Lighting and Maintaining a coal fire
- freetown fred
- Member
- Posts: 30299
- Joined: Thu. Dec. 31, 2009 12:33 pm
- Location: Freetown,NY 13803
- Hand Fed Coal Stove: HITZER 50-93
- Coal Size/Type: BLASCHAK Nut
Just wantin to bump this!!! LOL
freetown fred wrote: ↑Thu. Oct. 10, 2019 5:51 pmI'm gonna run with adding a 3' section of pipe--YEP a mano. will tell ya what your draft is but won't improve it. Ya already know your draft sux or you'd be up & running. Leave MPD open==ash door vents wide open & let her go--don't worry about over firing, that stove is built like a tank!! Keep adding coal all the while. Now close MPD 2/3 & close ash door vents 3/4. It's like you're babying her. DON'T over think all this--just do it. What type of cap are you using? What size pipe?? 6"? Add that 3' pipe section.
- freetown fred
- Member
- Posts: 30299
- Joined: Thu. Dec. 31, 2009 12:33 pm
- Location: Freetown,NY 13803
- Hand Fed Coal Stove: HITZER 50-93
- Coal Size/Type: BLASCHAK Nut
But Lee, it still don't fix things till the obvious are done--I think the 3' add on will help alleviate a lot of this draft problem. Ya know I'm not a big gadget guy & have had no problems in 10 yrs. Such as--lighting some paper & holding it at the exhaust that was suggested way back?? To simple for ya???
-
- Member
- Posts: 400
- Joined: Sat. Jan. 24, 2015 11:22 pm
- Hand Fed Coal Stove: Vigilant II 2310
- Other Heating: natural gas central forced air
Hrdnox1 wrote: ↑Mon. Oct. 07, 2019 11:16 amAlright, this weekend was an epic fail for me and lighting my hand fired Alaska Kodiak. The story is as follows:
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!
stove.jpeg
Above should be a picture of my setup.
H, I had similar trouble at first on my Vigilant 2. It burns bit coal and for anthracite you have to remove a plate inside the stove over the primary air tube. The plate reduces air intake for bit coal, and anthracite needs much more air intake. I thought the installer removed the bit plate, but he didn't. Once I removed it, I found one of the clean-out covers in the firebox was missing inside the stove--I used aluminum foil until one arrived, and finally it worked fine. The missing clean-out cover allowed primary air in the underfire chamber to bypass the firebox and go through the flamepath passageways to the chimney, reducing draft through the coal. Yours probably does not have the side flamepaths. And maybe to convert to anthracite you just open the air more.
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.
- 2001Sierra
- Member
- Posts: 2211
- Joined: Wed. May. 20, 2009 8:09 am
- Location: Wynantskill NY, 10 miles from Albany
- Hot Air Coal Stoker Stove: Keystoker 90 Chimney vent
- Coal Size/Type: Rice
- Other Heating: Buderus Oil Boiler 3115-34
That fan for inducing draft is a bad idea. The stove needs to draft normally to be safe.
- Sunny Boy
- Member
- Posts: 25707
- Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 1:40 pm
- Location: Central NY
- Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Anthracite Industrial, domestic hot water heater
- Baseburners & Antiques: Glenwood range 208, # 6 base heater, 2 Modern Oak 118.
- Coal Size/Type: Nuts !
- Other Heating: Oil &electric plenum furnace
+12001Sierra wrote: ↑Thu. Oct. 10, 2019 10:41 pmThat fan for inducing draft is a bad idea. The stove needs to draft normally to be safe.
The fan is just treating a symptom, not "curing" the cause.
Paul
-
- Member
- Posts: 805
- Joined: Wed. Aug. 28, 2019 7:38 pm
- Location: Southwest P.A.
- Hand Fed Coal Stove: Hitzer 983/ Hitzer 55
- Coal Size/Type: Nut anthracite/pea
- Other Heating: Heat pump/forced air
Judging from your inside pics and chimney pics. You should have no draft problems. If no blockages in your chimney but with cap that is unlikely but bees and wasps can be a problem with nests. Fill that baby up! Sit back and observe what happens. One other thought reading coal is sometimes hit or sub par in my opinion.
- RSorjanen
- Member
- Posts: 58
- Joined: Sun. Oct. 27, 2013 7:52 am
- Location: Moscow Maine
- Hand Fed Coal Stove: Chubby,Warm Morning 617A/Warm Morning 523
- Baseburners & Antiques: Empress Atlantic
- Coal Size/Type: nut, pea
when you close it down when it is going nicely are you closing down the air intake too much? how much are you leaving it open?
-
- Member
- Posts: 6515
- Joined: Sun. Feb. 10, 2008 3:48 pm
- Location: Cape Cod, MA
- Stoker Coal Boiler: want AA130
- Hand Fed Coal Stove: DS Machine BS#4, Harman MKII, Hitzer 503,...
- Coal Size/Type: Pea/Nut/Stove
So that chimney is the tallest structure on the building...
- Spacecadet
- Member
- Posts: 278
- Joined: Sat. Feb. 10, 2018 9:36 pm
- Location: New Paltz NY
- Hand Fed Coal Stove: Hitzer 30-95, Hitzer 30/95
- Coal Size/Type: nut
- Other Heating: US stove 6041 pellet
- kcarr
- Member
- Posts: 106
- Joined: Mon. Feb. 21, 2011 10:52 am
- Location: Quakertown, PA
- Stoker Coal Boiler: Van Wert VA-600 Custom & Probably the only guy in America with my Stoker Boiler in my Den.
- Coal Size/Type: Rice
- Other Heating: Oil as back up, mostly used for summer domestic hot water
HRDNOX1, Seems like you have everything ready to go....... all show and no go....that thing should coast along easily for days at a time giving you plenty of heat...without any outfires. Sounds like something simple holding you back...should not get this complicated. What is your location ? None listed in your details. Nobody here is going to steal ya !
Ken
Ken
- freetown fred
- Member
- Posts: 30299
- Joined: Thu. Dec. 31, 2009 12:33 pm
- Location: Freetown,NY 13803
- Hand Fed Coal Stove: HITZER 50-93
- Coal Size/Type: BLASCHAK Nut
K, that's my line!!! WTF!!! LOL SC's post would be something to consider!!! Guys, ya think we run him off yet ???????????????????????????