So Far I Love This Stove

i just think Harman is going to be kicking themselves when pellets hit $300 and up and people stop buying their products because that's basically all they make anymore. they will no longer have alternative products to sell, it could be a disastrously short-sighted move. people will look elsewhere for the products they desire when pellets are no longer attractive (i think we are already at that point, if the prices continue north it will be even harder to sell them).

this is the very reason I offloaded my Harman P61 so quickly. im not gonna keep it if I suspect the pellet prices are going to continue to go up. if it hits $350+ per ton it might be downright impossible to sell and have NO RESALE value. the same thing will happen with new Harman pellet stoves. who wants to buy a $3500- $4,000 stove that takes a fuel that produces mediocre heat and cant get wet, a fuel that will be over $300 per ton soon. a fuel that will take 7 tons to heat an old home if you have a cold winter?

i think they will regret selling their coal line and allowing their wood stove line die off as well and it could be a very bad business decision in the future.

unless there are enough cool aide, enviro whack jobs around to keep paying these prices and higher. I could be wrong. by the way my daily driver is a 1996 camaro Z28 with a 5.7 LT1 V8 engine. I think these enviro nut jobs are exaggerating climate change and the real causes of it. they can have their prius and their wood pellets

when I sold the Harman I told a little lie, of course I wanted to move it out of here before it became completely worthless (price of pellets goes up even more). the buyer asked m how much I burned last winter, I told him a line of B.S. I told him I burned 4 ton and I burned 7 ton. I wanted the sell the unit I needed the money for my coal load.

Hopefully he won't come looking here when he figures out pellets are too expensive..

that's his problem for not doing his own research. when I bought the stove I was told the same line of B.S. from the Harman dealer, I was lied to by an apparent expert. the guy that bought my old stove will probably be in better shape anyways. I have a 1600 sq ft. farmhouse, plank construction built in 1895 a real old style home. he said he has a 1100 sq ft home that 11 years old. HUGE difference.

ad356 wrote: the dealer sold me a lie when I bought the pellet stove, he told me that it would burn 4 ton per year. this was nowhere near the truth.

He may have given you inaccurate information, but that doesn't mean he was being deceitful. It is tough for anyone to guess at how much fuel another house will burn without detailed information about the construction, wind exposure, interior temperature, etc. The guy that bought your stove might keep a few rooms in the house 75 degrees for 2-3 tons per year and smile the entire time.

all true. he is heating a more modern smaller home. he will probably burn less then I did. thing is that at the same time I installed the stove I did a ton of other work to the house. with that particular stove I was expecting more of a savings. we replaced all windows, both doors, removed and gutted all of the old horsehair plaster and replaced it with modern insulation and drywall. heck when I bought this house and moved in it still had the original fuse panel only 5 circuits with all of the fuses replaced with 30 amp fuses and circuits doubled up. we now have a modern cutter hammer panel box.

by the way I contacted keystoker and the stove was made in april of 2006. I would venture to guess that's not that old for one of these well made units. they are not like a modern high efficiency natural gas fired furnace. those things have thin heat exchangers and are loaded with electronics that can fail. that's how they get the high efficiency ratings out of them. a keystoker is made out of heavy, high quality steel.

ad356 wrote:all true. he is heating a more modern smaller home. he will probably burn less then I did. thing is that at the same time I installed the stove I did a ton of other work to the house. with that particular stove I was expecting more of a savings. we replaced all windows, both doors, removed and gutted all of the old horsehair plaster and replaced it with modern insulation and drywall. heck when I bought this house and moved in it still had the original fuse panel only 5 circuits with all of the fuses replaced with 30 amp fuses and circuits doubled up. we now have a modern cutter hammer panel box.

by the way I contacted keystoker and the stove was made in april of 2006. I would venture to guess that's not that old for one of these well made units. they are not like a modern high efficiency natural gas fired furnace. those things have thin heat exchangers and are loaded with electronics that can fail. that's how they get the high efficiency ratings out of them. a keystoker is made out of heavy, high quality steel.

