Harman DVC-500

I just bought a Harman DVC-500 stoker. I was expecting the paint to melt off the ceiling due to the heat but am extremely unimpressed. I had it professionally installed. It doesn't appear to be burning correctly but I have nothing to compare it to, nor do I have any experience with coal. My questions are:
1. Should I be seeing the coal in the feeder moving?
2. Should the fire have flames or just red hot coal?
The lights all light on the panel, and you can hear the feeder chunking coal. The blower doesn't seem to work correctly; no difference between low and high.
3. Should 75,000 BTU's heat my 2400 sq. ft?
I've been asking the dealer but am not getting any answers or callbacks.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Is the stove hooked up to a thermostat?? if so, maybe the thermostat is at temperature, that is not calling for heat, and the stove is just idling??

When the thermostat is calling for heat, the coal on the grate should be increasing in volume, and move further down the grate,, the flames off the coal should reach to the top of the stove, and yes, it should be able to heat a 2400 sq ft house well especially in the current warm weather.. In idle mode the fire will be a narrow red band of glowing coals, with only a little blue flame off of the coal. The rest of the grate will be ashes..

Try turning the thermosat up to 90*, and see if it ramps up the fire,,

Greg L

Greg, thanks for the reply. The stove has two modes: "stove temp", and, "room temp". It is acting the same in either mode. I thank you for your answers though, as its hard explaining to the dealer, that there is a problem.

marvin wrote:Should 75,000 BTU's heat my 2400 sq. ft?

My Harman TLC2000 is rated at 72K & keeps my 2200 SF house at 68* all winter long. (I could have kept it warmer if I wanted to burn more coal......I go through about 2 tons per year) Allot depends on your house (how open a floor plan, insulation, etc) & where you have your stove & how you move the warm air around. I ran my gas furnace maybe 7 minutes total, all last winter. (just to dump some warm air & let the returns suck out the cold on particularly cold mornings when I wanted heat real quick for showers)

There should be a way to turn it up.. This being a Harman,, I'm not real familar with the pusher mechanism and adjusting the number of 'dots' on the stroke, and frequency of stroke..

Do a search on the forum,, for DVC 500 there are a couple of happy DVC owners here..

You may want to remove the coal from the hopper,, and inspect the coal that is right on top of the pusher block,, there may be some twigs, larger pieces of coal. or the coal could be too wet/damp and be clumping together and not feeding...

When you have the hopper empty, you can watch the pusher mechanism work, and adjust the stroke with the arm that stick out the back of the stoker,, to get a longer stroke and open up more to accept more coal on each stroke,,

Hope this helps.. Greg L..

What are the current number of dots, and frequency of stroke that it is set at?? The Harman owners will then be able to help you better,, my suggestions are pretty generic..

Greg

Richard S. wrote:Your house must be exceptionally well insulated or there is another factor involved, a house that size will typically go through 4 to 5 tons.

I can't explain it Richard??? My house is fairly well insulated but built in 1974 with just 2x4 construction & no added insulation in the attic, other than the maybe 6" of blown-in it came with. I keep reading how much coal others burn each year & can''t figure out why I use so little. No complaints though!
(Maybe it's because I have my stove in the basement family room with a suspended ceiling above & a few egg-crate panels which trap the warm air above the ceiling but below the upstairs floors. Plus a have a few vents cut in the bedroom floors above)
Last winter was the first one I had a blower connected to the Harman & what a difference it made! (basement...where my little office is & a family room was always in the low 70*'s & upstairs was high 60*'s except for the upstairs bath, with it's own vent, was always in the low 70*'s too.
In any case, I really do go through a little less than 2 tons of coal each year.

Pure Sarcasm here

I think the reason Richard [Devil5052] doesn't need more heat is that he generates so much 'heat' with his hatred of the current political administration.. Man are you in for a shock in you coal use when [if] you cool down when [if] Obama gets elected..

You'll be so 'cool and collected' that the house will need another two tons per season !!

Take care.. Greg L

Hello again Marvin.. I spoke with Matthaus about your DVC.. He says that the stoker on it is run by a modified circuit board from a Harman pellet stove.. there are a couple of sensors that give info to the circuit board, the sensors or the circuit board could be faulty..

Matthaus said he would try to get on the forum tonight to help you out if he can..

Greg L

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LsFarm wrote:You'll be so 'cool and collected' that the house will need another two tons per season !!

It would be interesting Greg....Don't know what I'll do with my spare time!

I would like to thank all for their replies/advice/assistance in this issue. I found the problem today and am a bit embarrased by it. You see, as I stated in my first post, "I have no experience with coal". However, I thought that the pro's who came to install and/or sold it did. They only delivered one bag of the 4 tons that I'd purchased, so I took a drive today to pick up the rest. I thought that the coal they were using seemed a bit big to be called, "rice coal". It wasn't until I picked up the coal myself that I'd realized the Rice Coal in my bag was much smaller than what turned out to be, "Pea" coal that they were using. WIth the horrible feeding and the blower problem, I too expected the board to be bad but after loading some of the smaller coal, the stove seemed to begin burning fine. I imagine with a full hopper, the heat would be comparable to what was originally advertised. ----- One other note: I don't blame the installers, as they did an awesome job installing the stove and I don't expect them to be experts as to which stove burns what fuel. Thanks again to all!

Marvin

Your DVC should be able to at least make a major contribution to your heating needs. If it can't, add insulation. I'm heating 3600sqft (ranch, 900 unfinished basement, 900 finished, 1800 upstairs.) A rule of thumb is how much oil you went through prior to conversion. I burned around 800-900 gal before coal - DVC meets my entire space heating needs - I've burned the DVC for two seasons. This year ran aprox 3.5 tons here on LI. Was a cold wet spring & I shut the fire mid April. Mid winter it's buring maybe 25 - 30% capacity.

I too bet that, with a little creativity in moving the stove-warmed air around (with fans, vents etc.) that you will be able to heat your whole house with your Harman. (You'll get to resent the sound of your original furnace kicking on & wasting your $$$$)