Hitzer Fire Not Really Hot?

I have a Hitzer coal stove, burning anthracite coal. I finally figured out how to get it lit and to get it to stay lit using charcoal. The problem is that everyone I've met using coal talks about having their home ~80 degrees, while our stove is barely making a dent in the heating.

The coals are red hot, there are "dancing ladies" of blue flame above the coals. The only time they're not showing red are when I've just added more coals, roughly every 8 hours. The draft in the back is open to 13 or so. The coals are refilled to near the top of the fire brick, and I keep a small amount of the red hots visible at filling to burn off gases that accumulate.

Using an infra-red thermometer, it says the top of the stove is around 260 to 300 degrees. I empty out the ash bin after a light shaking so it doesn't accumulate up to the grate.

This has been a learning experience from the start since I've never used coal before and my parents when I was growing up burned wood. So...isn't this supposed to be heating the home better? What am I missing, or what should I check or do to get this to better warm the basement (and consequently the house)?

EDIT: Sorry, should have thought about extra information to include...

House is approximately 2,600 square feet, including the basement where the stove is located.

No tall ceilings, modest ranch-style modular home with full unfinished basement.

No baro damper.

The chimney height, I don't know, it's not in the contractor papers or their billing. They built the chimney specifically for the use of the coal stove, brand new this year.

Question: the lever on the right side of the door, in the vertical position...I'm assuming it's the damper to the chimney. I had assumed that because of potential CO buildup, as well as the fact that the door can't be opened when it's in the horizontal position, that it should be left in the vertical "open" position to allow gases and the draft to freely flow up the chimney. But it looks like that if it's closed, does it just close the lower opening, near the fire brick, and not the upper one? So maybe it would help it burn hotter if that were "closed" while the door is closed?

Images of stove and IR thermometer in different places (hope they help clarify...new to the coal burning scene as you can tell):

Evey home is different...How big of an area are you trying to heating? Tall ceilings? Chimney height? Do you have a baro damper? If so, is it set up correctly and calibrated? a bit more info on your setup would help.

Do you have a barometric damper and/or a manometer so you can set and check the draft? I saw similar results with my stove before I installed the barometric damper -- most of the heat was just going up the chimney due to excessive draft.


Move the thermometer to the stove pipe a foot or two above the stove top, and tell us what the temperature is there.

P.S. Yes, as Dave said, more info about your setup please, with a couple pictures if possible.

Check my heat loss problem see if it rings a bell. Posting and drawing from Oliver Power may help. I think it may solve your problem.Just a few clicks down from your posting.

I'm not familiar with your model HITZER. From what you describe, you have an interior stove damper. If it's like other stoves with interior stove dampers, you open the interior damper, which lets you open the door for tending. After tending, close the door. Leave the side handle in the vertical position till the gasses burn off. Yes, in the vertical position, the gasses, as well as the heat, are going directly up, and out the chimney. Once the gasses burn off, and the fire is going good, THEN close the internal damper by moving the side handle into the horizontal position. This will make the gasses travel around the stove. The more surface area the gasses can rubb against before entering the exaust pipe, the cooler the exaust. In other words; Cooler exaust = more heat in stove, and less going up the chimney. Your stove was designed for burning coal. I know HITZERS are very well engineered. Seeing you're new to burning coal, I think that is your biggest problem at this time. It takes a little bit to get use to it. When it comes to burning coal, they call it "The Learning Curve". I wouldn't put a baro damper in at this time(personal opinion). You can always add one later if you like. I don't have a baro damper in either one of my HITZER stoves. My stoves crank out the heat very well. My stack temps are as low, and lower than others on this site who do have baro dampers.

Hello Bsilver-

Your numbers look very typical of a stove just idling along at a simmer. Give it a little more air. Your stack temp can get to 250F-270F before you start wasting coal and/or burning too hot & fast. Lack of a fan hurts too, or do you have one?
I agree with Mr Oliver in regards to keeping the stack cool with heat transfer to the steel box but sometimes you just can't avoid sending heat up the flue with a big old handfired like the model 82.
Good pictures.

Cap wrote:Hello Bsilver-

Your numbers look very typical of a stove just idling along at a simmer. Give it a little more air. Your stack temp can get to 250F-270F before you start wasting coal and/or burning too hot & fast. Lack of a fan hurts too, or do you have one?
I agree with Mr Oliver in regards to keeping the stack cool with heat transfer to the steel box but sometimes you just can't avoid sending heat up the flue with a big old handfired like the model 82.
Good pictures.

No fan. Just the stove. Still learning my way around coal stoves and this is the first time I've attempted to use a secondary heat source. We are primarily propane and hoped using coal would be a bit less expensive despite the increased maintenance... So far I'm still scaling the learning curve, one frustration at a time. I'm hoping that I'll see a difference with Mr. Power's advice on the internal damper. If it works...I'm going to feel really really silly.

Cap wrote:Lack of a fan hurts too

I turned off the fan on my stove for just an hour on a cold, windy day, because the piano tuner needed quiet. Room temperature dropped 4 degrees in the hour. On the other hand, your stove appears to have an exterior cabinet designed to move a lot of air just by convection, so a fan might not buy you much.

You say the stove is in a full, unfinished basement of 1300 square feet. If it has concrete walls, and floor and walls are not insulated, they will be a TREMENDOUS heat sink transferring heat to the ground outside. Your tulips will bloom early, but much of the heat produced will not reach the living space of the house.

rberq wrote:

Cap wrote:Lack of a fan hurts too

I turned off the fan on my stove for just an hour on a cold, windy day, because the piano tuner needed quiet. Room temperature dropped 4 degrees in the hour. On the other hand, your stove appears to have an exterior cabinet designed to move a lot of air just by convection, so a fan might not buy you much.

