Harman TLC 2000 Glass Door Cracked

Jack Magnum wrote: My blower seems to be making a different kind of noise than when new.

You could have dust/dirt build up in the squirrel cage. check if out, if able. Heres another thread discussing this....

Dust in Blower Inlet- Pre-Filter?

Chris F.

All good info for TLC owners or anyone deciding which stove to buy. As I said to Jane, I have owned 3 hand fired coal stoves & each of them had SOME issues:

Better n' Bens (first stove)

Side to side shaker grate warped & jammed after only 3 years of use. (ran it by cleaning out manually from underneath with a bent rod for years)
Ash pan to small
36" clearance from wall required
(many other small problems that I forget now)

Dutchwest Federal

Firebox too long, dark & shallow for easy loading & cleanout
3 separate shaker grates to turn
36" clearance from wall required
Shaker grate broke when ash door was open & jammed so ash door couldn't be closed. Fire Dept called to help me clean out burning coal!

I don't believe any manufacturer will ever build a PERFECT coal appliance. The problems I, Jane & Jack have had are pretty minor (IMO) & by adding another layer of firebrick, putting in a shaker arm STOP "Stops" for Harman Shaker Mechanisms?. until you get used to the Harman shaker system & just some technique, most of these problems can be surmounted at very little cost.

I think it's a great stove, & by far the best stove I have ever owned. (easy to load & clean, air-tight, huge ash pan & even looks great)

DVC500_at_last wrote:

Jack Magnum wrote: My blower seems to be making a different kind of noise than when new.

You could have dust/dirt build up in the squirrel cage. check if out, if able. Heres another thread discussing this....

Dust in Blower Inlet- Pre-Filter?

Chris F.

I have cleaned the blower out and find strings of dust. I wonder if I should vary the blower speed. I pretty much keep it at the one speed all the time. Although this is my first stove and I have no experience I am pretty happy with it and burning coal ,Well, That's the cats a-- !

Gypsea1981 wrote:To JLF53
My degree in Engineering included much study in thermodynamics, so ,yes one could say I know a little of heat transfer to fingertips of the unwary.

Your extensive problems with your Harman sound like a classic case of overfiring...it is okay to tell everyone that you had the whole thing glowing
orange and smoking hot.
Maybe trade in the Kitchenaide,the Mercury and the Maytag for an easy to use, safe, gas furnace? Leave the hot,smoky, dangerous things to people
who know not to touch things whilst still hot!

Your response is uncalled for and less than professional

No not over fired. Nothing like rocking chair fever where one sits and rocks and then comes up with a theory, without sufficient facts.

There is a thermostat on the upper right corner of my stove as well as one on the stack about 8 inches up. The max temperature the stove was at that day was 400 and stack at 200.

How would you like it if I started hurling unfounded accusations at you? Overfiring is not the only potential root cause. Since I was not over firing, it is not the root cause. If you read my postings you would already be aware of the temperature of the stove.

Bad form!

Devil505 wrote:All good info for TLC owners or anyone deciding which stove to buy. As I said to Jane, I have owned 3 hand fired coal stoves & each of them had SOME issues:

Better n' Bens (first stove)

Side to side shaker grate warped & jammed after only 3 years of use. (ran it by cleaning out manually from underneath with a bent rod for years)
Ash pan to small
36" clearance from wall required
(many other small problems that I forget now)

Dutchwest Federal

Firebox too long, dark & shallow for easy loading & cleanout
3 separate shaker grates to turn
36" clearance from wall required
Shaker grate broke when ash door was open & jammed so ash door couldn't be closed. Fire Dept called to help me clean out burning coal!

I don't believe any manufacturer will ever build a PERFECT coal appliance. The problems I, Jane & Jack have had are pretty minor (IMO) & by adding another layer of firebrick, putting in a shaker arm STOP "Stops" for Harman Shaker Mechanisms?. until you get used to the Harman shaker system & just some technique, most of these problems can be surmounted at very little cost.

