ordered a Harman 2500A furnace

Hi all, I am new to this forum.I am hoping to be able to call on the Harman users for recommendations and insight on the operations. I have not received the furnace yet, but I am expecting it to come in this week. I am looking forward to getting my harman furnace. The Clayton furnace I have been using for 3 years is great if I offer it therapy every 30 minutes. Anyway I am ready to move on to harman. Tips and tricks would be appreciated.

i'm looking at getting one of these now.

for me the biggest reason i'd go with a furnace over a boiler is because i want to burn wood and coal.

from what iv'e read burning wood in the boilers doesn't work out too well due to creosol building up on the water jacket.

if wood wasn't free (other than my time) i'd be burning coal in a boiler

let us know how you make out with your new furnace.

Sandman,

If you are getting wood for free, you'd be better off selling it by the cord to pay for your coal. I'm sure you've read it here but the combo units don't burn coal as well as a dedicated coal burner. Also, I used a wood boiler for years and they work ok but you've got to feed it probably 3 times a day, when the weather gets less severe, they don't idle well which means lots of creosote. Lots of creosote means chimney fire. I'd reconsider if i were you. Just some friendly advice

coalkirk wrote:Sandman,

If you are getting wood for free, you'd be better off selling it by the cord to pay for your coal. I'm sure you've read it here but the combo units don't burn coal as well as a dedicated coal burner. Also, I used a wood boiler for years and they work ok but you've got to feed it probably 3 times a day, when the weather gets less severe, they don't idle well which means lots of creosote. Lots of creosote means chimney fire. I'd reconsider if i were you. Just some friendly advice

maybe i'm remembering wrong but i thought the dual fuel boilers work fine as long as you only burn coal and the furnaces work well with both wood and coal, you just have to feed it more often when burning wood.

selling the wood to buy coal, i like that idea.

sandman wrote:maybe i'm remembering wrong but i thought the dual fuel boilers work fine as long as you only burn coal and the furnaces work well with both wood and coal, you just have to feed it more often when burning wood.

If it is designed to burn coal, it will do so well and burn wood well. If the original design was for wood and modified for anthracite (V shaped firebox) it will burn wood well and coal with difficulty. I have such a design.

Do to the size of the fire box and btu and the blower cfm I upgraded to the 3500. My wood now is cut to 26" long and the 3500 fire box is 27" long and that will work out just fine. 170000 BTU.
I am picking it up tomorrow on friday 1/2507 10am
http://www.harmanstoves.com/specifications.asp?id=29

i ended up going with a VF-3000 stoker


i should have it next weekend.

i'm stoked!

Well I have my new Harman 3500 170000 BTU stove installed and burning wood. Start it today at 200pm. Lighted very easy. The auto draft on the bottom door seems to work just fine.

Congrats on the new Harman. You should enjoy it for many years.

Hi guys,I too have a clayton 1600 that will work well if I tend to it every 2-3 hrs ( burning Bit coal).It heated well this winter & I saved alot of money not burning any oil.The shaker handle on the clayton is a pain since it's mounted so low.These Harman furnaces look really nice whats the price range one one? I see that they have a 7" flu outlet would it hurt to neck it down to 6" to fit my chimney? Is the firebox just a square & not tapered.I'll have to get out & look at one but in the mean time I just thought I'd ask a few questions.Thanks Mike

Hi Mike, yes the firebrick on the sides of the Harman firebox are vertical. Not tapered to a V. The Harman coal burning products are designed to burn coal first and if you want wood.. The Tapered 'V' fireboxes are for burning wood, and if you want to struggle with it, burn some coal.

The vertical sides will help a lot with burning bituminous coal, but won't eliminate all the characteristics of Bituminous. The bitum will still swell and stick, but once broken up a few hours after loading, you shouldn't have to mess with the fire for the duration of the burn.

Harman grates are pretty aggressive too, which will help with chewing up the ash from the Bitum coal. The bitum I burned made lots of hard ash that my slider grate design wouldn't grind up. I had to clean out the clinker and ash every week or so, depending on the amount of coal burnt.

The harman hand feed boilers are a good product... You may want to look at the AHS multi fuel boilers too, they handle bitum well too. Forum member 'ktm rider' has an AHS boiler, and loves it.

Greg L.

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Well my wife just went and picked up nut coal here in Wellsboro, PA at Jokers $7.80 a bag. The guy that loaded the bags of coal for her said the harman is not noted for burning coal. My wife said to him we don't have a stove we have a furnace and he said well I don't know anything about furnaces. The Warm up Shop in Williamsport, PA is where I bought my furnace. The cost is stiff. I paid $3500. They told me to only burn Anthracite nut coal or Anthracite stove coal in this furnace. I will be loading the coal tonight. I will post again tomorrow to let everybody know how I made out burning coal for the first time in my new stove....no no....furnace.

Well had a real nice wood fire going shoveled coal in every 15 to 30 minutes. The coal fire was doing well when I went to sleep. Woke up 6am and fire was totally out. Coal was gray in color.

Today started a wood fire at 6am. Burned wood until 1100am. Start shoveling coal in after 11am fire was burning ok, but not great. I finally resorted to a fan at the bottom door with the door wide open. That did the trick man did I have a fire! Real hot! Went to 85 degrees in the house until I closed the bottom door then the temperature went down to under 100 degrees on the Chimney pipe. I let that go for 4 hours. The stove now has all around the edges of the coal I had gray coal around the edges of the coal. Started anther wood fire on top of the coal. Went to bed.

Sounds like you don't have a lot of draft. Describe your chimney size, height, and I hope you don't have a manual damper in the flue blocking air flow.. You need an unobstructed chimney with strong draft to pull air through that huge bed of coal.

You need to load on the coal, did you fill the firebox to the top of the firebrick?? You need an 8" deep bed of coal all the way across, side to side with no holes or gaps where the air can sneak around the fire.

Do you have the air inlets closed on the loading door, and open ONLY on the ash pan door?? No air should be able to get in above the coal..

Greg L

Chap,
DO NOT give up ,these guys here will get you going!
gw