In loving memory of Kenis D. Keathley 6/4/81 - 3/27/22 Loving father, husband, brother, friend and firewood hoarder Rest in peace, Dexterday

★★★☆☆ Harman Accentra Pellet Insert

Discussion in 'Pellet Burners' started by burndatwood, Aug 27, 2014.

  1. burndatwood

    burndatwood

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    I'll lead off with the good points about this unit. Ours was the 42,000 btu type. I believe that they no longer make this unit, but have a slightly smaller and slightly larger type on the market.

    We had ours for four heating seasons, and performance did not diminish at all from when it was new. No parts have needed to be replaced. It starts up fairly easily from a cold start, with the electric starter taking care of getting it going. Takes off within about 5-10 minutes.

    The thermostat works great, with us keeping it pegged at about 70 degrees, and the thermometer in our living room where it was located reflected it's ability to adjust to solar gain during the day, when it might not need to crank the heat out like it would in the middle of the night.

    The hopper is big. it can hold just short of a 40 lb bag, and the amount it could hold would keep the stove going for 12-14 hours, even in the coldest weather in VT. This meant my wife almost never needed to load - only when I forgot to fill it before leaving for work!

    It's also a beautiful unit, with some really ornate pieces. Nice viewing glass so you can see the fire. The blower is very effective at putting the heat into every corner of the house. Great convective heat, with a bit of radiant to boot.

    Now for the reasons why we're selling it and moving to a wood stove. The blower is loud and has been since day one. We have to crank up the volume on our laptop computer to watch shows at night in the room (no cable), and still would need to shut down the stove during the show. When my father-in-law would come over, who has some hearing difficulties, he struggled a bit more than normal.

    Regarding cleaning it, the operating manual says it should only need ash removal after a ton has gone through it. Although we could go two weeks without removing the ash pan there is no way we were going through a ton before removal. We used three or four different types of pellets over the years, and this is with the best brand I found, Energex. You wouldn't want to go that long without removing the ash pan anyway, because the unit should be cleaned every two weeks max during the cold months. Otherwise the heat output went down significantly, and when you're cleaning the stove, you're going to get rid of the ashes. I did not know until using this stove how effective ash works as an insulator, and a light buildup on the heat exchanger tubes would cut way down on the heat kicked out by the blower. Got it to the point when I could clean it in 30 minutes, but the unit has to be totally shut down before doing so. Not great when you're trying to cut down on heating oil to heat your house.

    The light show can't compare to a wood stove by a country mile, and the glass would get dirty very quickly after a cleaning - two to three days max at most. That meant you were looking at a dirty glass for a long time.

    I'm not sure how much electricity we used to keep the unit going, as our oil boiler also uses a couple fans to move the heat, but it's not nothing. Power goes out, unless you have a generator, you're out of luck.

    I hear people mention how dirty firewood is, but pellets also kick up a lot of dust when you dump 40 lbs out of a bag into a hopper. Not an issue specific to this unit, but all the ornate work on the stove did do a good job of holding onto that dust.

    One last quibbling point about this stove - the burn pot would totally fill up and start dumping pellets into the ash pan while it was trying to start. Minor point, buy still annoying. Tried to adjust the settings for years to stop this, but couldn't figure out a sweet spot. Could easily be remedied by using an alternate to the electric start, but it should have worked well given the price of the stove.
     
  2. dotman17

    dotman17

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    Yeah, I bought the 52,000 btu one in Febrary, 2017.

    Exactly.

    I did not have the thermostat.

    The temperatures out here in Western Washington -- in the cold of winter -- often hit in the 20s and rarely in the teens.

    Indeed.

    Fortunately we keep ours downstairs and the fan noise is inconsequential as we spend most of our time upstairs. But I find it no louder than an electrical furnace.

    IMHO this depends totally on the type and quality of the pellets. I use soft Douglas Fir (hot!) and after 4 tons, I have yet to empty a 5 gallon pale of the left over residue on my back porch.

    Correct. You have to clean it every 2 or 3 bags w/ a wet cloth after it's cooled.

    I had these concerns too until I found a YouTube video which shows the power during initial combustion of the pellets is the highest and after that it's pretty negligible. But for sure, if you lose power, you have to have backup power. All pellet stoves are like this. They require electricity to ignite the product (although you can manually start it) and then a small amount to blow the heat out into the room. If I wasn't so lazy, I'd dig for that link.

    Again, this depends totally on the pellet you are using. Premium pellets have lesser fines.

    We had this problem also until I took the time to figure out the solution. This happens when the burn pot is not clean and fly ash and residual ash insulation block the igniter from reach temperatures to ignite product. You have to keep the burn pot clean and ensure the tiny holes in the burn pot and combustion chamber clean. In fact, it wasn't until I determined it was necessary to take the wing nuts off the from of the combustion unit and vacuum out the fly ash in the chamber. Otherwise the pellets don't ignite, fill the pot and spill over. You can light them manually but you still need it to blow the heat out. Now that I regularly clean the burn pot and vacuum the chamber, I've never had this issue again.



    In sum, I cannot praise this stove enough. It does EXACTLY what we want it to do and has cut our heat bills an average of $200+ a month after one calculates the 4 tons of PREMIUM pellets. Basically, the Harman Accentra is a replacement for our electric furnace. I keep it filled with pellets every morning and night, and I clean it 2-3 times a week, with a more thorough and complicated cleaning about every 1-2 months. That's it. Feed it pellets and clean it regularly and you're good to go. Once you learn how to do this, it's quite easy and I ask myself daily if the effort to keep it clean, haul the pellet bags around the house, and load it twice a day is worth it all -- and that answer is always unequivocally YES.

    Honestly, this stove for what I use it for -- a furnace -- is one of the best purchases I've made in my life. It heats my entire 2 story 2000 sq. ft. house. In another 3 years, it pays for itself.

    I give it 5 stars but I understand the OP's concerns. It's not the exact fit for everybody.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2017