First Soft Coal Firing of a Clayton 1800

I've been burning wood in a newly installed US Stove Clayton 1800. Until yesterday. That furnace can really go through some wood! Any way, I had some bituminous available and wow...talk about a hot fire. I was real happy. I loaded about 20 lbs on top of some wood embers and the coal fired right up, once the coal stabilized a little I added about 20 lbs more. I continued this way trying to fill the box up to the top of the bricks just like I had read on this forum but every time I would start to put in the larger load to fill, the new coal would really take off and I would get so much fire and smoke I had to shut the door til it calmed down. About 6 hours into this process everything went south and I noticed smoke coming out of the pipe joints, check the chimney cap and the bird wire in the cap had sooted up so up on the roof I go at 2am...boy its cold up there!
What did I do wrong to cause enough soot to close off my cap after only about six hours of coal? I ripped the bird wire out of the cap for starters, still got a good fire going, bottom draft knob is closed and the forced air draft is on. On problem I have with the forced air draft is that the slide plate that restricts the air tends to vibrate all the way open very easily, so that is were it tends to wind up. Were should this thing be anyway?

Does your Clayton have over-fire air vents? Unlike anthracite, bituminous needs a fair amount of air over the fire to help burn off the volitiles and soot.

You may want to post in the bituminous forum and get some advice from the experts.

Your Clayton 1800 should burn bituminous coal like a champ. When I burn bituminous coal in my Clayton 1600, the heat is controlled by the ash door spinner. I don't use the combustion draft blower at all, but I do keep the draft fan flap on the combustion blower open and adjust it according to the amount of volatiles present and at what stage the fire is at. I load the bituminous coal in small batches to burn the volatile gases off every 15 minutes until the coal is loaded to the top of the firebox. If you load too much at one time and don't have the combustion draft fan flap open or the feed door cracked and the ash door open while recharging with you being right there, the volatile gases in the black smoke will not have enough air to fully burn, leaving a lot of black soot in the stove, stovepipe and chimney. What a mess! The coal will tend to fuse itself into one big conglomeration which needs to be busted up a little with your poker to get the air flowing through the coal. Even with the proper firing, the ashes from the fines in the coal will fuse it solid and need to be broken up for air flow. But, you don't want to rake the coal like wood or, the now coke, will clinker up and not burn all the way. I know I have a lot more ash to deal with when I burn bituminous coal. But, it it's a good cheap alternative and should burn well. I have found that not all bituminous coal is equal and I've gotten good and bad batches from the same supplier. Just keep it in mind when it may not be burning like it should, even when you did everything right.

As for you combustion draft fan flap, you can bend it a little one way or the other to get it to stay where you want it. That should tighten it up some. I'd keep the bird screen off too. DOUG

Doug, Thanks for the reply. I'll try it your way and see if I can keep it going. Since your furnace is nearly identical to mine, what is the temp on the pipe just above the furnace, and the temp on the front of the firebox just above the loading door that you get when the unit is calling for heat? I sure appreciate your answers.
Greg

Well, it all depends on the demand for heat in your house. I have my fan limit switch set to come on at around 135 degrees and off at 100 degrees.I would record the results you get with what you do, regarding your individual system. The setting of the ash door spinner for your house, chimney and duct work may be different than mine. After a few months of burning and recording what the outside temperature was and what I did to compensate for the heat loss by my adjustments to the Clayton, I was able to figure out what needed to be done, how many ash door spins are needed for what the temperature is outside and what temperature the house got and how long I could keep it burning for each adjustment. I have to say, it is going to take a lot of patience, discipline, messy chimney, sooty firebox, a ton of ashes and a lot of coal. But once you figure it out, it will be a cake walk because you'll be able to make your system sing with about 15 to 30 minutes of you time a day.

Then you'll be spending more time on the forum, searching posts and answering questions, because you stove is burning so well, there isn't anything more to do with it to keep it burning. Now what? Improve it? How? Those will be the things you'll be wondering just like everyone else here.

Feel free to ask more, I'm ready. DOUG