Not to Happy With My Harmon Mark II

Hello everyone its been a while. My Harman is not what I was thinking it was gonna be! Spent alot of cash and after I paid for it the shop that sold it to me does not want to help or answer any questions about the stove at all. This place is right outside of york. The shaker system is loud and does not seem to work very well. Its allways somthing. I don't know what to do???? I shake the stove down but if I push or pull the handle to much one way the grates will open and there goes my coal fire?? I wish I would have got the vermont castings stove,there grate slide back and fourth they don't open so the coal can get jamed in the grate and then your done!!! What a mess. can eneyone help me???? Evan call me on the phone and talk mr through this. I miss my wood stove so very much The name of the place I got my stve is called drapers in conestoga PA. He was very nice until I paid for the stove and then after that it was like he has no time to evan explain or answer any questions I might have. There is no good service these days its just sad what ever happend to the good service you would get in this country?? its all about the buck. I am scared for my boys! Please help if you can.

Sorry to hear about your troubles but you came to the right place...
Soon you will be lovin' the stove and it will treat you well...
There are other Mark II owners that will chime in also...
Short choppy shakes...
You do not need to go all the way to full stops to drop the ash...
Go slow at first...
You will get the hang of it...

I HAD A MARK III FOR 4 YEARS.FIRST YEAR WAS TRAIL AND ERROR.SHAKING IT DOWN TAKES SOME GETTING USED TO.IF YOU USE VERY SHORT STROKES YOU WON'T LOSE THE FIRE.IT IS AVERY GOOD STOVE AND IT PUTS OUT A TREMEDOUS AMOUNT OF HEAT. IF YOUR INTERESTED IN SOME MORE HELP SEND ME A PM WITH YOUR PHONE NUMBER AND I WILL TRY TO HELP YOU OUT.

Hi Ratdog,

How long have you been trying to burn the Harmon? There is a steep learning curve but once you get the hang of if, you’ll wonder how you ever burned anything else. Every brand of stove has its own particular quirks and the Harman is no different.

The most annoying thing about the daily operation of the Harman is the shaker system. The back and forth rocking makes it easy to dump the fire. That will pass with experience. Take a piece of chalk and mark the safe front and back swing of the shaker arm on the side of the stove. That will help you judge it a little better. As a previous poster said, short, abrupt strokes work better - 5 or 6 strokes is enough. What type of coal are you burning? Pea coal will produce less ash and tends to get stuck in the grates. With pea you could shake all day but you may not get much ash at all. That's what your want, that means you are getting full heat out of your coal. If some unburnt coal does gets stuck in the grates don’t try to “unstick” it by forcing the grates. Just stop shaking and know that it will burn away before the next service. It won’t kill the fire not to thoroughly shake it one time. Once I hear the grates grinding against coal I stop because I know I’m pushing against more unburnt coal than there is ash. Your fire may drop 2 or 3 inches during shaking but that may not equate to a lot of ash. Don’t worry about getting out a lot of ash right now.

Is this the only problem you’re having? Are you able to get and keep a fire going? How often are you tending it? New burners tend to mess with the stove a whole lot more then you have to. How are your stove top and pipe temps? Is the stove putting out heat? What's your room temperture? If your stove top and pipe temps are within a reasonable range and the stove is putting out heat, then it just a matter of keeping it up. Step back and decide what it is you can’t make happen with the stove (like you did with dumping the fire) and let us know. There are a lot of Harman users here and we can help. Lisa

Don't give up the ship(stove)!! With a Harman, shaking is all about short, quick strokes. Almost like "rattling" the handle. Watch the pile. You should just barely see it moving up and down. I normally open the air knob all the way so I can shake until I see orange then stop. I have a MkI and I burn pea, chestnut and right now I'm using STOVE! Yow! Nothing like loading up by putting three pieces of coal on top. . It burns it all. Don't get frustrated. It really is a nice stove.

Jpete....

Thanks! Yeah its tuff but you guys and gals make it better!!! Especially because the man that sold me this appliance does not want to help at all!! You can tell that bugs me because I am into customer service big time. Anyway I was told burn pea and I tried nut and I think I like the nut better. I do have some stove coal should I try adding a little on top if I get a good burn going??? Is a 10 hour burn ok??? I do not think I will be getting any 30 hour burns (LISA anytime soon>

A ten hour burn is nothing to complain about! I bet you never did that with your wood stove. If you are getting a 10 hour burn you've turned the corner. Just keep doing what you have been doing and you'll learn as you go. Lisa

10 hours "hands off" is pretty good. My best is in the mid 20hr range. And I only have half the coal capacity as you. You should be able to do 20 hrs easy. I'm doing 12 now without trying. Actually probably more. I shake/load before work around 6am and again after work between 4 and 5. We'll se tonight as I'm working overtime so I won't get home until about 8:30 tonight.

