safe to leave coal stove running for a few hours?

darnskewered · Post by **darnskewered** » Mon. Jan. 28, 2019 2:14 pm

Do you ever leave your coal stove running without anybody in the house or do you usually shut it down? It's hard enough to restart I wouldn't want to do this if I didn't have to. We have 3 cats so I'd just worry if something went wrong and carbon monoxide filled up the house while we were gone or something.

warminmn · Post by **warminmn** » Mon. Jan. 28, 2019 2:54 pm

I dont use a stoker but I light my stove in the fall and let it go out in the spring with no outfires if possible. Make sure your chimney is clear and your stove running well and there shouldnt be any issues. Check your chimney reasonably often for ash buildup. CO detectors are a must as you probably know.

You could put your cats in a closed off room when not home if that is your main concern.

Another thing some on here do is some sort of remote viewing, so they can check things when they are gone by viewing them online. I would think you could do that with a CO detector with digital display if you wanted too. It is way over my head on how they hook those up.

titleist1 · Post by **titleist1** » Mon. Jan. 28, 2019 3:04 pm

I leave the house with it running all the time. Fired up in Nov & will shut down probably in April. A dog and two cats here.

I have a manometer connected to measure the draft and it stays about -.02 during idle fire periods. It gets to -.04 when firing on long 'stat calls for heat. The point is I make sure to have draft and not get too low during idle fires for peace of mind. If days get to mid 50's or higher and the stove is running I cover the baro with foil.

I also have a CO monitor in the basement with the stoker that I make sure the peak reading is always 0.

It is a good thing to be concerned about CO. Take precautions and have monitors and alarms.

Post by **Rob R.** » Mon. Jan. 28, 2019 5:13 pm

darnskewered wrote: ↑
Mon. Jan. 28, 2019 2:14 pm
Do you ever leave your coal stove running without anybody in the house or do you usually shut it down? It's hard enough to restart I wouldn't want to do this if I didn't have to. We have 3 cats so I'd just worry if something went wrong and carbon monoxide filled up the house while we were gone or something.

I treat mine just like the oil boiler.

Post by **Richard S.** » Mon. Jan. 28, 2019 5:44 pm

Typical source of CO when using coal is a blocked flue pipe or chimney, almost 100% of the time. As long as you are keeping an eye on the fly ash this is a very unlikely event.

lincolnmania · Post by **lincolnmania** » Mon. Jan. 28, 2019 5:58 pm

i light the stove in fall and put it out in the spring.

Post by **Lightning** » Mon. Jan. 28, 2019 6:51 pm

I admire your concern for the well being of your pets and possible carbon monoxide poisoning. Over time you will learn to trust your coal appliance. Excellent advice above with checking for fly ash build up somewhere in the exhaust path often. Frequency wise, I would suggest checking once for every ton of coal burned until you determine it's not a problem to go longer.

Not only is there the possibility of fly ash build up, but also the possibility of chimney draft failure during warm weather. That being said, it would also be wise to have a manometer installed so that you can monitor your draft to see if it is heading for a failure during periods of warm weather or also by fly ash build up.

Odyknuck · Post by **Odyknuck** » Mon. Jan. 28, 2019 9:02 pm

I started mine in mid October and still running 24/7. I see no reason to shut it down. When I had the Wood stove I was constantly tending it and if I left the house for any extended period of time like when I was working, it would be out when I got home. So only needing to fill my hopper twice a day is a real treat.

2001Sierra · Post by **2001Sierra** » Mon. Jan. 28, 2019 9:07 pm

I even leave my Keystoker 90 running while on vacation, with a good neighbor feeding it and the cat once a day.

WNY · Post by **WNY** » Mon. Jan. 28, 2019 9:19 pm

we are gone most of the day and have 2 cats, our stoves run 24/7 throughout the winter, usually Nov. thru Apr. depending.
I have 4 CO detectors, smoke alarms, etc..
Even my 90 year old mom kept my keystoker going while we were on vacation! I left instructions, she did very well!

csstoker · Post by **csstoker** » Thu. Jan. 31, 2019 11:10 am

my baro and flue are set up and operating properly, and the stove runs 24/7 for the entire season. Personally, my routine for 10 years has been to shut it down off for a quick 5 minute shopvac-ing every 7-10 days, along with a few taps on the stove pipe, but the coals always stay red and it re-catches when I plug it back in.

All 3 of our cats love the stove, and would be upset if we did anything different.

In terms of something with the stove going wrong, at least for me, unless my rheostat went crazy with a constant feed (not sure that is possible and I think the fail scenario would be failure to send a current to the feed motor or corrosion may be not sending feed current often enough), the worse that would happen is the fire would go out.