Your right 2006 is not that old,one my alaska's is from 2004 and only parts were gaskets and glass normal replacement items and even now that I have 2 stoves the kast console was my main heat source for 10 years it runs 7 months a year

which is yet another savings. if a good stoker will last 40 years while your neighbor is replacing their high efficiency natural gas furnace every 15 years you are running the same stove and replacing a few odd parts year after year decade after decade. not having to replace your heating equipment constantly is a savings.

im very impressed with the way this stove idles down. I ran it when it was cold out, now I turned the feed way back as its not really that cold out. I swear this thing carries a small flame like a pilot light. it will run with barely burning anything. so what is the least you can feed a stove like this and still carry a flame?

its hard to say setting wise but I usually call idle a 1 inch band of fire across the entire grate maybe a little less at this I burn about 10 to 12 pounds a day. I have comfortably run mine with temps in the mid 70's day and mid 50's night for days no problem and I don't believe in "window stats" when you have to start opening windows thats a waste. Besides I can build a fire and get the stove running unattended in 5 minutes

davidmcbeth3 wrote:Wanna marry the stove and have little stove babies? LOL

SCOTUS would approve.

You have to name your coal stove first Everyone knows that Our Keystoker 90 is Nicoal.

10-12 lbs per day is probably about what I am burning right now, well maybe a little more, I think it kicked up a little last night. it got down into the 40's. I removed 3 pins from the timer, 1 pin from each group of pins and I have the feed rate dialed back. when the weather gets colder do I leave those 3 pins out or do I put them back. when the weather is cold do you still allow your stove idle way down or do you set it so it does not idle down as much.

when I bought the Harman they told me that it would run in a trickle mode when the weather was mild. that was a lie, 40 lbs per day on the lowest setting is not really much of an idle. 10-12 lbs per day at low fire is really impressive, its kind of like a pilot light mode. makes shutting the stove down and re-lighting it more of a hassle then its worth kind of. I used to shut the pellet stove down and restart every day it wasnt that cold out

ad356 wrote:10-12 lbs per day is probably about what I am burning right now, well maybe a little more, I think it kicked up a little last night. it got down into the 40's. I removed 3 pins from the timer, 1 pin from each group of pins and I have the feed rate dialed back. when the weather gets colder do I leave those 3 pins out or do I put them back. when the weather is cold do you still allow your stove idle way down or do you set it so it does not idle down as much.

when I bought the Harman they told me that it would run in a trickle mode when the weather was mild. that was a lie, 40 lbs per day on the lowest setting is not really much of an idle. 10-12 lbs per day at low fire is really impressive, its kind of like a pilot light mode. makes shutting the stove down and re-lighting it more of a hassle then its worth kind of. I used to shut the pellet stove down and restart every day it wasnt that cold out

I have the same stoker, only in the Kaa-2 boiler. The pins are for controlling lag time, as well as idle fire. Lets start with idle fire. When no call for heat, the timer manually puts a little coal on the grate to keep a fire burning. Otherwise, the coal would burn up, and fire would be out. This is mainly for the warmer weather. The less pins, the better. Just enough to keep the fire going. With my boiler, it's 3 groups of 3 pins. Now for lag time in colder weather: When a call for heat from the thermostat, if it takes a long time for the fire to ramp up, and satisfy the thermostat, you may want to reduce the lag time. You do this by adding pins, and making the idle fire bigger. The bigger idle fire ignites the fresh coal quicker. When learning my boiler, I have gone as high as 3 groups of 6 pins. Now that I know my boiler inside, out, and backwards, 3 groups of 4 pins works for me. As far as stoker adjustment goes; Once you have the stoker properly adjusted, you should not have to monkey with it. My stoker is approx. 3-1/2 turns counter clockwise. I could go 2-1/2 turns for a touch bigger fire if needed. However, 3-1/2 turns seams just about right.

been burning my stove for a little while now and I am really impressed at how little this thing burns. I was at home depot today, a ton of pellets is now $269 tractor supply is $264. im glad I got rid of that source of fuel, too expensive to run and not enough

We were going to sell pellet stoves until one manufacturer told me there were more pellet stoves than available pellets. And there's already a shortage in our area. People ran out last year in Feb and couldn't find them anywhere. At 14 million BTU's per ton you might better use electric heaters.

To be honest there's not a lot of money in pellets to sell them. We make about twenty five dollars a ton. If you break a few bags it's easy to break even. We now take in pellet stoves and sell them for customers that buy a coal stove. It's amazing the amount of people that still want them....

Good for your business R, not so for them that still do pellets--ya can't fix stupid ya know!