Hello!

Those of you with the Harman markII stove how many rotations do you do with your vent starting from the closed posistion to keep it around say 400 degrees. I know its a stupid question but I am just trying to see if my stove is installed right. So starting at say 12 oclock would it be one rotation all the way around or two or three? I have a friend who says he keeps his vermont casting on 700 degrees all the time and I think that is way way hot? Is it?? If I ran my stove at 700 all the time this place would be an oven. What temp do you keep your at say when you go to bed? Sory for the dumb questions but I have nobody to talk shop with around here.

ratdog wrote:...8<... I have a friend who says he keeps his vermont casting on 700 degrees all the time and I think that is way way hot? Is it?? If I ran my stove at 700 all the time this place would be an oven. What temp do you keep your at say when you go to bed? Sory for the dumb questions but I have nobody to talk shop with around here.

You've heard it before but there's never a dumb question. Dumb questions are silent questions. You'll get answers from Harman owner aplenty - just ask!

The two different stoves and can't be compared. The Harman is a welded steel stove with an air shell that forces warm air out of the space between the firebox and the outer shell of the stove. The fire isn't in contact with the exposed top of the stove. The Vermont Casting stoves I'm familiar with are radiant (no forced air) cast iron stoves. My Vigilant is designed to run between 400 - 700F measured on top of the stove on an iron plate that is exposed directly to the fire beneath it. I've seen other post talking about MarkII stove top temps of -don't hold me to this without confirming it - 340 -450, maybe 500 but this is from memory. Do a search or someone will post temps soon

I think the Harman users manual says to not exceed 600* but I've found anything over 450* turns the coal bright orange and scary. (if that happens to you throw some new coal on it. That will cool the fire down fast.) At that temperature the stove is producing so much heat that you will be driven from the room. You will find the right balance between the outside temperature, the setting of the air intake value and the room temperature you want to achieve; it just takes a while to get the right feeling. I wouldn't be too worried about the stove burning out of control. Right now, I’m burning mine at night at 3/4 of a turn to maintain the 75* room temp. That puts the stove top temperature at 250* well below the over firing stage. As someone has on their signature statement - "you will learn as your burn." Lisa

Yeah 600* is a rip-snortin' fire!

I only checked my stove temp once, as I normally have the magnetic temp gauge resting on my 304 stainless (non-magnetic) connector pipe. If I remember right, it was right around 400*. I usually shoot for a stack temp of just a tick under 200* for a decent burn length with adequate heat output.

I hear ya ratdog, on the customer service bit. Found that out when I bought my first new vehicle a couple years ago. Everyone is all over you, but the second you sign the paperwork ...... sayonara!

To hell with them ..... we've gotcha covered!

Oh yeah ... forgot my whole point of posting .... I usually keep my Mark III about 3/4 turns out for a slow burn, but never over 1.5 turns out. At 1.5, the coal consumption is insane. My Mark I was about the same, so I'd figure your II will be too.

Ditto .75 to 1.5 on the air opening...
275* to 375* for normal winter day...
Have baro...
Twice a day shake downs...
7 am and 7 pm in the winter.
once a day 7 pm in the spring and fall...

Heres my 2 cents. You should be not be happy with yourself and not the Mark II. It is the one of the best stoves if not the best in the market. The reason I bought my Harman and not other stoves is because of the grate system. Ease and quality of shaking. Ease of loading and cleaning and efficiency. I could have gotten a lot cheaper stove.
Once you get used to using the grate system you won't go back to another type. Short strokes is all you need and some poking the fire from above with a long homemade poker as mentioned in other posts will knock all the ash down. When you do have to clear the firebox out to restart you just open the grates via shaker arm and let it drop right thru into ash pan.
Burned Nut in it all last season then in the early spring tried Pea. I like it so much I'm burning Peal much of this winter. It will idle down nicely for warmer days and will not jam the grates. Easy to shovel in to the fire box. Maybe you should try Pea to start out with. The big thing with Pea is you have to give it more air to get heat.


Good luck

My first experience with coal was with a mark II . There was a learning curve that season , it wouldn't work right for me so I sold it to my brother who was more patient and picked up how to run it. Looking back I shouldn't have gotten rid of it so quick as it is a great stove once you know how to run a handfired. He routinely runs it hot with no problems. I have a MarkI for sale that I decided to hook up in my family room to try out and it runs great, alot of heat and easy to maintain, my wife even likes it and finds it easy to maintain when I'm not around. Good luck