You say the stove is in a full, unfinished basement of 1300 square feet. If it has concrete walls, and floor and walls are not insulated, they will be a TREMENDOUS heat sink transferring heat to the ground outside. Your tulips will bloom early, but much of the heat produced will not reach the living space of the house.

The basement has foam insulation (precast concrete walls). The house is a modular build about five years ago. The basement ceiling (house floor) has no insulation, but that should in theory allow heat to help pass through the floor to the living space upstairs better (at least that is what happened at my parent's house after they removed the insulation from their basement ceiling). I want to say the walls in the basement are R12, but I'd have to double check.

There's something else happening because the basement is still in the 65 degree range, so there's no heat to transfer to the upstairs living space.

Right now I closed the internal damper but the stove is acting like it's cooling after I shook the grates, removed the ash and added more coal about three hours ago.

If you just lit up, it's going to take quite a while to get all that concrete up to temperature .... especially at the temps you posted. When I light up for the first time, it takes at least a solid 24 hour period to heat up all the dirt, rock & concrete down there. Even with the stove cranking I barely feel any heat coming up the stairs at first.

This fire was relit on Saturday morning, so it's been 24 hours that it's been lit. The thing is that this is only heating the top of the mesh in the cabinet to a little under or around 200 degrees. It seems from my limited exposure to coal heat that it should be cranking more than that.

I shook down the ash and added fresh coal about three...going on four hours ago. The top of the cabinet is finally near the 180 mark, approximately. Is it supposed to take this long to heat up the stove again?

I am just now trying the closing of the internal damper, as per Mr. Power's suggestion. The "thermostat" knob in the back of the stove (tied with a chain to a rear damper at the bottom) is turned all the way to heat, but there's not much coming off of it (close to what was in the pictures, I suppose). Then again, maybe it's my impatience speaking.

I'm thinking that in the scattered information I've found you generally don't "stir the coals" as you would with a wood fire; is that true?

When I shake down the ash, I get some red-hot stuff falling into the pan, then I try adding coal to all but one spot where there's still some red glow peeking through, ideally with some blue flame popping up once in awhile. It looks like I'm smothering the fire, but i'm guessing that's not what is happening?

I saw another site where it was written that "once the extinguishing process starts, it's nearly impossible to stop". What causes that to happen? Stirring coals? Can you reverse it if it happens?

And on the front of the stove as you can see from the pictures there's one circular dial-shaped knob that seems to open a vent on the stove. Should that be open or closed, and when do I do which setting? Since it's above the coal bed, is it for venting gases or increasing draft?

I guess I need to know how to baby this once you have the coals on fire. I have finally figured out that if I use a bed of charcoal and enough lighter fluid to create a decent *woof* of flame, then add some coal to the bed, it'll ignite. I had almost no luck with using wood. I guessed it just wasn't hot enough with the size of the nut coal I was using. Lighter fluid and charcoal seem to do the trick. That alone took me a couple days to figure out (after trying a few times with wood and failing).

Any hints or tips on getting the firebox temps higher will be appreciated. Any guidance with how long it should take to see some results if it is a matter of closing the internal damper?

Coal likes a deep bed -- fill that thing as high as you can without going over the firebricks. Just when you think you can't fit any more, throw another shovel full in!

Coal is very slow to respond to changes. If you make drastic ones, you won't be happy ... it can take up to an hour to see the results of any changes you made.

That dial above the fire ... that's just to let air in to burn off the gasses .... I'd venture a guess that I'd try leaving it only 1/2 turn open ... or less. The more you open that, the more air goes AROUND the fire instead of through it.

You definitely don't want to mess around with the fire. Once it is first lit, add coal a little at a time .... as long as it takes ...... until your full to the brim, then leave it be. Don't stir, don't touch!

If you load the coal too fast, it will still burn, but will take forever to get the entire pile lit .... and you won't be setting any temp records. I shake/reload mine in the morning rather impatiently, & it will take 4 solid hours to get the entire bed burning. If I take my time loading, I can have it all burning in under an hour.

You might just need to give it a bit more air to see if it burns any hotter.

Do you have a piece of stove pipe on the end of that elbow going into the chimney? Is it in too far? Otherwise, I think you are treating the coal fire like a wood fire. Once you get the theory straight, you'll be ok.

oliver power wrote:Do you have a piece of stove pipe on the end of that elbow going into the chimney? Is it in too far? Otherwise, I think you are treating the coal fire like a wood fire. Once you get the theory straight, you'll be ok.

Not sure about the pipe...the chimney is just on the other side of the wall there, and I don't think it's too far in. Walls are precast so they're not too thick (just clapped with the foam insulation).

I'm tempted to try videoing my setup and procedure I'm using to empty ash and refill it and see if the group can help me with this with some feedback that way. Never tried uploading to youtube before...

The only thing coming to mind is that it's not getting enough air. On the 82, the only ways air gets in from the bottom are the damper and the ash bin, and from what I can tell it's...unwise?...to open the ash bin door 24/7 to get it burning better. The thermostat dial on the back keeps that damper open all the way. I'm now trying to keep the internal damper closed as suggested, but it doesn't seem to be making a huge difference yet.

Try opening a window a crack to feed the stove air; i.e. if your house is too hermetically sealed.
That stove will put out heat. From cold start my Russo takes anywhwere from 1.5 to 3 hours to come up to 275* stove top temp depending on how I fire it up.

hyway61