Thinking about moving stove

 
Mobile-tech1
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Hand Fed Coal Stove: Legacy TLC2000
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Post by Mobile-tech1 » Sun. Aug. 28, 2022 6:38 pm

I agree , yeah I’d like burning coal , but it’s just not in my budget this year, I got a few ideas in my head , my goal is not to drill through or corrupt the outter case of stove

 
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11ultra103
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Joined: Thu. Nov. 14, 2019 12:11 pm
Location: Wannamakers, Pa
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Hitzer 50-93, DS Comfortmax 75
Coal Size/Type: Nut

Post by 11ultra103 » Tue. Nov. 22, 2022 9:55 pm

I apologize I haven't been on the forum for far too long! Glad to see so many people interested in the Comfortmax. I'm not sure if I will be worthy of being on the forum this year, I have 6+ cords of wood stocked up, and only 1 pail of coal! With these coal prices I may just burn wood all year! I'll have to switch back to the wood heat forum haha! I may buy a ton and switch to coal in January, but I won't be burning the Hitzer in the garage this year. This is the reason I decided on the comfortmax, wood/ coal flexability. Coal prices are high, wood is cheaper so I will just burn more wood this year. I found a guy giving away some downed ash trees back in spring, cut that all up and hauled it home, split about 3 cords so far. Then I found a guy selling some oak that had been stacked and covered for 2 years. $125 a cord! I bought 2 1/2 cords and my neighbor bought 1 1/2 cords from him. Firewood keeps you busy no matter if you harvest it yourself or if you pick it up or get it delivered, I forgot how much work was involved haha!

Let me go over how I operate the Cmax burning wood. I'm still not sure if what I do is right or wrong for this stove.

The only modern wood stove I've used was the Jotul F500 I had before I bought the Cmax. That stove was a non catalytic EPA stove with similar secondary burn tubes like the Cmax. I'm not going to get into lighting the initial fire, but from a reloading standpoint, the way you would load that stove was to rake all the coals to the front of the stove where the primary air inlet is, then load the wood in, turn the air on high until the logs are burning good, then turn the air to half for about 10 minutes, and then turn the air to low. You have to get the fire hot in order for the secondary burn to function.

The comfortmax is similar, it has primary (under Fire) air, and secondary (air wash/ secondary reburn) air controls. When I load the comfortmax after the last load of wood has burned down to coals, I rake the coals to the front under the primary air baffles, then I load the wood in. I stack the wood all the way to the secondary tubes when I load the stove at night. Now that the stove is loaded:
1 The bypass rod should be pulled out- bypass open. Manual pipe damper should be open also if you have one
2 Air wash set on high
3 The dial for the primary (under fire) air. This is the tricky part. It is very easy to allow way too much air into this stove which will make your chimney smoke like a tuned up semi pulling a steep hill haha. I try to only keep that flap open about 1/8" or less. When I am burning wood I keep a paper clip on the flap so it stays open just a little bit once the stove is hot. I usually keep the dial around 3 to 3 1/2.

So now the stove is burning hot, the wood is starting to turn black about 10 to 15 minutes after loading and my chimney probe temp is reading 300 to 400 degrees. Now I close the bypass and turn the air wash down to 3/4. I leave the dial set until the flap closes on its own. At this point the stove is burning hot, 500+ degrees on the stove top and the secondary burn is working. Once the flap has closed I turn the air wash down to 1/2 for 5 minutes or so, then I set the air wash to 1/4 and turn the dial all the way down. I only turn the dial down when I load the stove at night or the morning which is when I am loading the stove up for an exteneded burn. If I am loading the stove up while I'm home durning the day I leave the dial set around 3. The wood burns, stove warms up, the flap closes, the wood burns down to coals, the stove cools off and the flap opens which stokes the coals. It's pretty genius. I've had the stove burning 24 7 on wood for at least the last week, I've been burning wood since the middle to end of October as needed. I plan to check the chimney soon, it will be interesting to see burning more wood this year how dirty the chimney gets.
I think I'll need to make a video on stove operation, it's always easier to see what I am doing than it is to picture what I'm talking about. If anyone has any questions on the Cmax feel free to ask or message me. Or if you have advice for me on how to operate the stove better than I am let me know! Like I said, I am not even sure that the way I am running it is correct lol.
I'll try to get on here more often! Hope this helped answer some questions.

 
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11ultra103
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Hand Fed Coal Stove: Hitzer 50-93, DS Comfortmax 75
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Post by 11ultra103 » Tue. Nov. 22, 2022 10:18 pm

Loaded up for the night

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Mobile-tech1
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Posts: 131
Joined: Tue. Nov. 17, 2020 9:54 am
Location: IL
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Legacy TLC2000
Coal Size/Type: Nut
Other Heating: Forced air house , Dutchwest wood stove garage

Post by Mobile-tech1 » Tue. Nov. 22, 2022 10:32 pm

Looking good man

 
Hoytman
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Coal Size/Type: nut coal
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Post by Hoytman » Tue. Nov. 22, 2022 10:44 pm

Hmmm. Great description.

I wonder if you could extend the burn further by not letting the stove get so hot? That is unless you need it that hot in the room.

If you didn’t need so much heat I wonder if by turning down sooner, as long as wood is charred black, if you could turn it down sooner as long as your pipe probe is above the creosote range…325-400. 300 would likely be cutting it a little too close to burning dirty.

Not saying you should do that, just wondering if it is possible to keep the stove top lower than 500.

I’m still thinking that stove is too big for my house is why I’m asking.

Those secondaries burn over 1000F near the top of the stove. That’s hot!

Are you able to use the slider in front to adjust the secondary flames from small to larger flames, or slow rolling secondary’s to raging secondary’s?

Would be cool if you can adjust them some.

Well, how are you liking it so far on wood?
Room temperature swinging much with use of the thermostat on wood?

Glad to see you back.

 
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warminmn
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Post by warminmn » Wed. Nov. 23, 2022 8:07 am

Very good description 11Ultra! Very easy to picture.

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