Looking for some help/advice

I managed to find an old Wards coal stove this past summer and installed it.
It's doing a good job at heating my house, but has one issue.
It keeps getting a wall of ash built up around the firebox, that if ignored makes the fire uncontrollable(it will either go out or overfire). This wall of ash builds up to the point where it needs removal at least once a week. I'm currently burning about 80 lbs of anthracite a day, and the stack temp is sitting between 400 and 500 except for right after stoking, when it will drop to around 150 for a while until the fresh coal gets going.
I haven't been able to change the formation of this ash by shaking more or less, filling the firebox to a lower level(just makes the ash wall easier to deal with), or shaking more often.
Here's a picture of my setup. I have the thermometer on the elbow in the picture. Is this just the nature of the beast, or am I missing something?
Thank you in advance.

Grate systems weren't the best back then--sooo, ya might have to continue clearing edges manually every week or so. Even my HITZER needs edges cleared every couple weeks. 80 lbs isn't that bad for runnin her at 4-500.

Can you close your bottom draft more? I used to have an old Estate heatrola, and I used to keep my bottom spinners fairly well closed and my door spinners open to some degree. From the picture I don't see any door controls on either doors. I notice you have a manual pipe damper on your pipe. Between the three of those controls you should be able to control your fire better. By keeping your fire at a lower temperature, you might be able to keep your ash build up more controlled. 80 lbs a day seems like a little to much. And of course I assume that you have at least 1 co detector. Those type of stoves were notorious for back drafting. Many people went to sleep and never woke up. I personally wouldn't have any problem running that stove, but not that hot.

That’s the same as a kenmore. Probably has the clam shell grates. Should have an over fire air ring and I believe the walls of the pot have ribbed brick liners. Some had fans on back. There should be a lever to control the primary draft. It is linked by a rod to a flap on the bottom of the stove. I’ve seen a few but never running.

I wonder if a baro would help. Seems like your sending a lot of heat up the chimney. Do you have a manometer hooked up?

Very interesting stoves. They seemed similar to the warm morning 400 without the flues.

I’m sure someone more knowledgeable then me will be able to line it out for you shortly.

Nice stove.

Like Fred said, using a poker around the edges sounds like a must. Also, that stove is running real hot. If you can't get er tamed down with the controls, most likely time for new door gaskets. Try closing your primary vent all the way, ifn it don't cool down you know it's gasket time.
Jim

coalder wrote: ↑

Tue. Jan. 12, 2021 2:43 pm

Like Fred said, using a poker around the edges sounds like a must. Also, that stove is running real hot. If you can't get er tamed down with the controls, most likely time for new door gaskets. Try closing your primary vent all the way, ifn it don't cool down you know it's gasket time.
Jim

Not sure, but I think those old heatrola's dont have door gaskets. At least mine didn't.
I bought gasket material for my old estate and tried to make it more air tight, and that was a joke. Their good heaters, but not very efficient. And yes he is running that way too hot!

Here’s some pics of what one looks like. His should be similar.

Those pictures that fig posted are very similar to what I have internally. the biggest internal difference that I can see is that your grate rocks, whereas the one in mine gets rotated horizontally with an additional piece in the middle that can be pulled to allow you to literally drop the fire into the ash pan.
As for the size of mine, the top is about 3.5 to 4 feet high, and internally can take 80 lbs of coal without coming up to the bottom of the top door(behind the handle on the front in my picture).

There aren't any door gaskets, but the doors do close nicely, so no excess air flow, and the damper on the ash door is barely even open. I added a spring to the cover to hold it in place so that I can rotate it to set the air supply, and all year so far it has surprised me at how little air is needed when compared to wood.
As for the temperature of the stack, I just checked the top of the firebox(the grill on top can be lifted right off), and it read about 50 degrees warmer than the stack, so that puts the top of the firebox at 450 to 550 for normal running(right now it's at 480). As this is my first year with coal, I figured that those temperatures were normal, especially as the flue pipe comes right off the back part of the top of the firebox.
I do know that with time, I'll be able to improve the efficiency of the stove, but I'm already ahead compared to oil. I was burning, in the current weather, between 7 and 10 gallons of oil a day(in a properly maintained boiler) to run the hydronic heating system, and that was maintaining a temperature of 53 upstairs and 56 downstairs. That 80 lbs a day is keeping the house much warmer and more comfortable, to the point where I didn't even realize that we had gone subzero after the first good snowstorm this year.
I don't have a barometer hooked up yet as I wasn't sure if it should go before or after the manual damper in the flue pipe, but I can say that the chimney draws very nicely once warmed up(masonry chimney with clay type flue pipe).

