New Owner of Accentra Insert Questons

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bee_2102

New Member
Jan 18, 2012
29
Western PA
I had my Accentra Insert installed yesterday. I was told to run the stove on Room Temp @ 75 and the feed rate set at 4. We fired it up at 12:30 and I had to fill the hopper up around 9:00 as it was almost empty. Woke up this morning at 6:30 and it was alomost empty again, so I went through two bags in less than 24 hours. I dumped another bad in before I left this morning and I turned the temp down to 70 and set the feed rate at 3 to see if this helps. If the feed rate was set higher, would I use less pellets? When I awoke this morning there was quite a bit of ash on the burn pot. It was thicker on the edges. I am burning C & C Smith pellets as I was told these are good pellets. My basement was 78 and the upstairs was 71, so I am heating the whole house, but I don't think going through almost 3 bags of pellets in a day is right. My basement is 1100 sq ft as well as the first floor. I am all new to this and just want to make sure I am running the stove correctly. ANy help or info will be appreciated. Thanks.
 
the feed adjuster doesn't really tell the stove how many pellets to eat. your best bet is to set it to 4.5ish and ignore it. when you are in "room temp" the unit will consume as many pellets as it has to to get to and maintain the temp you have requested (at the location of the room sensing probe). If you wish to use less pellets turn the temp down. If you wish to dictate how many pellets are consumed instead of the temp, set it to "stove temp"...the board will then be looking at the 1-7 and think of that like a volume control on your stereo....it will cruise at whatever number you set it at regardless(or irregardless) of the actual temp. #1 on that unit is close to 1.25 lbs per hour (rough estimate, not scientific) and 7 is close to 5.5 lbs per hour. that stove wont really let you run it "incorrectly"...play around a bit with the room temp/stove temp thing and for your own opinion, but i suggest ignoring the feed adjuster.
 
bee_2102 said:
I had my Accentra Insert installed yesterday. I was told to run the stove on Room Temp @ 75 and the feed rate set at 4. We fired it up at 12:30 and I had to fill the hopper up around 9:00 as it was almost empty. Woke up this morning at 6:30 and it was alomost empty again, so I went through two bags in less than 24 hours. I dumped another bad in before I left this morning and I turned the temp down to 70 and set the feed rate at 3 to see if this helps. If the feed rate was set higher, would I use less pellets? When I awoke this morning there was quite a bit of ash on the burn pot. It was thicker on the edges. I am burning C & C Smith pellets as I was told these are good pellets. My basement was 78 and the upstairs was 71, so I am heating the whole house, but I don't think going through almost 3 bags of pellets in a day is right. My basement is 1100 sq ft as well as the first floor. I am all new to this and just want to make sure I am running the stove correctly. ANy help or info will be appreciated. Thanks.

How cold has it been, what type of pellets are you burning, etc. etc.

I have a Harman Accentra, and my feed rate is set to a little above 4 (but I never have to touch it) - Harman's are great because they burn based on temp, not feed rate. I burn a bag and a half or more a day, and I'm heating almost 2000 sq ft with it. If you are concerned with the number of pellets, you can put the stove on room temp (which will burn less pellets) and the stove will ramp up and down to maintain the room temp. I run my stove on stove temp, and just adjust the high/low as needed.
 
I think the real question is where is the heat going? You installed this in your basement? Is it finished and insulated? What were you using previously for heat and what was your BTU requirements to keep the house warm. If you needed 30,000 BTUs per hour to heat the house with your old heating source then you will need the same or more from the stove.

Do you know how you were heating your home before? Oil, electric Nat gas propane?
How much a of that source were you using for heat on a monthly basis?
Are you heating any sections now that you were not before?
Are you using an OAK?
Are you heating sections of your home to a higher temp than you were before?

With those type of answers we can tell if there is something wrong and it will lead us to answering your question.
 
As stated before. There are a lot of variables to consider. As an observation from your posting, your getting 78 in the Basement and 71 upstairs. thats a fair amount of heat being produced by the stove. The Basement , being the naturally coldest part of the house, is taking most. I have mine in the Living room , feed rate at 3-4, Room Temp on 72 -75. It heats the living room to that and keeps the rest of the floor to around 72. The upstairs floor is usually around 66. I use about 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 bags in 24hrs.
I get the impression from many posts that Stoves in the basement , take a little more time to master than other places in the house.
 
On the coldest days I will burn about 1.5-2.0 bags a day using the stove temp mode. But I don't care, the house stays taosty warm and I don't have to walk around with layers of clothes on.
 
