Harman Test Burn

Well we threw the match to it last night, only rude surprise was the fact that when the fella I bought it off replaced the glass and gaskets he musta ran short on the stuff to go around the glass cause it has gasket material on both sides but none on the top or bottom (Den Filled with Kindling Smoke) seems it is a two piece door assembly of some sorts I gotta tinker with this . Other than that it seemed to go good Coal was a bit Damp and it seemed to die down pretty quick in the pilot mode . Took the chill off perrty darn quick though. Let it go out and back to the drawing board , gonna have her ready for the weekend cause the feeling in my bones says the warm weathers gone, guess its kinda like when a bear knows it's time to hibernate .

Sometimes manufacturers only use a gasket on two sides to allow for expansion of the doors metal vs. glass to prevent stress from breaking the glass. I would pack it all the way around, just not tight on two opposing sides.

There is not supposed to be gasketing on the top and bottom of the glass on a Magnum Stoker. This is supposed to be an airwash system for the glass. I found this out when I purchased my used Magnum and found only gasketing on the left and right sides of the glass. I turned to this forum and got answers real quick. Alot of helpful people here.

I actually ordered new glass and gasket and Harman only sent enough to do te left and right side.

I got a lot of smoke on initial start up as well but once the draft kicks in it is not an issue.

You will also notice that there is no gasket on the tile close out panel on the ash door. I used some high heat silicone to seal around this area.

Hope this helps.

Mark

Once the stove and chimney heats up to create the draft you won't get any smoke out the glass, you could sit there with the door open and not get any smoke out, it will suck in.

i have that on my harmon as well i have a sf 250 and the gasket isnt present on the top part of the glass. been burning some hard wood in it on and off.

As Mark stated the gaskets are correctly installed if on the sides only.

The biggest issue I've seen with the Harman's is setting the combustion fan cover plate properly. You will need a draft gauge and a little time to burn both at idle and high fire to make sure. If the cover plate is too far open the static pressure in the stove will be too high (should be a draft of .02 to ,04 inches of water negative pressure). There is a small allen plug in the front of the stove which gets removed to insert the draft gauge.

Even though you may have great draft in the chimney, improper stove draft can cause serious corrosion of the hopper and even worse, CO in the house.

Hope this helps.

The thing to remember is that you should never need to have the combustion blower cover plate more than 1/2 open. As it gets warmer you want to close it more. (Colder More, warmer less)

Howdy Folks thanks for the replies, one thing I have noted is this is an older Magnum with the flat roof design and there is no front port for draft testing nor a restrictor plate as has been mentioned here and is displayed in the downloadable manual . One other thing noted while looking at the electro manual is that they use a three piece fire brick but mine has just a single rectangular slab as available in most hardware stores could any body tell me how tall the original replacements are compared to what I got ?

The glass is supposed to have gasket material on top and bottom only, as others have stated. I have to be careful when starting my stove as well, esp. if the day time temps. were warm, as the chimney will still be cold and it's difficult getting a draft going. I usually jump start the draft by sticking my propane torch in the baro damper for about a minute or so before firing the stove, it helps get the draft going.

our Mag has the 3-brick design. The center brick is regular size I think, and the outer 2 basically just have the corners cut to match the shape of the pent-roof design. As for the restrictor plate, it's a thin round metal dish, slightly larger than the diameter of the squirrel cage, bolted in one place to the intake side of the fan casing so you can swivel it to restrict the air flow.
I'm glad everybody else gets the "start-up puff". Temps heading down this wknd, might be time to make black rocks red. 8)