I think it's a great stove, & by far the best stove I have ever owned. (easy to load & clean, air-tight, huge ash pan & even looks great)

I do not consider the issues that either Jack or I have had with our stoves minor. But then I do not have my identity confused with my stove, college degree, house or other possessions.

Get a Hitzer. Way less expensive, no issues all winter (once I learned how to run anthracite in it), and loads of heat.

Must have been some real winner posts. Obviously some deletions. Some of what remain are still pretty disingenuous and out of line.

I only noticed this today and have to agree that most of what the OP mentions would be disconcerting to me if it were my heater. I wouldn't want to have to make mods to something that is s'posed to burn this fuel, especially broken glass and door hinges failing.

my 2 pennies worth

BDHodosn wrote:Get a Hitzer. Way less expensive, no issues all winter (once I learned how to run anthracite in it), and loads of heat.

Must have been some real winner posts. Obviously some deletions. Some of what remain are still pretty disingenuous and out of line.

I only noticed this today and have to agree that most of what the OP mentions would be disconcerting to me if it were my heater. I wouldn't want to have to make mods to something that is s'posed to burn this fuel, especially broken glass and door hinges failing.

my 2 pennies worth

Thank you

JLF53 wrote:Thank you

Just a word of caution:

There are plenty of threads from Hitzer owners. Check them out to see if everyone is satisfied.

Devil505 wrote:

JLF53 wrote:Thank you

Just a word of caution:

There are plenty of threads from Hitzer owners. Check them out to see if everyone is satisfied.

It is hand fired so it would not be satisfactory.

JLF53 wrote:It is hand fired so it would not be satisfactory.

Just keep in mind a few things about stoker vs Hand fireds:

1. If you lose power...you lose your heat. (unless you get a generator)
2. Stokers have many more moving parts to break than hand fireds
3. Fan noise (stokers always have a fan going...24/7..Some are pretty noisy
4. Stokers can only burn rice coal. (no wood, no other sized coal)
5. Electric costs are higher to run then a hand fired. (which costs zero unless you run an optional distribution fan)
6. Stokers are allot more expensive to buy.

From what I can see, the only benefit of a stoker (over a hand fired) is convenience, but that comes at to heavy a penalty for me to ever consider one.

Just a few things to consider.

From what I can see, the only benefit of a stoker (over a hand fired) is somewhat less operating time to use it, but that time savings comes at to heavy a penalty for me to ever consider one.

You obviously are not lazy enough, Devil. Having burnt my fingers on a hand fed, I would never ever go back to one. The noise is "silent" after a while - some people buy white noise machines, I bought a stoker. I'm way to lazy for a hand fed.

Our electric bill went up less than $10 running it vs the hand fed a year ago.

That said, I'm amazed to see the hints of misogyny from a couple of posters. Those folks know who they are and I would ask them, would you say the same thing to your mother, wife, or daughter? How would you feel if some guy said similar to your mother, wife, or daughter?

tvb wrote:You obviously are not lazy enough, Devil. Having burnt my fingers on a hand fed, I would never ever go back to one. The noise is "silent" after a while - some people buy white noise machines, I bought a stoker. I'm way to lazy for a hand fed.

Yea...I guess the noise becomes silent after while....Just like the jackhammer operator can't hear his hammer after a while.............because he's gone deaf!! (just kidding)

I guess the idea of convenience is the key to a stoker over hand fired, but......since they cost more money to buy, operate & fix, I wonder if ......in the distant future......anyone could ever invent a REALLY CONVENIENT central, home heating system that would:
1. Only require you to turn a wall thermostat to operate
2. Never require lugging heavy bags of coal
3. Never have to empty ashes
4. Maybe burn something that a truck could just deliver & pump into a storage tank of some type, in your house
5. Maybe a liquid of some type
6. Maybe delivered automatically whenever your storage tank gets low
7. Maybe the storage tank could be big enough to hold..........I don't know......like 250 gallons of this combustible fluid into a black tank (to not attract attention to it)

Oh well, I know the convenience of such a futuristic system would make it more expensive than my hand fired coal stove,(maybe ALLOT more expensive) but I can dream..can't I??