The first thing I notice is that you havr it set on 75 and are getting 78 out of the stove, where is the temp probe? If it is like mine when it was first installed it is on the ground under the left footing of the stove. If thsys the case the probe is sensing the cold air running across the floor to the stove and not the actusl room temp, this will cause more pellets to burn.

I have my feed rate at 4 and temp around 72 and burn less than 1.5/day, however your stove is in the basement and you are looking for a lot more heat so the extra pellets is not unreasonable. I would check the location of the temp probe to start.

Good luck.
 
Trickyrick said:
I think the real question is where is the heat going? You installed this in your basement? Is it finished and insulated? What were you using previously for heat and what was your BTU requirements to keep the house warm. If you needed 30,000 BTUs per hour to heat the house with your old heating source then you will need the same or more from the stove.

Do you know how you were heating your home before? Oil, electric Nat gas propane?
How much a of that source were you using for heat on a monthly basis?
Are you heating any sections now that you were not before?
Are you using an OAK?
Are you heating sections of your home to a higher temp than you were before?

With those type of answers we can tell if there is something wrong and it will lead us to answering your question.


I was using oil heat to heat the home. My basement is finished and insulated with styrofoam sheets. It's keeping the basement nice and the upstairs is 71, so it's heating both floors. There is not OAK. I called the place I bought it from and they told me to mess with the settings to adjust to my needs. Guess I'll just have to do some tinkering.
 
jdege said:
The first thing I notice is that you havr it set on 75 and are getting 78 out of the stove, where is the temp probe? If it is like mine when it was first installed it is on the ground under the left footing of the stove. If thsys the case the probe is sensing the cold air running across the floor to the stove and not the actusl room temp, this will cause more pellets to burn.

I have my feed rate at 4 and temp around 72 and burn less than 1.5/day, however your stove is in the basement and you are looking for a lot more heat so the extra pellets is not unreasonable. I would check the location of the temp probe to start.

Good luck.

The probe is on the ground under the left footing of the stove....where did you relocate your probe too? I guess I could just turn the temp down and see how the room feels then. I don't want to be burning 3 bags a day or I would of just kept running the oil furncace. Thanks for you help.
 
bee_2102 said:
jdege said:
The first thing I notice is that you havr it set on 75 and are getting 78 out of the stove, where is the temp probe? If it is like mine when it was first installed it is on the ground under the left footing of the stove. If thsys the case the probe is sensing the cold air running across the floor to the stove and not the actusl room temp, this will cause more pellets to burn.

I have my feed rate at 4 and temp around 72 and burn less than 1.5/day, however your stove is in the basement and you are looking for a lot more heat so the extra pellets is not unreasonable. I would check the location of the temp probe to start.

Good luck.

The probe is on the ground under the left footing of the stove....where did you relocate your probe too? I guess I could just turn the temp down and see how the room feels then. I don't want to be burning 3 bags a day or I would of just kept running the oil furncace. Thanks for you help.

I tape mine about 2-3 feet up on the wall about 1/2ft to 1ft from the stove. Hang in there it took me a couple weeks to get it running the way I wanted and the folks on here are great about sharing info.
 
All good replies above. You can experiment with moving the probe around or just keep in mind that your probe location give you +3 degrees and turn your temp down by that. The probe really can be hit/miss and it's unfortunate Harman doesn't give us a simple probe temp display to correlate. Anyway, for what you are heating and the fact that you need to overheat the basement a bit, 2 bags per day is not unusual. It will also take time to get everything "heated through" so your stove won't have to work as hard to keep everything up to temp. Try to find a temp that works and keep it there. Space heaters don't do well with large temperature setbacks because there's soo much mass to heat from a single location. OAK will help because the air used by your stove has to be replaced somehow, so outside air will need to find its way in and then you need to reheat it.
 
bee_2102 said:
jdege said:
The first thing I notice is that you havr it set on 75 and are getting 78 out of the stove, where is the temp probe? If it is like mine when it was first installed it is on the ground under the left footing of the stove. If thsys the case the probe is sensing the cold air running across the floor to the stove and not the actusl room temp, this will cause more pellets to burn.

I have my feed rate at 4 and temp around 72 and burn less than 1.5/day, however your stove is in the basement and you are looking for a lot more heat so the extra pellets is not unreasonable. I would check the location of the temp probe to start.

Good luck.

The probe is on the ground under the left footing of the stove....where did you relocate your probe too? I guess I could just turn the temp down and see how the room feels then. I don't want to be burning 3 bags a day or I would of just kept running the oil furncace. Thanks for you help.

