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Re: Hitzer 75 Coal Stove.

Posted: Mon. Apr. 15, 2013 10:11 pm
by dcrane
EarthWindandFire wrote:I'm thinking about getting a bigger hand-fired stove than the Hitzer 75. Based on this winter, the 75 is good, but not large enough to heat the upstairs especially on the coldest winter days. The DS Machine 1600 Circulator looks like a good stove and is rated at 125,000 btus. I don't understand the BTU rating used by Hitzer. Based on the circulators firebox size of 16" x 20", my Hitzers firebox of 14" x 24" is bigger and has more surface area to radiate heat ?

I like the Harman SF-250 but without a hopper it's just not as user-friendly as the DS Cirsulator and costs twice as much. What's the largest hand-fired coal stove with a hopper besides DS Circulators ?
I never could understand why a hopper on a manual coal stove really does much? you should still shake it down once at night and once in morning (if your doing that anyways is it really that difficult to throw some coal in it?).
anyways onward to my point... Ive heard the Harman 250 has some issues with grate warping (why they wont warranty their grate on their manual coal units so im told)... just though i'd pass it along. ;)
Now...if someone was really smart they would design a timed moterized shaker that gives her a quick 30 sec. shake at 12 hour intervals ;)

Re: Hitzer 75 Coal Stove.

Posted: Thu. Dec. 26, 2013 3:34 pm
by EarthWindandFire
I wanted to post my MISTAKES that I made running the Hitzer last year. I've had almost a year to think about it and these are my conclusions.

1). Should have used a manual pipe damper.

My cement block chimney was so hot it actually heated my upstairs bedroom.

2). Fly Ash was allowed to build up in pipe.

When I disassembled the pipe this Summer, nearly half its volume was filled with ash. A simple wye or tee installed in the pipe would have acted as a clean-out port and prevented most of my problems with the stove.
3). Used 6" pipe but Hitzer calls for 7".

By using the larger pipe, the fly ash would not have restricted the exhaust.

4). Doors needed gaskets.

Re: Hitzer 75 Coal Stove.

Posted: Sun. Jan. 05, 2014 9:16 am
by rustyrelics
Bruce M wrote:
Rob R. wrote:Are you running the "direct damper" with the handle in the down position? (so the flue gasses go out the side of the firebox).
Hey Rob, I have been running my stove, very similar to this one, with the diverter handle in the up position. With it in the down position it diverts the hot gasses right out of the flue without the benefit of heating the mass of metal that the firebox is. I started doing this in the really cold days when I couldn't get enough heat out of the stove to keep up. I noticed my flue was really hot 300+,and the firebox was relatively cool mid 300's.
Now when I have the stove in the exact same setting and conditions but the handle in the up position, my flue temps go way down to 210* and my stove temps go up to 412*
That diverter never made any sense to me in that why would you want to let the hot gasses escape without the benefit of its heating, I'm really not sure as to why they even have it on the stove, can you or someone enlighten me on this, am I wrong in some way. Really has been puzzling me.
theres a lot of things designed by engineers, that don't work well, and do the opposite of what was intended. I've had to straighten quite a few of these problems out over the past 35 years. the end result was the devices worked better. big picture, the Hitzer 55, 75, 82 stoves are knock-offs of old Riteway 2000, 37 stove designs. that in itself is not a bad thing, that's how technology progresses. but the old RW left a lot of room for improvement. it was a daring design for its time, but its time is not now, it is dated technology. what you found was this: you got more heat by heating up the big metal box body of the stove, then you get heating up the little combustion flue. larger surface of the large stove box will absorb more heat and radiate more heat, than relatively small surface of the combustion flue. overall efficiency = combustion efficiency + heat transfer, and only heating that little combustion flue loses a lot of transfer surface. the combustion flue is more of an emissions device than a heater. its a pseudo catalytic converter. the RW stoves were designed to smolder a big wood load for a long time, and burn the smoke as fuel in the flue rather, than quickly burn the wood in the box. I took one look at the RW37 inside and first thing came to my mind was, this stove would do way better with a huge horizontal baffle in the middle, forget the combustion flue, and run the top exhaust. a cutting edge anthracite stove it is not. someone said Hitzer has been making stoves a long time and knows what they are doing in this thread earlier. that is true, they offer a good value for the price. but these 75, 82, 55 model stoves are old Riteway designs, not original Hitzer designs. this is why we now see these RW knockoffs with heavier doors and spinner drafts on the ash and fire doors. it sure could use them. its not a "Hitzer" thermostat, its a repop of a Riteway thermostat. lets get that straight. I'll venture to say the old RW was a design that didn't really work all that well overall with anthracite, compared to some other stoves, and heated in spite of itself, by the sheer size of the firebox. a sure sign is unburned coal in the ashes, everyone who owned one said they had that issue. also fires going out, that means combustion efficiency is low. the RW designers back then got too caught up with secondary air and burning byproducts of wood. problem: with anthracite, most of the heat comes from the primary burn, not secondary burn. these flue combustors would do better with wood or bituminous coal, where theres a heavy amount of byproducts to burn and extract more BTU's from. you wont extract much BTU's from trying to reburn anthracite exhaust, it burns clean to begin with, theres not much there burn. at best it will be oxidized from the secondary air. once the methane burns off from a fresh load, there is very little byproducts to get heat from with ant coal. problem: divert half the draft to burn byproducts that don't exist or are in short supply, the main under fire draft suffers, combustion efficiency goes down. its a vicious cycle. this is why your stove ran better with the top bypass damper wide open. it got better draft and heated the stove body, and radiated more heat that way.

