Problems With Stove

I also have a Elmira Oval. It has 6" chimney. I have both grates (wood & Coal). I burn coal often in it and have the opposite problem. Because it is cast iron stove it leaks air and is a little hard to control. I do not fill with coal. Something in your set up is not right. Even with wood it leaks a little to much air.

To burn coal I only use the bottom side air control, and then max 1/4 open after fire going well.

The draft controls on top (rear) to direct hot air around oven cannot be used until fire reasonably hot!
The control to heat the water ditto!

Maybe?

Robby

Wow I can actually post my first post.

I too have an Elmira Oval (this is the first Finley cookstove reproduction from the early 80's and then the heartland company began making them under their name as the model 1903).

I have been working along towards burning coal as this stove has the coal set up and the previous owner burned coal happily for many years.

the manual states 6" for this stove and nothing bigger for what I assume is the draw purposes.

I've only had this up and running for about a week now so I'm no expert by any means, but the manual is extremely vague and confusing. There are three bell baffles on this stove. One in the front on the ash door, and two on the left side. All are lower than the burning chamber.



Then you have the oven baffle which is a slide. So far it seems to like to be open to get direct flow through to the pipe and then as the stove gets going you close the vent to force the air to swirl around the oven compartment before it leaves the stove. I'm not sure if it's better to just leave this open unitl I want to cook but at the very least leave it open to get the fire going at first. It is supposed to create more resistance which in turn should mean more draw but that remains to be seen.

Additionally there is the coal burning kit vent which is the one draws air over the coal bed. I heard over the coal is better for burning and under/through is best for starting. It's all kind of confusing but hopefully some old cookstove vets out there can shed light on this as I'm as lost as the original poster!

More questions to follow and a big THANK YOU to everyone who adds input on this forum. It's the BEST RESOURCE for heating with coal on the net.

Mike

Hey great to find some guys with elmira stoves out there coming out of my stove is a 7 inch oval flu colar stove was built in 83 maybe a special option back then not sure. I called Heartland they said they suggest either 6 on 7 even though the manual says only 6. Its been burning pretty good lately my coal does not burn out of control like yours rob but when I was trying to burn wood I had a hard time controlling it but the fire box is too small to be a good wood burner in my oppinion. I usually idle it at one full turn on ash door and half turn on side ones, im probaly able to do this because of my week draft. I also added gaskets around top key plates and burner plates. Do you know what your draft is with the 6 inch flu.

LOL I will be making a "calling all Cookstove Owners" thread really soon!

Like I said I'm burning wood right now to get heat in the house and work the bugs out of the vents, etc before I get into coal. I noticed I have a little gap in my stove ri8ght above the ash door that I will cement up probably this weekend. Weather is mild today but I plan to be burning coal by the end of this month.

The wood I have thankfully is well seasoned and has been drying in my garage for almost 2 years (old parlor stove in garage). I have been pulling out the smaller chunks and bringing them in for the cookstove. The chunks about 14" seem to be just right. I have an old farm house so it's drafty enough to get a good draw, so that seems to be helping matters. I have 6" pipe running out of it but I have not measured the draw (don't have the device). I don't know how helpful that is for your situation, but you may want to try to patch up any little leaks you can find in the stove with cement to help improve the draw.

hey mike how is your stove been doing at burning wood? Mine seems to leak alot of smoke into house when I try to open from top key plate so I havent been burning wood, does yours do that? I like burning coal alot more in it, but I have to keep the front cast liner that they tell you to put in when you burn coal out because I cant top load it and it blocks front loading door. I picked up a manometer to adjust draft with my mdp it has helped alot with the coal burning. My stove is burning good now low I seem to have to spend more time shaking and poking from bottom to clean out grates, but ive still been able to idle it for 10 hrs or longer without touching it

HI Matrix,

When I first starting the stove up I was very clueless on the whole process so I would pop the key plate up to try and load wood and got some wonderful puffs of smoke in the room. Wife was real happy with that. Of course I had no idea what to do so I started my first fire with the side bells wide open and the oven vent was closed so I got smoked out big time.

But since downloading the manual from heartland I have learned to open the oven vent fully FIRST and give it time to draw smoke out, and then tighten the front bell damper to hopefully draw the air downward to reduce the smoke in the house. Then it's a race to open the key plate and load up wood before it begins to smoke too badly. So far I have only been toploading the wood and I think you are pretty much forced to only load it when you have nothing but coals so it doesn't smoke the room.

You bring up something interesting with those removable cast iron liners. I have the front and back ones in there and like you said, the front one completely blocks the front loading door so I have just shrugged and left it in place not knowing it's ok to remove. I bought my stove in the springtime second hand so I never had used it until this time. Do you think it's ok to remove the front liner and burn wood and coal in it? I actually would like to remove the back one because it's propping up the back of the key plate and it doesn't lay flat and flush with the other ones. I thought there might be some ash built up causing it and I have tried to clean the grooves really well and still it doesn't lie evenly. This is really concerning me because when I mess around with the draft the little seam is open enough to allow smoke to come out.

By the way, Heartland has not been very helpful with any of this. I asked about getting a copy of the manual that is supposed to be included with the coal kit and they said there isn't any such thing, even though their main manual says to read it to get more info about burning coal.

Hey Mike I have the same problem I got my stove with the house and have been trying to figure it out on my own. I have the front liner removed now just for that reason. I was unable to load it without smoking out the house it does help alot do get some puff back with wood but no where near the amount I was getting by top loading, I really don't unerstand the point of the front liner it says not to load the stove above the loading door anyways. As for the back one I don't have a problem with it hitting my key plate. You could take it off to see if there is ash under there but most likely it is warped. I had to replace 3 or my liners because they were warped and the fire brick because it was all broken up.

warped sounds about right to me. I did run the stove without the front and back plates and it seems better.

I got a little less smoke when starting up the stove but still there is enough to say it's not perfect.

Can I ask how much new bricks and the liners set you back? I think that's a good idea to do after this season. They are all looking a bit tired.

the fire brick kit was $160 and liner were around $75 for fronts and around $90 for sides. Where are you getting smoke from now.