OK so hang in there you need to get used to your stove. Don't get frustrated yet. Get the Temp Probe up off the floor, NOW. As you can see it's not very long but put it somewhere that is more representative of what the room temp actually is, even if you have to tape it to a wall temporarily. IMHO heating the whole house with an Accentra Insert in the basement is a tall order from the start. Please take the time to read how to properly operate a Harman stove by clicking on the link in my signature. As stated earlier, the feed rate at 4 will be fine. Set it and forget it. Good luck and let us know how you make out. We are here to help.
 
Harman Lover 007 said:
bee_2102 said:
jdege said:
The first thing I notice is that you havr it set on 75 and are getting 78 out of the stove, where is the temp probe? If it is like mine when it was first installed it is on the ground under the left footing of the stove. If thsys the case the probe is sensing the cold air running across the floor to the stove and not the actusl room temp, this will cause more pellets to burn.

I have my feed rate at 4 and temp around 72 and burn less than 1.5/day, however your stove is in the basement and you are looking for a lot more heat so the extra pellets is not unreasonable. I would check the location of the temp probe to start.

Good luck.

The probe is on the ground under the left footing of the stove....where did you relocate your probe too? I guess I could just turn the temp down and see how the room feels then. I don't want to be burning 3 bags a day or I would of just kept running the oil furncace. Thanks for you help.

OK so hang in there you need to get used to your stove. Don't get frustrated yet. Get the Temp Probe up off the floor, NOW. As you can see it's not very long but put it somewhere that is more representative of what the room temp actually is, even if you have to tape it to a wall temporarily. IMHO heating the whole house with an Accentra Insert in the basement is a tall order from the start. Please take the time to read how to properly operate a Harman stove by clicking on the link in my signature. As stated earlier, the feed rate at 4 will be fine. Set it and forget it. Good luck and let us know how you make out. We are here to help.


Thanks for the info and help. I did a search on here and actually came across your previous reply on how to operate a harman stove. I guess I'll tinker around here the next couple days.
 
Thats exactly the thing to do. I've had mine Three years and still have a hundred questions. In fact I'm just about to do some searching for advice on gaskets for my stove.
good Luck
 
Harman Lover 007 said:
bee_2102 said:
jdege said:
The first thing I notice is that you havr it set on 75 and are getting 78 out of the stove, where is the temp probe? If it is like mine when it was first installed it is on the ground under the left footing of the stove. If thsys the case the probe is sensing the cold air running across the floor to the stove and not the actusl room temp, this will cause more pellets to burn.

I have my feed rate at 4 and temp around 72 and burn less than 1.5/day, however your stove is in the basement and you are looking for a lot more heat so the extra pellets is not unreasonable. I would check the location of the temp probe to start.

Good luck.

The probe is on the ground under the left footing of the stove....where did you relocate your probe too? I guess I could just turn the temp down and see how the room feels then. I don't want to be burning 3 bags a day or I would of just kept running the oil furncace. Thanks for you help.

OK so hang in there you need to get used to your stove. Don't get frustrated yet. Get the Temp Probe up off the floor, NOW. As you can see it's not very long but put it somewhere that is more representative of what the room temp actually is, even if you have to tape it to a wall temporarily. IMHO heating the whole house with an Accentra Insert in the basement is a tall order from the start. Please take the time to read how to properly operate a Harman stove by clicking on the link in my signature. As stated earlier, the feed rate at 4 will be fine. Set it and forget it. Good luck and let us know how you make out. We are here to help.

I do heat most of my home from a Harman Accentra in the basement level of my home - if your basement only has a standard stairway to the upper floor, you could always put open grates/ducting to allow the heat to naturally flow up out of the bassement into the first floor.
 
I was thinking about putting vents in to help distribute the warmer air and displace the cooler air. That may help in burning less pellets as the air gets distributed more throughout the house. I was told the Harman Accentra would heat my whole house and wouldn't use 3 bags a day to do it. Could of been lied too, but I am just stating.
 
bee_2102 said:
I was thinking about putting vents in to help distribute the warmer air and displace the cooler air. That may help in burning less pellets as the air gets distributed more throughout the house. I was told the Harman Accentra would heat my whole house and wouldn't use 3 bags a day to do it. Could of been lied too, but I am just stating.

It's dependent upon a lot of factors. I heat most of my house using 1.5 bags a day. I have a tri-level - so my lower level (where the stove is) is half open to the main level which then has a short stairway to the upper level.

Also, I think we need more details to help you. (pellets, square footage, etc.)

And, be patient. You've had the stove 24 hours. Give it and yourself some time to settle in with it.
 
I am heating a 2000 sq ft house with an accentra insert. Last year I burned 4 tons. I have an extension on my temp probe, and it is about 6 ft to the left of my stove half way up a fake tree. It keeps my 1st floor at 72 and my 2nd floor at 65-68.
 
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