Harman Pellet Stove P38 Auger Not Turning
Written on November 9, 2007 – 11:17 am | by jaygaulardcom |
|
|
Last night, I started a little fire in Harman P38 pellet stove. I usually fill the little area with pellets, squirt some gel on them, light it and start to eat dinner. It usually takes a few minutes for the gel to get the pellets to start burning.
Well, Laura and I got into a good conversation and I totally forgot about the pellet stove. The door was open and the pellets were kind of smoldering. I got up to close the pellet stove door. After I did that, the stove was burning fine. Here’s the problem…after a few minutes, I noticed that the auger wasn’t turning to feed more pellets so the stove would keep burning.
I got the flashlight and started poking around some things in the back of the stove, to no avail. I tried a few times to restart the fire, just to see if things would kick in normally. Nothing. The pellets just kept on burning normally, but they would eventually burn out, because there was no replenishment.
I looked up some things on Google and came across this site, with a page titled, “Harman Accentra Pellet Stove Problems.” There were some good posts there, but nothing that helped me. I decided to let the fire burn out and call the place I bought the stove from today. Also, just as a kicker, I lost the user manual. I think someone stole it…yeah, that’s it.
At this point, the fire was completely dead and all the fans on the stove stopped. I decided to go for it one more time. I filled the burning bowl with pellets and squirted the gel on. I lit it and quickly closed the door. This time, as soon as I closed the door, I heard the auger turning. After that, things were fine. The fire has been burning all night.
I am thinking that since I left the door open too long the first time, the switch that starts the auger never flipped. Something like that. After I let everything die, things were reset. Who knows.
So here is an update on how the pellet stove is working this year. I bought three tons of pellets at about $600 and change. This is more than enough for the season. The thing cranks out heat. It doesn’t make any dust or mess because I caulked the exhaust pipes (high temp). I heard someone, on the radio this morning, say that they already spent $3000 on heating fuel this year, and that is only going to last until December. Must be nice to live in a 60,000 square foot mansion. Anyway, you would think they would consider alternatives at this point, instead of calling radio stations to complain about how stupid they are. For $2000, they can have a brand new pellet stove…installed. Oh yeah, they also mentioned that they drive an hour each way to work every day and are spending $95 per week in gas. How do you spell H-Y-B-R-I-D? Ahhhhh. Why do we even bother?
Related posts
Tags: Autumn, energy, harman, Heating, oil, Pellet Stoves, pellets, Winter
3 Responses to “Harman Pellet Stove P38 Auger Not Turning”
By Tick-Tock on Dec 10, 2007 | Reply
Pellet stoves are the shizzle that’s for sure - but not for everyone. Doubt that jackass who spends 3 grand on heating fuel would care for the cleaning and overall maintenance of a pellet stove let alone lugging 40 lbs bags of pellets. Me I love mine. Had this sucker four years and she’s never missed a beat. I feed her 4 tons of pellets each year to heat my house. That figure would be less but we like it on the warm side at about 75F. Stick my toes in the sandbox and whip up an ice cold margarita. Mmmmmmm, love that heat. The main switch on my furnace has been in the off position since the test fire in September. It’s a beautiful thang this pellet stove invention. tee hee.
By pellet on Dec 12, 2007 | Reply
There is a pressure sensor on that stove. If you leave the door open it triggers the sensor and the auger will not turn. This is a safety feature. You also need to clean the exhaust probe. On startup the probe checks temp, and will trigger the auger only when the exhaust temp is hot enough. So you either left the door open too long, or have a dirty exhaust probe, or the initial fire di dnot get hot enough to trigger the auger during startup.