Used vs New Harman P43

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dtcanterbury

New Member
Nov 11, 2020
2
Dartmouth
We recently purchased a house with a pellet stove in it, I knew nothing about pellet stoves before this. The pellet stove needs to be replaced and we've decided to go with a Harman P43. Where I live a P43 goes for about $3600 after tax and incentives, Canadian dollars that is. There's one used one available locally at the moment, it's in good shape. The owner says it's only been used 2 winters, though the stove was manufactured in 2014 (suspicious). They're asking $1800 cdn. Does this seem like a reasonable price or worth splurging for a new one? I've been told by the local dealer that Harman won't transfer what's left of the warranty over. Thanks for your thoughts!
 
Not a bad price for a really good unit. It IS a small heater, though...
I guess you need to determine whether the heat output is enough
to keep the area you want adequately heated.
 
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I see quite a few cheap Harman stoves on Kijiji from the east coast in Canada, I guess it comes down to the square footage you need to heat. As Daksy stated, the P43 is a smaller stove... Don’t let the production/test date rattle you, it may not have been sold until 2 years ago...the warranty might not be transferable but it’ll have the dates on it I would think. Most stoves I’ve seen from the east coast start to show rust after 3-4 years of heavy use.
 
As long as it looks like it is good shape, and has been reasonably maintained, it should be a fine stove. I got my "born in" P43 summer 2017, They said it had been in use for a couple of years, then they didn't use it for the next year - and upon inspection, it looked like they were telling the true story. I got a very good deal since they were moving to FL and had to get rid of it by a specific date in the beginning of summer.

I have had to replace a blower since then - but I have cats and birds so the environment is not as friendly as it could be (the downstairs stove doesn't have this issue since the cats / birds are upstairs 99% of the time).

As others have said, the only real question should be will it do what you want? Is it big enough for your needs? I feel it is always better to go bigger since you can throttle back the heat output, but can't make a stove put out more heat than it's capable of. However, constraints such as clearances also need to be considered (there is no place in my house that I could fit a bigger stove on my main floor for example - and it is only 950 sq/feet so the P43 is fine).
 
Thanks for the responses. We have a small (1200sqft), tall house. 3 x 400 sqft floors with a large open staircase right up. Everything is very open plan. The primary source of heat for the upper 2 floors are heat pumps. The broken pellet stove (very old Kozi 100) is on the bottom floor where, for the brief time that it worked, was mainly used in the evening and on cold nights. It kept the bottom floor nice and cosy and provided some residual heat to the rest of the house. Not intending for it to become our primary source of heat. Prior to this house I've always heated with wood and had hoped to replace it with a wood stove but the only way it would work would be to have a 3 story outdoor chimney pipe which doesn't seem ideal. Seems like used, if it's in good shape, is the way to go. Thanks again.
 
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I think the P43 should work well, $1800 cdn is an alright price if the stove doesn’t need anything right away...keep us posted
 
I think the P43 should work well, $1800 cdn is an alright price if the stove doesn’t need anything right away...keep us posted
Agree, you can always offer him a lower price, start @ $1500, you never know
 
Agree, you can always offer him a lower price, start @ $1500, you never know
Absolutely offer a lower price to start. The used P43 that I got was listed at $1,500. I offered $1k. That was "rejected", but a couple of weeks later it was still on CL, so I re-offered the $1,000 . Once we established I could pick it up on a specific weekend, then they accepted.

Now, there were a couple of things working for me to get such a good price: I already had a St. Croix Hastings on my main floor, so I wasn't desperate for a stove (It worked well, just wasn't the right stove for my circumstances). Additionally, this was in late spring when a lot of stoves are on CL, they were moving, and they needed it picked up in a specific time frame.
 
That is a good price and even if you need to throw a couple of parts at it you are still way ahead money wise. Give it a good cleaning and test run before the install too.
 
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