Anyone replace their auger on a Harman Pellet stove Accentra auger and know the procedure? Mine never really looked right from the start, it look liked you took a file and filed it thin on both sides about 11-15 mm on the end, looked flat spoonish on the end. You coud see the metal curl over time and sure enough the tip has broken off. I am not sure if it hurts performs having the tip of the auger missing but at some point I would like to replace it. Anyone have instructions on doing this. About Harman, this is a love/hate relationship: Couple of things I dislike about Harman and something to keep in mind, Harman Company itself will not help you, if you do get replies they are vague to the point of useless, usually referencing you to a local dealer as the main point. What local dealer? I had to drive 3 hours to the nearest retailer to buy the stove. Many Harman dealers will give you the cold shoulder if they know how far away you are from them. They see less interested in selling you a part and instructions wanting to install it, having one of their people work on it. With my old sheet metal Breckwell that rattled like a tank, Breckwell listed each part number in the manual, if you were the orginial owner and could prove it they would sell you the part at a huge discount, give you instructions. Most of the motors in a Breckwell are standard stuff and working on a Breckwell is like working on a lawn mower. Breckwell seem to understand local dealers come and go, not located in every city, people move with their stoves, aka move away from dealers, and that these things are long term investments. I like the auto running model of the Harman over the Breckwell but if I were located in Alaska I would take a Russian like built Breckwell over a Harman any day. I gave away my old Breckwell, it was a 1990 model, it is on its fourth owner. Gee.

Also.. (to joeplumb, and baymee). now im getting nitty gritty and precise... If you burn a fuel properly, than you will have no odour (as a direct result from the fuel anyhow). Normal complete combustion can be expressed as: 1. Hydrocarbon Fuel + oxygen ---> Carbon Dioxide + water or normal incomplete: 2. HC Fuel + oxygen ---> Carbon dioxide + Carbon monoxide + water or very incomplete 3. HC Fuel + oxygen ---> Carbon dioxide + Carbon monoxide + carbon (soot) + water [you can skip this bit, and go to the point if you want] However oxidisation may also yeild in minute quantities: Carboxilic Acids, Alkanals (aldehydes), Alkanols (Alcohols), Alkanones (ketones), organic peroxides and poly-cyclic compounds *(particularly in the case of wood and [what im going to call] complex oils [note my definitions for complex oil are for example.. vegetable oils, linseed oils, cyclic turpenes.... kerosene is not a complex oil])* ... Of which polycyclic compounds are most likely to contribute to "smells". THE POINT>>>> CO is not linked to the "SMELLY" compounds you refer to in any way... most "smelly" compounds are poly-cyclic or inorganic (and are formed from radcals from imcomplete "incomplete combustion" reacting with the cocktail of organic matter present)... ok.. so CO is undectable by sense of smell (and it is colourless), and it is produced way before you start smelling "stuff". By the way, both 1. and 2. of those reactions "Burn Clean" they dont produce soot... CO can still be produced by "clean burning" appliances. If anyone is that worried then find a "complete combustion" appliance, which having said that, would be extremely hard to find. [Extra Info] In fact CO, CO2 and H2O all don't have any odour or colour, Carbon soot also has no odour but has a black powdery look and a sooty feel, but the "sooty odour" people smell is usually some sort of cyclic compound formed from very incomplete combustion (one of the reasons why xylenes, naphthalenes, toluenes and benzenes burn with such a strong sooty smell)..

If the cooktop or range is against a wall, then the amount that the hood aperture extends past the burners front-to-back should be commensurate with the amount the hood overlaps the burners side-to-side. This is because the rising effluent expands equally in all directions as it rises. (A powerful hood will cause some distortion, but nominally and for the most part practically, the hood air flow does not "reach out" and suck in air that already has a velocity that dominates the air velocity of the hood intake air away from the actual aperture.) The best insertion of make-up air (MUA) is any method that doesn't cause any cross-drafts at the hood. In test kitchens, this is done by introducing MUA through porous walls. We can generally exclude this approach for residential kitchens. Floor, wall, or ceiling registers (diffusers are what you want for air flowing out, but are not really suitable for floors) are all potentially suitable options. Mine is a ceiling diffuser located down a hall that leads to the kitchen. This provides some flow straightening and area expansion as a means to minimize cross drafts. Cost of heating MUA is not high, but the assembly of parts needed may be high in cost. Unless you operate your hood 24/7 boiling off maple sap, you likely will only be running the hood at partial to full power for short durations. I have a heat exchanger hooked to my hydronic heating furnace that can utilize all of its (forget the exact number) probably 180 kBTU/hr output if needed for MUA heating. I think the furnace at this rate uses 1 point something gallons of oil per hour, so this high cost is around a few dollars an hour for usually less than an hour when the exterior temperature requires the maximum temperature correction. In any case, I believe that an electric heater in the MUA path will be an easier thing to integrate. Cost per hour may be higher in proportion to your electric rate's higher cost (per BTU) over oil. You may have to run significant power from breaker box to heater if you are going to make-up very high flow rates through the hood at -20F. (Fireplaces can have high flow rates that have to be made up also, but I don't know anything relevant about the flow rates of gas fired fire places, so that should be something you can find out for planning purposes.) If you are rugged enough, the MUA heating doesn't need to be perfect in temperature control, just good enough to keep the introduced air tolerable during the cooking. Your code requirement doesn't provide for different conditions needed for safety, it just mandates MUA. The safety requirement that should be driving a more sophisticated MUA requirement, applicable where combustion appliances are used without their own separate MUA sources (ducts to outside, operation in a closed room ventilated to outside, or whatever), is to keep the internal house air pressure high enough to not back-draft the appliances, and thus avoid pulling carbon monoxide into the house. For unblown gas appliances, the house negative pressure limit is 0.03 inches of water pressure, and requires very low pressure loss in the MUA system with a powerful hood. I think this is necessary for fireplaces also, as they depend on the draft for flow, and the draft depends on the pressure difference between hearth and top of chimney, given hot flames to provide upward momentum. All this means is that you can either provide a code-compliant MUA system that is rated for a given flow rate, and for safety do whatever is really needed to safety proof your combustion sources, or provide an MUA that is sophisticated enough to keep the house pressure up over the range of ventilation flow rates possible with the hood, fireplace use (potentially high flow rates themselves), bathroom fans, etc. While I am working toward a closed-loop pressure controlling MUA system for myself, I am certain that for most needing MUA, isolating appliances is the better cost approach, allowing the MUA to aid hood blower performance, and not be so critical for safety. My oil burning furnace does have its own MUA, but I wouldn't operate my fireplace with my kitchen ventilation running at full power, even with windows open (due to pressure loss in the screening), without a powered MUA path. Can't help with an educated HVAC company, but FanTech has a line of powered MUA systems (don't recall if they are heated). If not, a suitable heater can be found and inserted into the duct path. Someone on this forum back in the 2008 to 2010 period, possibly clinresga, provided an image of his basement ducting with coil electric heater in the path. My [not yet completed] system is in my attic and draws air from above the roof. A blower will push this air through a filter, through the heat exchanger (think car radiator), and into the diffuser. HVAC companies dealing with restaurants will understand what you have to do, but often their setups are not compensating -- flowing a fixed MUA flow rate against fixed vent hood flow rates. Large building MUA is usually compensated, but the schemes used are better suited (as far as I've been able to learn any details) for continuous pressurizing MUA systems that have to compensate for outside door openings. They can do this with passive air pressure control of dampers that recirculate MUA around the blower. The blower motor runs continuously. The relatively recent of introduction of residential MUA requirements has provided some impetus to development of residential MUA systems, so availability of systems and components should be expected to increase. Keep reading; be sure to check out the Greenheck paper available at their website: KVSApplDesign_catalog.pdf, as well as CKV_Design_Guide_2_031504.pdf, available somewhere on the Internet. These are commercially oriented, but should provide useful insight. kas

I registered specifically to reply to your post because I struggled for months on what to do! We undertook a major renovation last year (the one and only in our lives) that included a 48" Bluestar Platinum rangetop and a 54" Bluestar Incline hood (with promo pricing at the time). The gardenweb forums were a tremendous help! What I learned was: 1. That ventahoods are difficult to clean from a friend who has one installed in her home. ...a pain in her words. 2. While the Incline comes with an internal blower, I choose an Abbaka external hood blower. We wanted to limit noise since we removed a dining room wall to make a greatroom. What I read was the Abbaka is rated at 72 decibels. We have a single level ranch and standing on the ground in front to the vent which is 6 feet back from the roof edge, the noise level is reasonable and not distracting nor a nuisance in the patio. The abbaka comes with an ugly industrial looking rotary adjustable fan switch. We had it mounted on the cabinet wall to the left of the counter. It's hardly noticeable. We just don't use the Bluestar blower control. 3. We have a Fantec duct silencer installed inline. So, what we have experienced. First, on high, the hood is still noisy, but significantly more bearable than filter style hoods we've had in the past! I start the hood on high and only keep this speed when stir frying, etc. once the hood draft flows, we turn down the blower according to what we're cooking. Our ventahood owner friend doesn't think our noise level was more than hers. Second, the Bluestar hood baffles are easy to clean! They're big, but fit in the dishwasher. I ran a dedicated load last night just for our 4 baffles. Our 54" hood had 2 stainless rails along the edge to catch oil dripping onto the rangetop, they went in the washer, too. A couple of paper towels to wipe the inside of baffle sill was all I did. The interior of the hood hasn't been greasy and we have only minor oil splatters on the rangetop's front sill. The backsplash barely needs wiping except when I splatter sauces and stuff. Third, ventilation effectiveness. I am a home coffee roaster. I use a Hottop drum roaster and roast 235 grams ( a little over 8 ounces) of green beans. Coffee roasting results in huge amounts of unpleasant smoke. I've always roasted in the patio because our hoods were totally inadequate. Now I roast inside and don't notice any odors from the roasting. Being retired and therefor old, noise was a significant issue for me. Effectiveness and long term care was the other equal consideration. We would make the same decisions knowing what we know and have experienced! good luck on your undertaking and renovation!