Paid to Have Harman Advanced Stove Cleaned Today

[UpStateNY]

I paid $268.92 to have my annual pellet stove cleaned today. I watched the guy do it so I can do it next time. There was a few things I learned about cleaning my Harman Advanced pellet stove.


* I was not cleaning the top front of the stove by the heat exchanger tubes. I had a lot of build up there over the winter.
* I learned I need a chimney pipe brush.
* With the chimney brush and a long narrow vacuum hose the guy was able to clean the chimney pipe without moving the stove and without taking the stove chimney pipe apart. Must be careful with vacuum hose to not hit the sensor on the way in. The brush was pushed through from the outside.
* Both fans in the back of the stove could be cleaned by just removing the back stove covers and the one cover over the right side fan.
* After removing the back stove covers their is a sawdust cover that is easily removed with one wing nut. Very easy to clean the sawdust box.
* After that it was normal cleaning that I did every 3-weeks during the winter.
* The guy doing the cleaning kept saying how the Harman stoves are the easiest stoves to clean that he services.
* Very important to clean all blades on fans. If some of fan blades carry more dirt and weight than it could easily be out of balance and damage the bearings in the fans which run almost non-stop all winter.

Having someone else do the first annual cleaning was a good idea. Not that much more difficult than the cleaning I do every 3 weeks.

Next year I do the annual cleaning.

 

[MCPO]

$262.98 is a ripoff!
You`ve been taken to the cleaners.

 

[UpStateNY]

$262.98 is a ripoff!
You`ve been taken to the cleaners.

So what is a typical charge for annual cleaning?

I would be interested in knowing what others Harman pellet stove owners were charge to perfrom annual cleaning?

 

[CygnusX1]

My guy cleans mine for $125.00 and completely tears the stove down, cleans and lubes all the parts.

 

[rona]

Calling the service a rip off could be valid but depends on how you look at it. I do agree that in my case I would never pay that kind of money. But if you aren't mechanically inclined and have no prior experience you could call it tuition. Having said that I hope you have a good memory or wrote things down so you don't forget what you were taught.
You don't know how far the technician drove to get to the customers place. You also don't know if he had a tall chimney and a steep roof to work with.
I would guess most of us have spent money foolishly at one time or another. Try spending 4,000 dollars for a pellet stove and find out it is cheaper to burn fuel oil or LP then pellets. I bet there is several people pondering that decision.
If you average that one time cost over 5 years it isn't that bad.

 

[CygnusX1]

Well said Rona. For me $125.00/ year is cheap money for piece of mind. I'm fairly well knowledgeable with my stove, but there are so many things I don't know too.

The guy who cleans my stove checks the sensors, circuit boards, tears down the fan motor. All things I'd rather not mess with.

He's even taken the time to show me areas that I need to pay more attention to and how to fix minor things.

Granted, if your mechanically inclined, you can tear down your stove , clean it thoroughly, and do all the repairs. Possibly, in a few years, I might even get brave enough to do that myself. lol

 

[stoveguy2esw]

nothing wrong with paying for a pro to do an annual cleaning. especialy if you learn the ins and outs of what to do and can perform your own in following years. that cost when broken down over the life of the stove will get smaller each year now that our poster has seen what to do and can perform himself. its not a bad investment IMHO.

 

[UpStateNY]

nothing wrong with paying for a pro to do an annual cleaning. especialy if you learn the ins and outs of what to do and can perform your own in following years. that cost when broken down over the life of the stove will get smaller each year now that our poster has seen what to do and can perform himself. its not a bad investment IMHO.

Yeah that is the way I looked at it. Its not like a I had a choice. It supports the local economy. As you said I learned what I was doing wrong and areas I was not cleaning. Not only did my stove get a tune up but my every 3 week cleaning skills also got a tune up.

Interesting that some of you mentioned lubricating the fans. Is lubricating fans something that needs to be done on a Harman Advanced? The cleaner did not perform any lubrication.

