Private Hell, Hopefully It Gets Hot

Here's a couple things, from my personal experience, nut is a little harder to run than pea, especially in the warmer weather. You really need to give it some air. The smaller the coal size, the lower the temp at which it will burn.

Your stack temp shouldn't be all that hot. I can put my hand on my stack for maybe a 2 count. If the stack is hot, then all your heat is going up the chimney.

If your air intake is closed, how are you keeping the fire going?

IMO, the nut coal is going to give you fits. Try a bag of pea and see if it's better.

Update - I don't know what I did right but my private hell is hot (450 degrees). There are two things I have done different:
1: Had a good thick hot bed of embers before putting any coal on.
2: Gave the coal time to get to (450) before closing the ash pan door.

We'll see how it goes tomorrow but I have high hopes. Thanks to all who have helped me get this far.

Devil505 wrote:

sharkman8810 wrote:I had a heck of a time yesterday to get it going hot, its like it didnt want to really fire up

Starting a coal fire in warmer weather can be time consuming but once it's going, it should blow you out of the house, if you let it.

Two thoughts:

1. You must FILL your stove completely!! (coal is not like wood....It NEEDS as deep a bed as you can make)..FILL IT!!

2. Even poor quality coal SHOULD burn hot. (You may have shake down problems & less heat, but you still should have heat.

I fired up the coal this weekend as a trial run and I think I didn't add enough coal to it, so it never got as hot as I hoped. The coals were burning nicely though, it just hovered around 200-300 degrees.

I used a whole 40# bag of Chestnut but took my sweet time adding it, so in my next attempt later this week I will be loading the coal much faster.