Tuesday, August 26th, 2008
Well, the guys came over yesterday to install the new St. Croix Prescott EXL pellet stove. As you might recall, our previous pellet stove was a Harman P38. I was a little nervous about switching brands because I had gotten used to Harman. Also, Harman has very good reviews. The reason I couldn’t get a Harman this time is because they are all backed up and we may not have even gotten one this season.
It took the installers about 3 hours to finish the installation. When everything was in, they fired it up to make sure everything was working properly. One of the installers noticed one issue…the auger wasn’t turning, so no pellets were falling into the burn pot. the auger motor was working fine, just not the auger itself. We made an appointment for the service guy to come out today. By the way, I could have fixed this. It was easy. I actually was almost done fixing it when the doorbell rang. That’s me beating my chest.
Today, the repair guy came out and fixed the auger issue. The small set screw on the auger shaft wasn’t tightened properly, so it wasn’t catching on the auger motor.
I must say, this unit is very nice. It has auto-light, which was very important. I am going to hook up a thermostat, so the pellet stove can shut down and start up on its own. Also, the auger and fan is much quieter than the Harman. The whole system just seems to be more elegant. For a few hundred bucks more, I am happy that I went with this model.
Here are some photos…
What’s nice is that the outside venting is under the porch. The necessary clearances are 24″ away from the porch and 12″ off the ground. Also, since we used the fresh air kit, the clearances from windows and doors is only 9″. I would say that’s one of the huge benefits of pellet stoves.
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Friday, November 9th, 2007
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?
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