So, when you shut off the stove, you are allowing the foundation/floor to get cold again, thus negating the very hard work that the stove has already put in. You could try turning down the blower, turning it to room temp and lower the temp a bit, if you feel it has gotten too warm upstairs - or just enjoy the extra warmth and leave the stove to go alone.

Please read thru the How Your Harman Works thread. It will help you immensely in understanding feed rate and other workings of your stove. I think also that you would benefit from turning the feed rate UP to 4 or so.

 

[alternativeheat]

Oh you will know lousy pellets when you get them. Instead of pellets in the burn pot only, you also will see lot's of ash all over the burn pot and have to dump your ash pan frequently, probably for less heat than you get now.

Incidentally Welcome to the forum !!

Have you considered that the old owner was not trying to heat the house but just the basement ? Like myself and many others here he may have had a work shop down there. Your P38 would probably do great up in the main house FWIW.

I won't explain about the controls on your Harman, I do suggest you read the sticky at the Pellet Forum here on running your Harman and things your manual doesn't say. We all go through that training, it saves asking a lot of question LOL !! We, us at the forum, will see how your understanding progresses and answer from there. It's a willing bunch here.

 

[slickcav]

Guys thanks so much for the feedback thus far. I picked through the what your manual doesn't tell you thread but will print it out and read the entire thing for sure tomorrow.

I believe that the model number is the pp38+ as evidenced by:



Controls:



Question with these two burn pot scenarios: which is putting off more heat efficiently? I would say that it builds up like that after running a little whole, say a half a day, but the build up ash pic is on Feed Rate 3. Better pic is only running for two hours, at 3.5.


Should the embers be closer to the edge of the burn pot like where the perforated holes are about 3/4" before the lip? Like pic on left or is further back like pic on right better?

 

[slickcav]

 

[bags]

The burn on the left looks hotter..

 

[bogieb]

My flames are usually placed like the picture on the right, but with sharper flames - I mean really crisp, sharp points. The pic on the left is closer to the actual shape of my flame, and color.

Have you cleaned out the holes that are further down? There is something like 4-5 rows of holes (you would think I would know, I just cleaned mine this weekend). You can't really see them, have to feel for them after you have scraped off any of the hard residue left by the burning. Also, knocking the ash and "Klinkers" off the end of the burn pot is something that I usually do once a day, if not twice. I suppose you don't "have" to as it will eventually fall off the end, but it looks better and at the same time you should be scraping the pot every couple of bags/days anyway.

 

[brae]

I have the same stove in my living room. its now 10 years old and only changed the distribution once 5 years ago. no troubles what so ever. it heats my home 1500 sq. ft on 1 to 1-1/2 bags a day I love it. I clean the burn pot once daily and depending on the types of pellets I burn, I empty the ash pan every 3 weeks. and shut the stove down every other month and do a complete cleaning. I get hard black carbon along the sides and deep in the burn pot. Normal I suppose. its always done that. my normal feed rate setting is 2- 3-1/2. blower is always on high.

 

[Peterfield]

I also admit to being a forum junkie and will say this is the most informative and helpful forum groups I have run across with barely any acrimony by the users.

 

[herdfan2003]

I have the Harman pp38 also. When I first bought it I placed it in my uninsulated basement and was disappointed in the results. After reading in this forum and understanding a little better I realized it would do much better upstairs. I moved it upstairs to the living room, I live in a 2000 square foot modular. I run mine on 2-3 most of the time and as much as just over 3 on colder days. Normally, I burn 1 to 1 1/2 bags a day. We have had a bit of a cold snap and I have been using almost 2. Like bogieb I clean my burn pot ashes every day and bust the hard black clinkers out about the same. I use the tool they gave me and a small long flathead screwdriver. Only problem I have is getting heat to the back rooms in the house but I plug in a couple electric heaters and its fine. It's been a great little stove with very little maintenance....hope I didn't just jinx myself...