Lazy CoalTrol Tstat

The last 3-4 weeks I've noticed some weirdness with my CoalTrol stat. I'll come home, it's 68 in the house. Stat is set for 70. I bump it up to 71 or 72 and often it cause no effect to the stove. Tonight I set it up to 72, 3 hours ago. Room is 68 right now. Fire is idling. Doesn't do this all the time, but often enough that it's a problem.

EDIT..

This AM, as with many, I turned the stat down (override) to 66 at about 0630. The house is 70, it's been an hour and the convection fan is still running at 70% and the feed rate is at 77 (been there for an hour or more). It appears there is something wrong in the logic of this stat.

Any ideas?

The CoalTrol can be slow in responding depending on your feed rate, if it is REALLY low, it will take a while to come back up. I know I have seen mine down to FR 0, if the thermostat is satisfied and if I raise it 2-3 degrees, it will take a long while to get it to respond.

I sometimes just go into the FEED mode (hold setup for 10 seconds) and let it run for 10 mins and it gets it nice and warm and catches it up faster.

WNY wrote:The CoalTrol can be slow in responding depending on your feed rate, if it is REALLY low, it will take a while to come back up. I know I have seen mine down to FR 0, if the thermostat is satisfied and if I raise it 2-3 degrees, it will take a long while to get it to respond.

I sometimes just go into the FEED mode (hold setup for 10 seconds) and let it run for 10 mins and it gets it nice and warm and catches it up faster.

3 hours? I could understand an hour, but last night it had been 3 and the fire had not changed at all even with a 3+ degree call on the stat.

Weird, if it continues contact Paul or Neil at CoalTrol and ask them (if they don't see this post).

It;s probably the programming of the unit and the heat/cooling curves, logs, programming, lag time, etc....
Coal does take time to respond.

What's you HLF (Heat Loss Factor) set at. I bumped mine to 1 and it responds pretty good for our heating situation.

Please do give us a call, 315-299-3589. Also check your PM's. This is odd behavior.

Found the stoker motor loose in it's mounting which could allow it to arc and reduce the throw of the shovel. Fixed that and now monitoring the unit.

WNY wrote:Weird, if it continues contact Paul or Neil at CoalTrol and ask them (if they don't see this post).

It;s probably the programming of the unit and the heat/cooling curves, logs, programming, lag time, etc....
Coal does take time to respond.

What's you HLF (Heat Loss Factor) set at. I bumped mine to 1 and it responds pretty good for our heating situation.

How do you get to the heat loss factor in the programming?

HLF - I believe you have to hold the Menu button for like 10 seconds or so and go into the Advanced menu.
(see the top thread for V3 Features). It's in there somewhere.

Press and hold Menu button for 15 seconds or until the scrren "A ##F" appears on the display. Then tap menu button until the "HLF #" screen appears. Default is 0 and that is the recommended setting for most installations. In some cases where the stove is underpowered for the house or some few overshooting conditions it may help to increase this setting. Such changes should be done one step at a time and tested for a couple days before making further adjustments.

You can give this setting a try. It is designed to boost stoking response to setpoint changes, cutting off anywhere from several minutes to a full hour of ramp up or ramp down. This boost will only happen on setpoint changes though, it does not affect "tracking" of a temperature on a fixed or settled setpoint.