Problems with my P68 (Harman)

[rgros]

My Harman is pretty new. We had it installed in January, used it for about half the heating season and it worked just fine. My husband cleaned it according to the manual in October and now we've used a few days here and there, mostly overnight and sometimes the full day when it gets cold enough. But we've noticed a few odd glitches this time. We've had problems with the pellets loading at times. Then we had problems with it overloading the pellets at ignition, to the point of the pellets falling off the edge and then when it ignites, the glass is all smoked up black and the fire is everywhere inside of the stove. Finally, yesterday, the stove was on all night and in the morning I noticed just the blower was on - - no flame. I assumed my husband had turned off the stove and it was turning off. Well, three hours later the fan was still running. When I opened the hopper, there were still pellets in there. As soon as I closed the hopper, the fan went off. I'm not sure what to make of all this, but it seems odd to have problems in the first year. Anyone have any similar experience or have an idea of what could be wrong? Thanks!

- Rosemarie

 

[Lousyweather]

Rosemarie:

All of the above COULD be normal operation......we would need a little more info....stove settings, piping configuration, brand of pellets, etc.

Upon ignition, it isnt unheard of to get pellets falling off of the burn pot, as when the stove ignites, the burn area is overloaded in pellets to burn, and the fire can be quite large.

As for the blower on....which one? The distribution fan will stay on for awhile after the fire goes out, until the ESP probe reads a fairly low temp

 

[MCPO]

Rosemarie:

All of the above COULD be normal operation......we would need a little more info....stove settings, piping configuration, brand of pellets, etc.

Upon ignition, it isnt unheard of to get pellets falling off of the burn pot, as when the stove ignites, the burn area is overloaded in pellets to burn, and the fire can be quite large.

As for the blower on....which one? The distribution fan will stay on for awhile after the fire goes out, until the ESP probe reads a fairly low temp

Doesn`t seem like it could be normal to me. If pellets are falling off the front edge it would seem to me that the igniter isn`t working properly. And the blower should stop long before 3 hours after the fire goes out , assuming it`s the distribution fan and not the combustion fan. Could the igniter hole be plugged?

 

[rgros]

Hmmmm...I'm guessing its abnormal, too since we've never had the problem before. The brand of pellets we burn is Lignetics. It usually never overfills the pot. In fact, under normal operation, it doesn't even get to the edge. My settings are the same as before. Set to stove temp (High), temp set to 65 (not too cold in DE yet), Feed rate is usually 4 or 5. Now I just shut off the stove about a 1/2 hour ago so I'll keep a close eye on it and see how long it takes to turn off this time. A second ago, both the distribution and combustion blower were on. Now...just the combustion blower is on. I would think it should be the opposite when cooling down?

Thanks for your help.

- Rosemarie

 

[MCPO]

Hmmmm...I'm guessing its abnormal, too since we've never had the problem before. The brand of pellets we burn is Lignetics. It usually never overfills the pot. In fact, under normal operation, it doesn't even get to the edge. My settings are the same as before. Set to stove temp (High), temp set to 65 (not too cold in DE yet), Feed rate is usually 4 or 5. Now I just shut off the stove about a 1/2 hour ago so I'll keep a close eye on it and see how long it takes to turn off this time. A second ago, both the distribution and combustion blower were on. Now...just the combustion blower is on. I would think it should be the opposite when cooling down?

Thanks for your help.

- Rosemarie

The distribution fan stop running first , maybe 10-20 minutes after stove goes off . The combustion fan will run longer , most likely til the stove gets really cooled down and the fire is completely out.

 

[BubbRubb]

All I know is my fan runs for a max of 1 hr after shutdown. 3 hrs seems a bit excessive.

 

[Lousyweather]

Hmmmm...I'm guessing its abnormal, too since we've never had the problem before. The brand of pellets we burn is Lignetics. It usually never overfills the pot. In fact, under normal operation, it doesn't even get to the edge. My settings are the same as before. Set to stove temp (High), temp set to 65 (not too cold in DE yet), Feed rate is usually 4 or 5. Now I just shut off the stove about a 1/2 hour ago so I'll keep a close eye on it and see how long it takes to turn off this time. A second ago, both the distribution and combustion blower were on. Now...just the combustion blower is on. I would think it should be the opposite when cooling down?

Thanks for your help.

- Rosemarie

The distribution fan stop running first , maybe 10-20 minutes after stove goes off . The combustion fan will run longer , most likely til the stove gets really cooled down and the fire is completely out.

absolutely.....but the "fan" mentioned in the original post wasnt specified.....

a couple things.....failing igniter? A failing igniter would cause the first feed cycle not to ignite, and subsequant feed cycles WOULD overload the burnpot, causing partially burned pellets to fall off the front, and a large fire initially (dont forget, this thing tries to ignite for 36 minutes prior to giving a status code blink). Also, there have been isolated incidences of the igniter actually staying on, which could also cause enough heat to keep the ESP warm enough to stop it from shutting the sistribution fan down. As for opening the hopper and the fan stopping, more indicative to me of a loose connection than anything else.

 

[timbo]

I noticed on my P68 if the carbon build up on the burn pot isn't completely removed once a week, it will have a hard time igniting. I was having a problem a few weeks ago getting mine to start and noticed that there was quite a thick buildup of hardened carbon in the pot. I used an old wood chisel to remove it (the tool that came with the stove was pretty much useless for that job) and it lit right up no problem after that. I think the carbon buildup insulates the pellets from the heat.

The other thing I found is that the little hatch held on with thumbscrews under the burnpot gets pretty full of ash...you have to clean that out as well or it will cause retarded ignition. I vacuum what I can out of there and then I squirt a bit of compressed air in there and it moves everything else out.

 

[LIpelletpig]

You might want to check the hopper and stick your hand in the pellets to make sure you don't have a bridge or a limited feed of pellets. As the other poster suggested give the burn pot a good scraping to get the carbon/scale off. I also would try to manually start the stove without using the ignitor, just to see how the stove runs. That might answer the ignotor problem. Drop the feed rate down to 3, setting 4-5 is a little high for a good pellet. Last suggestion, make sure all the gaskets are in good shape. Especially the door gasket and the hopper gasket!

With the recent weather changes from warm to cold and back to warm. I am not using my stove on a consistant basis. I try to manually start the stove without the use of the ignitor. With the history of Harman ignitors I am trying to conserve it's life without having to get it serviced. Good luck.

 

[freebird77]

The stove should still be under warrenty. Id call the dealer and have them look at it. after youve done what you can on your own, first, of course. Let us know how you make out.

 

[gbreda]

I agree completely with the carbon buildup and the cleaning of the ignitor area on a regular basis. Takes only a minute to loosen the thumbscrews and remove the plate for cleaning. ALOT of ash comes out of there on a weekly cleaning. After this kind of cleaning, the stove iginites quicker than just before.

As far as shutting down, I have found that a good scraping of the burnpot while burning,and right before shutdown, lessens my shutdown time quite a bit. From well over an hour (with the fire burning and auger feeding for at least 30-35 minutes) to about 30-40 minutes (fire is out, auger stopped within 15).

Finally, is the feed rate at 4 or 5 maybe too high at startup? I run my feed rate at 3.5 on room temp between 60-75 depending on time of day for a basement setup. The stove needs to heat the basement before getting real heat upstairs, but its does that job very well at these settings.

 

[rgros]

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I didn't think about that little latch...we're still new at this I guess. We'll give that a try along with hacking off any carbon deposits and see what happens. I'm still under warranty for another month or two so at least I'm covered if I have to replace the ignitor.

I'll report back on what happens. Many thanks!