Re: Hitzer 75 Coal Stove.

Posted: Sun. Jan. 05, 2014 9:17 am
by rustyrelics
Bruce M wrote:I decided to do a little study on my stove yesterday and my findings confirm that having this stove in the direct mode produces the most efficient burn in terms of extracting the heat from the fuel. I'm not trying to dispute what you fellas are saying to me about the proper function of this stove and others like it, just trying to settle things in my mind.
So here are the results. The stove was filled three hours prior to this test and all volatiles had been burnt off. The stove was at a stable temperature for an hour steady.
I started with the stove in the direct mode, handle up. The stove temp is 309* and stack is 163*. I then dropped the handle down to indirect mode. I did not open the door or adjust anything. I waited for an hour and a half and the stove temp was 280* and stack temp was 261*. As you can see I lost almost 30* in stove temp and gained 98* in stack temp. To confirm my findings I flipped the handle back up to direct mode and the temps quickly, in 30 mins, returned very close to the original temps.
It's curious to me as to the design of this indirect mode because as said earlier its forcing the gasses out the bottom, thus not allowing the hot gasses to pass by the bulk of the stove metal and warming it. The gasses just exit in the middle of the coal bed and right out to the flue, there is no extended path to take. It confirms to me anyway that in the indirect mode a lot of heat is escaping out of the flue without the benefit of its energy. Where am I wrong in this, please tell me, it's a bit puzzling to me.
Just for the record, my stove heats the house in either mode with no problems except when its single digits, then it struggles in the indirect mode to keep the house above 70* whereas in the direct mode it just cruises along on setting 3,1/4.
yep. I rest my case. the thermometers don't lie.

Re: Hitzer 75 Coal Stove.

Posted: Sun. Jan. 05, 2014 10:34 am
by dlj
rustyrelics wrote:
yep. I rest my case. the thermometers don't lie.
I guess I missed your "case"? The guy didn't understand how his stove was supposed to function, tried a couple settings showed how his stove runs better running with coal in coal mode. Not surprising. Sorry - like I said - I seem to have missed your point...

dj

Re: Hitzer 75 Coal Stove.

Posted: Mon. Jan. 06, 2014 10:25 am
by samhill
I have a 75 in my garage that I burn wood in (not there enough for coal) but without any temp taking or measuring just going by what I experience BD is correct, I tried different control settings & I get more heat just by using the lever up position than by directing the draft lower & get longer burn times as well.

Re: Hitzer 75 Coal Stove.

Posted: Mon. Jan. 06, 2014 7:01 pm
by Bruce M
Well since that post during last years burn season and that unscientific study I did I have been burning it in the direct exhaust configuration(arm up). I have to say this beast has zero issues in heating my home this way even with these extreme cold days that have been passing through. The heat is much more uniform also, in that I mean after I fill it in the evening and give it a couple hours to settle on a temp, it will stay at that temp through to the next day unless I decide to change the setting on the bi-metal stat. Like I said in another post, It may not be the most efficient stove out there but I'll never run out of enough thermostat to make things warm in the house.

Re: Hitzer 75 Coal Stove.

Posted: Mon. Jan. 06, 2014 7:12 pm
by EarthWindandFire
I created this thread eighteen months ago, how come nobody ever told me to leave the handle in the UP position ???

Re: Hitzer 75 Coal Stove.

Posted: Mon. Jan. 06, 2014 7:17 pm
by Bruce M
:lol: :lol: :lol:

Re: Hitzer 75 Coal Stove.

Posted: Sat. Jan. 18, 2014 10:53 am
by Mustangfstbk70
Hello all,
I have been running a Hitzer 82 ul for 2 or 3 years now. I burn wood, anthricite coal(mostly), and occasionally bit coal, I always put the draft lever down after I'd load it up. It is the only heat in my house and seems to do a respectable job. I have a 1,300 sq ft 2 story 1900's brick home and single pain windows, the Hitzer is in the un insulated basement. I never thought about leaving the draft lever up. But from reading this post I may give it a try. Sounds like from you guys it may be able to heat even better. I run it pretty hard if its below 40 outside, 500-650* stack temp about 350*.

Re: Hitzer 75 Coal Stove.

Posted: Fri. Nov. 07, 2014 8:36 am
by EarthWindandFire
I decided to sell the Hitzer. The guy plans on burning wood in it mostly. I sold it for $ 275.00

Re: Hitzer 75 Coal Stove.

Posted: Thu. Nov. 07, 2019 4:33 pm
by Popi44046
So I thought I'd revive this post why not. I bought a hitzer 75 this fall have been hooked up in my basement. Started using it so far I like it for two hundred bucks

Re: Hitzer 75 Coal Stove.

Posted: Thu. Nov. 07, 2019 6:34 pm
by freetown fred
You'll like the 75. :)

Re: Hitzer 75 Coal Stove.

Posted: Thu. Nov. 07, 2019 6:57 pm
by warminmn
Weird for me cuz I was re-reading this post this morning before it was bumped up. It covers the Hitzer 75, 82, and Riteway models with pretty good detail and suggestions, just a bad ending having to sell it.

Re: Hitzer 75 Coal Stove.

Posted: Fri. Nov. 08, 2019 8:10 am
by Mustangfstbk70
I’m still using my 82ul. But coal is hard to come by in Missouri So I just use wood in it now.... it has quiet the Appetite for wood though