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Could pea/rice work?

Can pea/rice work?

Pea might help, as long as the grates don't let it fall through. It will burn slower than nut with the same draft, as you are seeing with the higher stovepipe temps with nut. Rice would probably be too small. 20 to 25 pounds of coal should easily give you an eight-hour burn if you can control the draft. And if you have a very strong draft you eventually should install a baro. I think you said you couldn't find one -- check with your local heating system supplier for the Field RC baro or "draft control" as they call it, most oil-fired systems use them so they should be available, somewhere in the $25 to $30 price range.

A 'very strong draft' will be pulling too much air throught he coal, burnng it faster than you want.. controling the maximum draft is what a brometric damper is designed to do..
You SHOULD be able to shut doe the fire by shutting off the air to the fire.. but it appears that you have some air leaks somewhere..
With only 20# of coal, maybe 6-8 hours is the max duration you can expect.. I'm not sure, I've never burnt a small stove..

Greg L

Joe b, a baro damper should help you by the sounds of your problem. If your stove is pulling air to hard then a baro will lessen the draw by opening and allowing room air to enter lessining the draft on the stove. Some old cook stoves had manual air inlets in the flue pipe ( sliding tin door ) to lessen the draft through the coal bed by allowing room air to enter the flu. Most old cook stoves were not air tight by no stretch of the imagination. The down side to using a baro to lessen draft on the stove is that you are drawing heated air out of your house, but if it slowes the burn and gets you acceptable cycle times then whats a few pounds of coal realy worth anyway if it allowes you to heat all day. How full is your stove with 20 lbs of nut in it? How far from the top of the cook top is it?

SemperFi wrote:The down side to using a baro to lessen draft on the stove is that you are drawing heated air out of your house,

I would also worry that weakening the draft would create a real CO danger from a stove that obviously leaks like a sieve.
At least a strong draft will pull the CO out of the house. I would stop/lesson the leaks b4 weakening the draft.

SemperFi wrote:The down side to using a baro to lessen draft on the stove is that you are drawing heated air out of your house.

This is a fallacy, there is no "downside". The baro improves the operating efficiency, cost input vs. heat output. The room air is considerably less expensive than the superheated air in the appliance.

Devil, it doesn't weaken the draft, it limits it to a set point. A strong draft doesn't just remove CO, it removes your expensive heat for you too.

coaledsweat wrote:Devil, it doesn't weaken the draft, it limits it to a set point. A strong draft doesn't just remove CO, it removes your expensive heat for you too.

I stand corrected. :surrender: