Coalpail.com Forum

Just like everyone at sometime or the other I'm new to this coal burning. I'm having trouble keeping my stove burning throughout the night. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong that makes it burn out pretty quickly.

I'm actually just getting ready for bed now. I put some coal on it, I would say I'm up to 6" deep of glowing red coal, I will wake up at 2 a.m. and its barely burning. I'm not sure if I got a bad batch of hard coal or maybe I'm burning it to hot. I'm not sure but I have yet to figure out how to keep this stove burning for 12 hours or more.

I know there is a learning curve and I'm currently in the middle of it but any help would be appreciated.

6" of coal is the bare minimum to maintain a fire. Fill the stove up to the top of the firebricks.

Don't be shy, load her up I run mine 12 inches deep, mounded up in the middle.

If ya gots the hopper...
that needs to be filled too...
easy 24 hour burns this time of year...
unless you are heating a big barn...

As it's been said, fill to the top of the brick then fill the hopper. Set your bimetallic thermostat on the back of the stove and walk away for 12+ hours.

My DS-1600 went 23 hours the other day no problem.

Like many here I suspect you are a recovering wood burner. Coal is a very different naimal. It is much more particular about draft, combustion air, etc. Some pics of your setup would help. Do you have a barometric damperinstalled to control draft? A manometer to actually set the draft accuratley? You've got a great stove that should give you consistantly long burn times.

coalkirk wrote:Like many here I suspect you are a recovering wood burner.

We need a treatment center

welcome to the forum and congrats on making a great choice in heating your home....

some recent inquiries had similar questions and the resolution seems to consistently be to fill the firebox all the way up with coal, cut back on the air feeding the fire from underneath and make sure over fire air is closed off or minimized as much as possible.

Okay I am a past wood burner .............. but not anymore. Its not worth the messing around.

Well, Good news. I filled the stove up last night to the top of the fire brick and had a successful full night burn. I woke up around 6 a.m. and was pleased with the results.

On a different note, the stove is still burning now with hardly messing with it all day long. I have a smaller house, cape cod, roughly 1200 sq feet with a cut stone foundation. The stove is located in the basement and gravity feeds the whole place. We currently have the windows open because its 82 degrees in the house. I have also had the stove backed off to consistent burn temp. of 200 degrees all day long.

I posted some pictures of my set-up because I know it needs to be improved. The stove is two years old and it is directly piped to my flue. I do not have any sort of a damper on it. Can anyone suggest what to purchase to make my set-up safer and efficient? My stove only has a two foot run from the stove 6" flue to my chimney flue.

Because you have a thermostat to control the burn I would only put in a barometric damper if you have very strong draft. No manual damper.

i'd replace the 90* with a 't' that has a cap on it. then you can remove the cap and vacuum out the fly ash that will accumulate in the horizontal pipe section through the season.

i'd also get a manometer connected so you can see what draft you are pulling.

Lightning wrote:

coalkirk wrote:Like many here I suspect you are a recovering wood burner.

We need a treatment center

I thought the Forum WAS the treatment center/??

Well today I finally got enough time to mess with the fire and get a good mound of coal build up to use the hopper. I have it topped off with roughly 80lbs of coal (guessing). Anyone with this stove have any suggestions or input while using the hopper?

I figure I will shake it down right before bed, wake up, and then get home from work. This should be around every 8 - 9 hours between shake downs.

I think you shake too much...
Every 12 works for me...
If you are sucking down that much coal...
the foundation is sucking up mucho heat...
Pull the stove off the wall by a 24"-36" section of pipe...
rear heat shield...
Unlike the sides the rear has no shield...
lots of heat goes into that stone wall...
2" foam 4'x8' sheet on wall behind stove covered to code with a tripple layer heat shield will...
Put more heat into the house...

It should always be filled to the top right from the get go as other have said. It's your wood burning getting in the way again with the less means less. With coal you initially build up to a full pot and hopper and it then stays that way for the heating season. You want less heat you turn your thermo door down/closed, more open it up. Think of it like a tank of gas in your car. You go easy on the throttle, you go further/less heat, you open it up you go faster/hotter for less time but you are always putting a full tank in every day. I would shake and fill on a 12 hr schedule twice a day.