Chubby Question

Hi, I am new to this form and have been looking at posts for the last few months. Just installed a Chubby stove last week and started it up on Sunday. I bought 120 pounds of bagged nut coal and I followed the directions that Larry Trainer posted on the internet. The stove worked great (1500 square foot ranch) and I could feel the heat from the stove emanating throughout the house. The stove went out overnight and I started it up Monday night, 25 degree night and the house temperature was at 76 degrees with no oil heat throughout the night. I managed to keep the stove lit throughout the night. Monday night, filled the stove before going to work Tuesday morning. My wife told me she was sweating Tuesday afternoon. Had a ton of nut coal delivered to my house from a different company on Tuesday. I got home from work on Tuesday, shook the grates and filled the stove with the few remaining nut coals from my first purchase and the rest of the fire pot was filled with the new coal from the 1 ton delivery. The new firepot never managed to get hot even though I could see some of the red coals on the bottom of the fire pot. After two hours of messing around with the stove, I started a wood fire on top of the newly packed coal and the coal seemed to catch in the fire pot. The heat output was not even close to the night before. It was a 19 degree night last night. The stove stayed lit throughout the night Tuesday night with barely any heat output (i made sure the pipe damper was closed and the air control on the bottom of the stove was open a quarter of the way). The house was 62 degrees when I awoke. I filled the fire pot with some coal Wednesday morning and went to work. When I got home wed. afternoon, I could see the coal was red in the fire pot however I still noticed that there was barely any heat output throughout the house. I am waiting for the fire to go completely out and I will clean the Chubby out and restart the fire. My question is do you guys think the ton of coal I purchased is inferior to the first three bags I purchased from a different company or am I improperly operating the Chubby? Yes I do have a barometric damper installed and it is set at the .4 mark (vertical pipe). I have a stainless steel chimmney system. I also have a CO detector installed.
Thank You for Your Help in Advance.

It seems to be ash bound. When first started the grate was clean and free of ash. It also seems that the air control was set too far open and the coal burned too fast.

Shake until you get a nice red glow in the ash pan. Leave the damper open until new coal is established and then close.

DoubleD wrote:After two hours of messing around with the stove, I started a wood fire on top of the newly packed coal and the coal seemed to catch in the fire pot.

Welcome to the forum DoubleD.

I know nothing about a Chubby and very little about hand fed, but I don't believe you can restart a fire on top of the coal and have it burn properly. You air would be restricted to the upper fire by the unburnt coal under the fire. I think you need to try to get the lazy fire burning good by increasing your air, then add some coal on top and hope it takes. If not, you would most likely have to dump the fire and start over from scratch.

There will be some more experienced members here to help before long to give you some better direction and to correct me if I am wrong. Good luck.

I'm not familiar with the Chubby so I can't help to much. I did want to say....hang in there! There is a learning curve and it'll take a while before you and the stove are both happy.

While the "new coal" might be different from "the old coal" I doubt it would be a huge difference. It's more likely that the grate is a little clogged up and / or you're still in the learning curve.

One general thing.... coal likes to be deep. New coal burners tend to think a deep bed of coal will put out too much heat. A wood stove tends to be that way & most people know how they work....more wood, more heat. With coal it's different. More coal does not necessarily mean more heat, it means a longer period of heat, better control of the heat, and a happy stove. The amount of incoming air determines the amount of heat.

Pretty soon others will come along and give you Chubby specific help.

With the Chubby you really need to poke the fire from underneath the fire after shaking and before re-charging. At least this is how it is with the old firepot. I'm not sure about the new one.

Also, before you shake or recharge the fire open the MPD and air all the way and wait 5-10 minutes as instructed by Larry in his video. Of course, I never had any success heating my 1200 sq. ft. house with the Chubby below 27* when I owned one.

I'm sure one of the other Chubby owners who have more success with heating a home with a Chubby will have more expertise than I can offer.

Well if you are following Larry's instructions properly, it should fire great. It maybe the coal, but I doubt it. I've only used Reading Anthracite and Blakshak with no real noticable difference in the burn. I'd try watching Larry's video again to see if you may have done something too quick or out of sequence. It did take me a few weeks at first to learn how to fire my Chubby. Once you get it down, you'll love it. Post some pictures, we all like pictures here. Give some stove temperatures, draft settings and readings, and burn times. We maybe able to catch something.

Watch Larry's video again. Also in your post you do not mention shaking the Chubby at all, it sounds like you are ash bound. I am burning two Chubby's, one in the house and one in my workshop. I shake both stoves twice a day and fill to top of burn pot (actually mounded higher). I then poke from under the grate to clean any ash, do not be bashful when poking. When first starting last year, I would never get a good wood fire going to start the coal. My fires lasted for a day or two, similiar to yours. You need a good fire going, then the entire burn pot covered with burning coal, 3 or 4 inches thick, then fill to top of burn pot. Lastly this time of year I am running the draft about 1/2", this allows the Chubby to run about 400*. Every stove installation and draft is different so your temps would be different. Any more questions I will gladly try to help

On another note I will be leaving the one match club tomorrow morning ! Going south for a week. It will take two matches when I return.

Don

I also think that the poking could helps you. I think the shaking syst. is very soft (not enough aggressive on these stoves) so you must poke as seen on Mr Trainer's video.
Good luck nortcan

If I was not already an established coal burner when I started burning my Chubby, I believe I would have been unsuccessful at running the stove based on Larry's video, given my chimney and draft. I would forget about the video, and learn the nuances of burning a coal fire with the help of practical advice given here on the forum. One thing you will have to learn on your own, given your draft , is how much coal you can add to the fire at any given time during the burn cycle, without smothering the fire. If you don't want to wait hours to reestablish stove temp after reloading, or risk the stove slowly smothering itself after reload due to weak draft, I like to leave the ash door open Till I can see glowing coal under the top layer of fresh coal, and blue flames dancing on top of the pile. Another thing is, with the relatively small fire pot of the chubby, I find there is no wiggle room for extended burns. Often my fire will not last the full 12 hours I can expect out of my other stoves, if I am trying to get any real heat out of it. And don't forget, the first burn, when first lighting the stove, will last longer than successive reloads. Plan on reloading a Chubby every 8 hours if running the stove at a decent temp, or risk not having much of a fire left to reestablish.

I would like to thank everyone for their replies. I cleaned out the ashpan and restarted the coal fire with frustrating results. I followed Larry's video step by step and the coal has been in the firepot for over 45 minutes with the pipe damper closed and the bottom vent opened halfway. There is almost no heat radiating from the stove even though I can see hot red coals on the bottom of the fire pot and there were blue flames burning on the top of the fire pot. I took a picture of the inside of the fire pot. I hope it works. Any responses why there isn't any heat would be appreciated.

Here is another picture of the setup. I couldn't figure out how to post to pictures to a reply.

Open the ash door, could be 5 or maybe 10 minutes, maybe less, maybe more and let the fire liven up. WARNING never walk away from the stove with a open ash door and forget. Good way to melt the stove!!!
Get yourself a magnetic stove temp thermometer and stick it to the body of the stove. 350 and you will start to feel some heat 500-665 and your house will really start to warm up.
If that doesn't work you will have to start looking for draft robbing leaks around the load door, or maybe a small piece of coal holding the top lid up.
Blue flames dancing on top is just to make sure you have a fire that will not smother itself. When the fire is well established and throwing some good heat, the flames will disappear, or at least lessen and the whole pile will be glowing to different degrees of red or orange depending on how much air you are giving it for the desired stove temp. Once you hit the desired stove temp, be careful the stove may continue to climb in temp to unsafe levels over the next hour. remember coal is like a freight train, slow to get to speed and slow to come back down. You will have to learn by experience with your setup what your stove will run at at any given air setting, which can only be concluded upon when the fire is well established.

I agree it is not the coal and also that you are likely "ash bound." Burning at 550+ I got all the heat I wanted, but needed a shake every 8 hr, and burning at 350, I got long burn times 12+ hr. In all cases I found it necessary to "floss" the grate thoroughly after every shake or the stove would drop in temperature. When I loaded it, I coned it up real good in there. Hope this helps, the Chubby is a great stove.

DoubleD, If I read your post correctly, you mentioned you had the ash door wide open but the MPD was closed while trying to get the coals going. The only thing I would add to the above posts is to keep the MPD fully open while the ash door is open otherwise you won't be getting a good draft to get the fire going.

JB

Yes, good call. I leave the manual damper open and the ash door draft slider, until I reach the desired stove temperature, which usually only takes five to ten minutes, then close it down. It will stay there or creep up a bit. Then I adjust the ash door vent to the needed temperature.