I asked my dealer about the XXV Friday, his response was Harman issued "1 tech bulletin" early February regarding a few stoves in the field with a buzzing distribution blower. Here is the latest post from hearthnet....... Pete S...
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I asked my dealer about the XXV Friday, his response was Harman issued "1 tech bulletin" early February regarding a few stoves in the field with a buzzing distribution blower. Here is the latest post from hearthnet....... Pete S Posted: 26 February 2006 02:13 PM Burning Hunk Total Posts 28 Joined 2005-12-29 The Harman rep came to my home yesterday and implemented the factory designed fix (metal band clamp) which I truly believe is the final cureall for this issue. I am very comfortable that this fix will work (I know I have said that before, but I really think this did it). He explained that the Harman finally found one with this issue that their engineers could analyze (not sure why they didnt just have mine shipped back to them 4 months ago). As I understand their explanation, Harmans engineers say the buzz is generated by the magnetic field emitted by the distribution blower motor which causes a very high frequency low amplitude vibration in the shroud . Their fix he implemented adds a large metal clamp band (aka hose clamp) strapped around the exhaust line. The clamp tightens up the contact between a section of sheet metal (contiguous with the shroud...I think?) which is overlapped onto the exhaust line, and prevents them from tapping against eachother. This metal band clamp looks like the stove could have been designed with it (doesnt look hokey at all, like mine and other posts have indicated). As it is very clear that high frequency vibrations in the shroud sheet metal were causing it to tap on someother section of metal, we also cut the tip of the sheet metal screw off which connects the two sections of the shroud together (just in case the tip of it was contracting the distribution blower housing, because based on earliar poking and prodding, it sure did seem like the source of the noise). This sheet metal screw was about 3/4" long, alot longer than it needs to be. Also as one of the previous fixes was loosening the screws on the distribution blower box, he made sure to that the blower box was replaced back in a tight secure position. I didnt want to mention this in earliar posts for fear of getting flamed as a whiner, but during an earliar repair attempt, one of the methods of repair was to back off on these screws to lower the distribution blower down a hair. As after they implemented this fix and the section of gasket fix, the buzz occured with less frequency, but then stove in general seemed to be more noisy (I believe that this was due to this distributio blower box not being mounted securely). One other thing worth mentioning is that during this fix, we took out the exhaust blower to examine if it needed to be cleaned out. As I have burned close to 2 tons of pellets through this stove, I was expecting to see alot of ash deposits built up on both on the fins and the housing of the exhaust blower. There wasnt any. This reminded me of what Harry said in an earliar post (these Harmans burn extremely clean). As he is a Harman dealer I just chalked that up salemen talk. What he said is true, unlike my Whitfield Advantage III which I had for 10 years, this XXV does burn really clean. When I would clean the Whitfield exhaust blower (one to two times per season), it was caked with ash, along with the exhaust pipe. Something about how they designed this stove, the ash doesnt seem to get pulled through the exhaust. In summary, I think this latest fix was it. I know it has has only been one night, but this stove is now running really quiet, more quiet than ever. With respect to Harman, I still think they should have taken mine or someone elses stove back to the factory back in November, rather than making their customers (Rick in RI, me and anyone else with the issue) and have us beta test their proposed fixes. It would have been a win-win situation for both of us. Neither Rick nor I would have had to endure this buzz for as along as we have had to, and Harman would not have had to have who knows how many potential future XXV buyers read this thread (1,800 plus and counting). Harman makes a solid stove, but needs
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