Coalpail.com Forum

thats my oil furnace it is connected but not on as I do not need it thanks to the coal, but that also has a baro damper on it. when I first set up my stove I had a manometer and the draft was higher than recomended. then my buddy knocked it off the top of the stove and broke it. how do you reduce the draft? will to much draft cause the stove pipe to get hotter than normal? also I am burning about 70 to 80 pounds of coal in 24 hours when high temps are in the 20s. is that excessive?
Thanks
Jamie O.

I'd cover the oil furnace baro with aluminum foil. Yes, too much draft will cause the pipe to be too hot as it's drawing excessively from the stove. Whether 70-80 lbs of coal a day is excessive is impossible to answer with what I know. Every house is different. Your stove is obviously in the basement. So you are trying to heat a whole house with a stove not designed to heat a whole house. One 6 or 8" duct off of the stove is not going to effectivley heat a whole house like a furnace would. You have to push it hard to get near the same level of comfort. Your best bet is to get the baro set first and then fiddle with feed rates etc.

will excessive draft cause you to burn more coal

Coal usage, probalby not bad but depends on how hard you are running the stove. Yes, the flames can touch the top inside of the stove.

As long as you are not pushing hot coals off the end when cranking, you have it set pretty good. About 1" of ash at max burning.

Yes, if you don't have the baro set correctly. You will loose more heat up the chimney in stead of in your stove/house...
Get a magnetic thermometer and put it on your pipe, then you will know exactly how "HOT" the pipe is. The baro should be adjusted with a draft gauge to maximum your efficiency of your stove and not have too much or too little draft.

When its really cold 20 or below I use an easy 80lbs a day. The best thing you can do is check your draft reading. If its to high you are sending heat up the chimney.

I think you will find that your Reading will have a slightly higher chimney connector pipe temp than some other brands due to the wood stove style flue baffle that Reading uses. It seems to me it is much easier for flue gasses to simply hit the underside of the baffle, roll to the front and up and out as opposed to having time to linger in the firebox making a longer travel toward the lower portion (usually flue opening is around the same height as the top of the ash pan) then traveling up and out thus heating even more steel yeilding more retained temp. throughout the stove body. I just did a service call for the same complaint on the same model, yes you are wasting coal in ways because you have to fire it at a higher rate just to get marginal heat output. Most likley you are putting a great amount of that heat up the chimney. Also realize that by being tied into a common chimney with another barometric damper draft regulated heating appliance you are limited in how well you can stabilize the draft on any one of the appliances. With the Reading I would recommend getting it on its own chimney or powervent (I tend to like the powervent for the Reading stokers whenever possible, allows you to really fine tune the draft which is adventageous on these units) I tend to prefer to set the draft/baro on the low side with your type unit to slow down the rate at which it exhausts that valuable flue gas from the firebox, around -.03 to -.04 in. W.C. and don't be supprised to find an "over the fire" draft reading that is approx. -.005 greater than the chimney draft reading. I would expect once you get the draft setup right to see flue temps near 250deg. or even a little more. This is what has worked for me and may not work for you, just some input the way I see it. Also, in your pic's you you are burning at a fairly low firing rate, try bumping that up 1 turn ccw on the red lobe, let it burn for an hour or so and look and see where the fire is on the grate at that time. Max feed is when you have 1 inch of ash on the end of the grate before it falls off into the ash pan. Remember, any adjustments you make right now won't take effect until approx. an hour from now, so only small adjustments at a time, sit and wait, check, then another small adjust if needed. good luck!!!

if you adjust the weight on the baro so it barely opens will that reduce the draft? I am going to get a thermometer tomarrow ,but you can touch the pipe at the chimney but along the straight pipe you can see in my pics if you leave you hand there for a second I believe you will be burned. also on the second and third floor if you feel the wall where the chimney goes up the wall is warm is this normal. can these stove models run 24/7 without shutting off. are thes good stoves?
thanks everone for your help
Jamie O

olson770 wrote:if you adjust the weight on the baro so it barely opens will that reduce the draft? I am going to get a thermometer tomarrow ,but you can touch the pipe at the chimney but along the straight pipe you can see in my pics if you leave you hand there for a second I believe you will be burned. also on the second and third floor if you feel the wall where the chimney goes up the wall is warm is this normal. can these stove models run 24/7 without shutting off. are thes good stoves?
thanks everone for your help
Jamie O

You are thinking about it backwards . Opening the damper reduces draft . The counter weights are calibrated pretty close with the marks but all draft settings should be done with a draft meter of some kind . Guessing on your draft is asking for problems or wasted fuel . Dave

also I looked for these manometers, a little pricey where can I get an inexpensive one? I had an expensive one and my buddy knocked if off the stove during setup and broke it. can you check draft through the baro when the stove is running and baro is open

i guess I was thinking backwards ,wont be the last time im sure thanks dave

is ther a old school way of checking draft till I get a meter.

Always error on the side of caution when you're not sure, so I would setup your baro so that you continue to throw away heat up the chimney until you get a manometer or magnehelic diff. pressure gage or similar, don't want to risk having little or no draft.

Not aware of any "old school" means of setting up a baro without testing equip.

Its nothing to mess with, so get the right stuff and anyone on here will be more than happy to go through the proper steps to get your stoker operating efficiently, first and foremost setting draft/baro.

Do a search on "checking draft" "setting draft" etc. try to educate yourself in the mean time of the process, there is great info available with regard to this topic.

You have a good unit there, it will make great heat, just have to get it setup right thats all.

Do you have CO. detector/detectors? Good batteries, proper working order etc.??? Very important absolute must have item as with any solid fuel appliance really.

i have a co detector in stove room and plug in units on other floors. if the baro flap is being sucked open does that mean there is draft I put a lighter by the opening and it sucked the flame in. maybe I don't know what im talking about but I your right I do want to be safe
thanks again
Jamie O

If the baro flap is open, that shows your chimney is capable of pulling a draft, however depending how you have the weight set on your baro will determine the draft "over the fire" or how much negative pressure or "pull" exists in your firebox to evacuate flue gasses, keyword EVACUATE. If your baro flap is set too light your chimney may be pulling ambient room air in through the baro and possibly not allowing enough negative pull on the firebox thus creating a low or undesirable draft reading over the fire in the firebox. Just because the flap is open doesn't mean you are safe.

It really differs from stove to stove from chimney to chimney, thats why it is extremely important to use the right equip. to get things setup right. No two stove installs are the same.

Also, go to the board index, then scroll down to free classifieds, then select furnaces, HVAC, plumbing supplies, in there I saw a link for Dwyer Mark 2 Model 25 manometers selling on E-bay for somewhere around $20 shipped give or take. That is about the most inexpensive way to get your hands on a manometer to check draft. Or you can always go with the loaner program available on this forum, and I'm guessing its probably even less than buying one on e-bay, not sure never used the program.