First fire-up was Saturday 10-5-19 around 5 pm (ish), I used a combination of crumbled up newspaper, kindling, small fat wood and a bag of charcoal briquettes and some nut. I got really good heat and great fire, so i tossed a shovel full of nut on the fire, kept the air intake wide open. I repeated this process for about 2-3 hours, the flames were licking towards the back of the stove like expected. Once i got a good 2-3 inch base of hot coals i added another scoop or two of nut and kept cleaning up the garage. Now I'm into this for over 4-5 hours and should be able to to just throttle it back, walk away and come back out to a nicely heated garage in the morning , am i correct in assuming that? Well it didn't happen, my stove went Austin 3:16 on me and i found it stone cold in the morning.
Second attempt was Sunday afternoon now its WAR! Newspaper, kindling, fat wood, 12" seasoned oak log, Fire starting gel, lump charcoal and a gardening blow torch. This fire was intense, i kept adding nut coal and had a good 3-4" base of HOT coal. Dialed it back for the evening, came out before going to work and again stone cold!
Alaska Kodiak hand fired
My Barometric damper is set between 4 and 6.
All gaps in the clean-out hole, Stove pipe joints and stove pipe to thimble have been sealed with black furnace cement from a caulking tube.
I have 2 windows opened in the garage about 3 inches.
I'm using Reading chestnut bag coal.
My elevation is around 1,700ft
The barometric pressure was 29.95 inches on Saturday and 30.17 on Sunday
It was rainy and cold (Highs in the upper 50's and lows in the low 40's) with steady winds.
Is there something i'm doing wrong/incorrectly?
Should i switch up to stove coal or drop down to Pea?
My last ditch effort is to add one of these:
https://www.northlineexpress.com/tjernlund-automa ... -8803.html
I really don't want to for the simple fact of power outage and needing to redo that electrical on the wall behind it.
Any and all help would be much Appreciated.