 

[rona]

Watch this term lubricating fans as it has been bandied about many times by some people and most modern fans have sealed bearings. This is different then the large fans found in furnaces that have a small tube in the side that you squirt a little 3in 1 oil into. Sometimes they used a brass bushing on one end also but typically these fans have sealed bearings that don't have a grease zerk or oil tube.
I remember reading about a couple of dealers who were bragging that they greased the bearings as part of the service work done on a stove. They were lying as there were no greasable bearings in that stove.

 

[krooser]

My stove tech cleaned my stove two season's ago... that's how I learned about using a leaf blower to clean 'er our... well worth that $150.00!

 

[Xena]

I got the full scoop on how to clean my stove right from
the literature that came with it so I'm guessing the Harman
doesn't come with that info? If so that sucks. Having to shell
out almost $270 for a lesson on stove cleaning that should
have been available to you in the manual is ridiculous - imo.

 

[summit]

ZETA ; Harman stove manuals do have instructions to clean out the stove, but it is usually easier to see it in action than to follow vague drawings and printed instructions. Also, for those who mentioned about lubing the motors, the only pellet units we deal with that require lubrication are the KOZI pellet stoves, but our harman stoves all have permantly lubed and sealed bearings. We show our customers how to clean the stove when we install it (usually that info goes in one ear and out the other) and when they get the deer in the headlights look about yearly maintainence, we mention to them that they should call us in the spring, and we will do a thorough yearly cleaning of the stove and vent for around $125 that they can watch, and then determine if it is something they will do themselves the following year, or whether they will call us next time. About 85% call us again, becuase fine fly ash and un bolting parts while lying on your side is not something most people deal with.

 

[newf lover]

I have a Harman, and yes it does come with instructions on how to clean it. However, I did have my dealer come out and do the cleaning for $145. At that time, he said the stove was amazingly clean, except for underneath the burnpot, where I had cleaned the front area very well, but not the way back. He explained how to get at this area better, so now I know. The manual is not going to go into that much detail on what the consumer could possibly miss in the end of year cleaning. The vent itself also needed cleaning, but I will be using the leaf blower trick next year. I will likely have him come out while the stove is under warranty, at least. I would likely someone with a brain to check the stove out yearly, and I want to establish a good relationship with my dealer. Those of you that are very capable of taking your stove apart by yourself and putting it together may not need to worry about your relationship with the dealer, but some of us with less skills do. Like most things, this to pay or not to pay to have your stove cleaned is just personal preference and comfort level. That said, if the dealer started charging a price that felt like I was getting scr**wed, I'd have to rethink everything. I did not feel that way with what I was charged.

 

[crausch]

I have a Harman Advance also. If it were not for this forum, I probably would have called the dealer for the 1st cleaning also. However, I am comfortable with taking things apart so I elected to do my cleaning myself. The Advance is a fairly easy stove to clean, but there are little tricks that I have learned from many good folks here on the forum. Also there are always those nooks and cranies that only experience might find. Calling someone with that experience can be a big help.

Here are some things that I picked up from this forum and probably would have not realized them without everyones help:
1. Gasket scraper to get stubborn carbon off sides of burn pot.
2. O-ring pick to clean out burn pot holes.
3. Long screwdriver for the more stubborn deposits around the front of the auger.
4. Dryer vent brush for exhuast port cleaning.
5. Leaf blower for vent cleanout.
6. Drywall bags for my shop vac to clean stove and exhaust.

I can't even begin to think of all the useful information I have picked up. So, instead of trying to list them, I think I'll continue to hang around here and share what I have learned so that I can help others.

UpStateNY: The Advance is a great stove. Watching your dealer perform the first seasonal cleaning was a good idea and investment. I am looking forward to chatting with you in the future. To everyone else...THANKS for all posts and help this past season. I went from a newbie to feeling very comfortable with my stove.