Hey....Wait a minute!!!

Devil505 wrote:

tvb wrote:You obviously are not lazy enough, Devil. Having burnt my fingers on a hand fed, I would never ever go back to one. The noise is "silent" after a while - some people buy white noise machines, I bought a stoker. I'm way to lazy for a hand fed.

Yea...I guess the noise becomes silent after while....Just like the jackhammer operator can't hear his hammer after a while.............because he's gone deaf!! (just kidding)

I guess the idea of convenience is the key to a stoker over hand fired, but......since they cost more money to buy, operate & fix, I wonder if ......in the distant future......anyone could ever invent a REALLY CONVENIENT central, home heating system that would:
1. Only require you to turn a wall thermostat to operate
2. Never require lugging heavy bags of coal
3. Never have to empty ashes
4. Maybe burn something that a truck could just deliver & pump into a storage tank of some type, in your house
5. Maybe a liquid of some type
6. Maybe delivered automatically whenever your storage tank gets low
7. Maybe the storage tank could be big enough to hold..........I don't know......like 250 gallons of this combustible fluid into a black tank (to not attract attention to it)

Oh well, I know the convenience of such a futuristic system would make it more expensive than my hand fired coal stove,(maybe ALLOT more expensive) but I can dream..can't I??

Hey....Wait a minute!!!

Actually this would perfectly describe an Axeman Anderson coal furnace.

1. Only requires a wall thermostat
2. Has an auger from the coal bin to the furnace, never have to lug bags of coal
3. Fails on this point, but is minor, never have to empty ashes
4. Coal deliver into the existing 20 ton coal bin in the cellar!
5. Maybe a liquid of some sort, fails on this point but is no more inconvenient than current natural gas
6. Maybe delivered automatically when your tank storage gets low, natural gas is delivered directly to the house, the coal deliver service I deal with would come on a regular schedule, if requested.
7. I do not see the point of this sentence, but my coal bin holds 20 tons so it would suffice for at least one season.

And all the labor, mess, poor qorkmanship and issues associated with the hand fired stove would disappear, and I would have central steam coal fired heat.

Devil505 wrote:

JLF53 wrote:It is hand fired so it would not be satisfactory.

Just keep in mind a few things about stoker vs Hand fireds:

1. If you lose power...you lose your heat. (unless you get a generator)
2. Stokers have many more moving parts to break than hand fireds
3. Fan noise (stokers always have a fan going...24/7..Some are pretty noisy
4. Stokers can only burn rice coal. (no wood, no other sized coal)
5. Electric costs are higher to run then a hand fired. (which costs zero unless you run an optional distribution fan)
6. Stokers are allot more expensive to buy.

From what I can see, the only benefit of a stoker (over a hand fired) is convenience, but that comes at to heavy a penalty for me to ever consider one.

Just a few things to consider.

We have not lost power in this house I the winter in 25 years of ownership. So if we did it would be not different than when we would potentially lose power for natural gas. The Alaska Channing III is the same price as the Harman I purchased. Further, we have two chimney thimbles in each room, one high and one low. The Alaska is designed for bottom or top loading. It would have saved us $500 in stove pipe. We would only have to manage it once per day. Electric cost to run a stoker, as stated on this forum, is comparable to the blower on the Harman. The Alaska Channing III is the better choice!

JLF53 wrote:And all the labor, mess, poor qorkmanship and issues associated with the hand fired stove would disappear, and I would have central steam coal fired heat.

I hear you Jane but..........for a little less convenience & allot less money....I'll stick with my $1400.00 Harman TLC2000.

(You're always welcome to come over & warm up in the event that......... in your 26th year of home ownership, you lose power)

Edit: AA makes a great reliable boiler but I think you are underestimating the amount of work & expense involved. I would check with Freddy & see what he thinks.