Review: Country Flame Harvester
Reviewed February 26, 2015 by
Mark Courtenay
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Country Flame Harvester Junk
Our Harvester is 6 years old now and it's been nothing but a pain in the neck requiring constant cleanings and expensive but shoddy parts to keep running. We have tried a number of fuels and have settled on a 20%/80% mix of corn/pellet as the best burn solution but it still will only last 2-5 days before it requires a stiff cleaning taking hours. It'll block up the burn pot and won't clear despite the stirrer still turning and a number of air adjustments, to include measuring the air flow from the motor, which is within spec. The path the air takes is convoluted and causes ash to drop out easily, so it coats these hidden surfaces accessible only by removing the side plates and using a brush. Once these surfaces get coated the air flow is reduced further to the point the burn isn't sustained.
We've contacted AES and their solution was to try a new burn pot and stirrer, which we did, and the burn pot is so cheap one half of the very thin NEW sheet metal has already burned away. After many discussions with them they just tried to sell us new parts and then a new stove! Yeah, like we'll buy another piece of junk from you.
We're very disappointed in this heavily maintenance intensive stove and wish we'd never bought it. We're looking to replace it with a Harmon since we can't run it above setting 3 without overflowing the burn pot overnight, and even level 3 (which isn't hot enough for Maine winters) will only last a few days at most, and level 1 isn't hot enough to keep the stove running (yes, I replaced the snap disks already, which didn't help). What is the point of having a pellet stove if we still have to use oil to keep the house warm!
Avoid this junk if you can, I wish we had.