Coal-Trol Experiences

Hi,

I'm brand-new here and am very impressed with all the knowledge on this site. I've had an Alaska stoker for about a year that I bought used. It was just sitting there since the owner was too lazy to empty ashes, etc. Anyway, the stove has a dial to control the feed with number 1-5. I was reading about the Coal-trol which sounds like it may be worth the investment. I'm out all day so I usually turn the feed to 1-2 and when it gets cold at night I turn it up to 3-4. I save lots of coal by adjusting the feed rate because when i'm out the stove just idles. I read that the Coaltrol has a set back feature. I want the stove to keep the house at about 66 when I'm at work and to get the house up to 76 when I get home. I would like to hear first hand experiences of how well the Coaltrol does this. How much lead time would I need to give the stove to move the temp by ten degrees? I would probably use the setback feature at night too when we're sleeping.

It works great for maintaining temps withing +/- 1 degree or so, depending on your stove location and thermostat location.

My old hyfire only had the Rehostat controls for speed, so the fans and stokers ran constantly. Now it only stokes when needed for full burn or idle mode. It varies the main convection blower for heat to maintain a great temperature. No +/- 3-5 degree swings and no adjustments needed once you "Dial it in" for your min/max and temp settings.

Depending on the model you get, you can also override the blower and turn it up to move more heat around.

Your 66 to 76 swing is quite high, I wouldn't recommend more than a 5 degree swing. All you can do is try different settings. We have all had different experiences, I normally only do a 2-5 degree swing, like 65-70 or so. sometimes it takes a lot longer for the stove to come up to temperature and then it get blazing and overshoots.

I have run a Coal-trol for two years on my Alaska Channing and it works great, I do not use the set back feature because someone is always home.

Mine keeps the house a steady 72* no problem.

BK

I am new here too, and while I am waiting for my Keystoker 105 to arrive, (not until Nov), I have some time to decide if I want to order it with the Coal-Trol.

Dealer didn't know much about it and is looking into it for me.

Do you think it is worth it, or would the thermostate do just as well.

WNY wrote: Your 66 to 76 swing is quite high, I wouldn't recommend more than a 5 degree swing.

You can ramp up in 5* incriments. Have it go to 71 about 2 hours before you get home and then to 76 when you get home. It might make the overshoot work in your favor. You can try to do it all at once but I think you will get a large overshoot.

Gambler has a good idea. Use the overshoot in your favor. I had a Coaltrol but got rid of it. It worked great if u kept the house at one temperature but I never had it long enough to test it on the days with huge temperature swings. I couldn't get the setback feature to work the way I wanted. It would over fire and take a really long time to even move the temp in the house 5 degrees. I thought the install was pretty straight forward and it was nice being able to control the blower fan from a remote location. Each motor in your stove is plugged into a box. Basically there is a digital thermostat that works with their control box and it increases and decreases the blower and feed rate as there is a need for heat or reduction of heat. It's more sophisticated than that but you get the idea.

My alaska works much better since I added the coal-trol. I had alaska's optional thermostat which is a high ow like the Keystoker of WNY and unless you really play with it to get it dialed in you could expect a 4* swing. However with the coaltrol it is less than 1 degreee and the heat is much more even through out the entire house. I have played with the setbacks to some extent but I have the TS2-ES which comes with the advanced+ or standard+ modelsand has 4 weekday and 4weekend set backs so I take it up in 2* increments which work just fine . I think you can make it work without doing this but it will need some dialing in the second tier setup menu which isn't in the manual and you would need to talk to paul or neil before doing so. Also the thermostat is adaptive so it will learn your home to an extent given some time and that may even curb the over shoot issue that may occur doing that big of a setback.

Question:

If the power goes out can you run the stove with the Coal-Trol on a generator? one plug, two plugs???? I'm not quite sure how the setup is.

Yes. The Coal-trol plugs into the wall outlet or backup energy source. Your stove then plugs into the Coal-trol. It really isn't complicated.

Hi Coalnut,

As you can see from the responses there is a mixed history with the setbacks. We have a lot of people using the setbacks with no issues at all, including the two Alaska owners that inspired the product to be developed in the first place. Some people have experienced either long ramp up times or unexpected overshoots. There are ways to minimize these issues, if you should encounter them, including dialing back the MAX setting a bit (helps reduce overshoot), increase the HLF setting (helps reduce overly long ramp up times), making sure there is good transfer of the heat of the stove into the space being heated (if it not tied into a central forced air system). For the number of set points you're wanting (at least three from the sounds of it) make sure to order the Standard+ or Advanced+ which comes with the full set of 4 weekday and 4 weekend set points.

And if you aren't satisfied with the Coal-trol we continue to offer a 60 day money back guarantee in addition to our 3 year warranty, so you can always return to your existing dial controls with a minimum of risk.

There's a lot of posts on these forums detailing people's experiences over the past couple years. We encourage you to do some searches, in addition to reading the responses you get on this thread, to get as complete a picture as you can before your purchase. And feel free to contact us directly with any questions. coaltrol@automationcorrect.com 315-299-3589