Coal Stove wont light...

Hi All,
Thank you for having such a wonderful forum here, I have read a bunch but have had no luck getting my coal to light. A little background before we purchased this house I didn't even know coal stoves were a home heating possibility. The previous owners did not leave directions, but did leave a bunch of coal. The coal stove was on when we viewed the house.
What I have tried to far thanks to ideas I read here, was start a fire to light the coal (did that in the ash box...but think it should have been on grate?). 3 tries with coal mice (1 per attempt, on the grate), using a heat gun at 1300 for about 4 minutes placing the tip onto the coals on the grate(that was close it seemed but didn't light), crushed up 3 charcoal brickets and lit those remains in one of the pictures. Each time I have had the blower on while creating the fires. I also tried cleaning the grates, to do so I just used a screw driver similar sized to the holes and just poking it through them.

There is a digital box on the wall that goes counts up to number 45. Not sure it's purpose but assume the higher the faster the coal is move from the hopper onto the grate.
Thanks for any help,
Chris

I put about an inch to 1.5 inches of lump hardwood charcoal in a brown paper lunch bag (could use newspaper as substitute) and close it by rolling it up around itself. Push it near the top holes on the grate and put coal on the top and sides. Turn on and light across bottom of bag with a propane torch until hardwood charcoal is lit (takes a minute or two of torch). Shut door until hardwood charcoal is roaring and add coal on top of charcoal a few times until lit all the way across. Hardwood charcoal is the key to this method.

It needs to run for a solid 30 minutes to establish a new fire... Good luck and welcome to the forum.

Thank you for the quick reply and I will try that later this week and see how it goes.

Coal stoves/stoker's need periodic cleaning to function correctly. Do you know if your stove was cleaned last spring or this fall prior to this heating season? Flue pipes must be vacuumed out at least once a year and flat plate stoker's need to have the fines cleaned out from under the grates plus most of these small motors will need a drop of oil or two...

FYI, I use a 1/8" drill bit to clean the holes on the burner grate

Welcome ... This video may help.

You don't mention what make/model the stove is. That could be a large help, especially if one of us has the same make.

I know on Harmon stoves (the one I had to take care of anyway) the plate where the coal slides had a removable plate on the underside. That would get full of fines given enough time and choke out the fire. It was a pellet stove but along the same lines.

Can you turn on the combustion fan without the stoker part? Then you can start the fire without having it trying to be pushed off before you get it burning well.

I'd make sure all the holes are clean as mentioned first. Start with the charcoal as nepacoal said. Start that and feed coal on by hand until you have a good amount cooking, maybe 1-1 1/2 cups. Then turn your stoker on and watch it for a while.

I'm guessing the numbers on the dial are a feed rate of sorts. This is gonna be trial and error until you correlate the temperatures I reckon.

Good luck, welcome to the fray!

The stove is an Alaska Model 140. I am able to turn on the thermostat and the blower fan separately.

Is that digital control a 'Coal-trol'?

If you're new to burning coal try to take the task in bites. Try starting a fire and feeding it by hand to keep it going. Give that exercise a week or so and if you have it down then include the hopper feature and then the fan. Everybody has to go through the coal burning learning curve. It's well worth the effort.

Huh, hand feed a stoker?

They sell coal fire starters in the furnace area of Ace hardware. They are small brown paper bags. I usually put one of those in the firebox nestled in coal and light it. Make sure the stove is plugged in with fans running but the feed is off. In about 30-60 minutes the coal should be lit and you can turn the feed on.

You want to check the blades on the combustion fan. It can get dirty and it really slows it down.

McGiever wrote: ↑

Tue. Jan. 14, 2020 6:20 pm

Is that digital control a 'Coal-trol'?

It doesn't say Coal-trol on it just Alaska Thermostat system. Have it set to 20 now which is just under 1/2 way

Just wanted to say a huge thanks to everyone who gave advice here and I now have the coal fire going nicely.

@nepacoal your idea for the hardwood charcoal in the lunch bag worked perfectly. I did put coal on the sides on top as recommended and got it lit a little then turned on blower. There was a lot of little sparks for a while and the glowing flame got brighter so I added more coal. After a bit I saw the flame change and realized the coal was now lit so turned on the thermostat (hopper feeder) section.

For those who asked about servicing the people who lived here had the chimney cleaned and the stove cleaned before we moved in. So although it's been 2 years and a few attempts for 30 minutes at a time it hadn't been used at all.

Glad it worked out... And thanks for coming back to let us know how you made out. Not everyone does... Again, welcome to the forum.