Would adding a fan to the covered opening in the back help get heat out of the stove noticeably, or just cause trouble like it did with the wood stove that I was using? That opening does look tempting, but I'm leery of the overcooling problem that was created on the wood stove.

Almost forgot, from what you all have said, sounds like the ash around the inside building up like that is normal for this one. Guess that it'll just have to be part of the "cost" of saving fuel oil money.

Would adding a fan to the covered opening in the back help get heat out of the stove noticeably, or just cause trouble like it did with the wood stove that I was using? That opening does look tempting, but I'm leery of the overcooling problem that was created on the wood stove.

I used to put a box fan behind the back of my stove I had it angled up towards the ceiling
What is really nice about heatrola's is that exchange of radiant heat for convection, which makes it much easier to push the air around corners. At least that was the way it looked to me.
Good luck with your stove, they really put out the heat.

I downloaded those pics from a Facebook market place ad. They could be purchased with an optional fan. If you dig around on google and find the part number there is probably still a cross reference available.

I think your stack temps are way too high. I only see 250* loading and it settles down to 110-120. It’s probably too much draft. That’s why I think a barometer might help. If you hook up a manometer you’ll have an idea of what’s going on with your draft.

Taking the stove apart and sealing all the joints with furnace cement is always a good idea. You will have much more air control.

Fig, are those temperatures in celsius or farenheit?
110 to 120 farenheit seems awfully low to me for a stack temperature.

As for joints, they all seem pretty tight, I can kill the fire if I completely close the lower air door(did that once already, oops).
For the manometer, would that be best connected before or after the manual pipe damper(which I keep about half closed right now)?

Before the mpd.

Fahrenheit. I believe keeping the stack temp down means getting more heat from the stove into the house. Alternatively you can stick a magic heat in the chimney pipe and reclaim the heat.

Although if the chimney is located in a central part of your house it will soak up the heat and release it into the house. Mine does that. I don’t have a register in the kitchen but the chimney runs through it and provides enough heat for the kitchen.

Just to be clear, I’m running a Clayton wood and coal furnace in the basement. So apples and oranges here. It has a pretty good secondary burn baffle system so a lot of the heat gets transferred to the forced air before it goes to the chimney.

Just a quick update. I found a fan that will work for now to help pull heat out, and am running the stove cooler. Surprising part to me is how well it is still heating with just the help of a fan.
I did get a little too enthusiastic this morning though, and closed the dampers a little too much, and almost lost my draft(interesting smell when I walked in), thank goodness I needed a refill of coffee when I did(CO alarm wasn't going off yet, but I really want to add a CO monitor as well).
Still looking for the lowpoint that my chimney will draft reliably, and it's looking like my minimum where the thermometer is at is around 150 to 200(which puts the top of the firebox at 200 to 250). I'll hopefully be adding the manometer this weekend and mounting it to the wall near the stove. That should really help with finding the sweet spot balancing keeping it just high enough to keep the house warm while not creating any potential issues.

Thank you all for pointing out that you don't need the stack temp as high as I had it. I'm used to a woodstove and the up and down swings that they do in stack temperature. It still surprises me how stable this stove keeps the stack temperature, as well as their heat output.

S, those numbers don't look to bad. FWIW, when my boiler is idling I'm able to put my hand on the stovepipe & hold it there a few seconds & draft is still fine. Once you get it fine tuned you will also save a lot on coal usage.
Jim

Seems to help keep clinkers down too.