Glenwood 116 to Help Out Little Tiget

Ok. Will work on it.
First winter with Glen 116, only had the little Tiger, and Glen last half of March last year. I’m in shirt sleeves and socks and it is 72 in the next room. Was nervous of this cold snap but it’s no problem at all. Here’s to stove coal.... Just amazing.

I remember wanting the Glenwood when I saw it because I saw somewhere that someone had never heard of anyone ever being disappointed in a Glenwood. Just amazing.

It’s minus 11 F here. Minus 24 Celsius. Cold but not as bad as some posts have had. Wouldn’t want to be without coal. Gas doesn’t clear drafts and makes me feel sick if I turn it up past 72. Coal heat is easy to take and no drafts. In for two weeks of this. Sigh. Not like last year at all.

I'm stickin with the Chubby Wren but the Glenwood looks pretty nice too. Keep warm eh....

Hello Chubby! I didn’t know stoves at all last year but by now I know many stove names, and Chubby has two handles on the left and ...12 hour burn times, which is something to dream about, maybe due to incompetence I do not get that, but still staying warm. At these temps I’m maybe overly glad coal was discovered and that the old stoves weren’t all scrapped. It’s really nice to stay warm when it’s bitterly cold out. Our old shepherd sways and collapses and has to be carried in sometimes from the cold and my Staffie tiptoes around and then belts for the door.
Coal heat!

No need to dream, Jen.

That 116 holds about 50 pounds of nut coal when mounded up to the very top edge of the firepot liner. That will put out plenty of heat and should still give you at least 12 hour burn times, or longer. Even in very cold weather.

If your not getting burn times that long, we can review how to.

Paul

Well I won’t ask over the holidays, but yes, that would be great.

I found and sealed a few leaks. Better now, blue, but not twelve hours. It is very cold outside and we are in a half built house though.

Haha! Happy New Year’s Day to everyone. I ‘ve been doing things I ought not, but no pic’s of how, so it didn’t happen. Trial run on range and it was fascinating: weak fire at night walked away disgusted( with myself) but in the morning it was hotter than at night instead of out! Doesn’t throw heat like the 116 but will do better when set up properly shortly.

You got it to run through it's first night, YEAAAAA !!!!!

That's a really good start - better than many others have been able to do,....... including me.

No, the range won't throw as much heat as the 116 can, because it only holds about half as much coal. And it's a bit trickier to know how to set the dampers for best running. However, because in oven mode it's actually a base heater, it will get more heat out of every pound of coal than the 116 can. But, when you get the hang of it, It will surprise you how much heat it actually can throw for just a firebox that only holds about 25 lbs of nut coal. You range is a bit larger than mine and I'm heating the back 1/3 of a 4000 sq ft leaky Victorian with it.

Unlike the 116, your range should not need any amount of opening of the secondary damper above the side of the firebox. The secondary damper is just used for wood with ranges (and to burn off volatiles with heating stoves). If you open it with coal you'll have too much secondary air and make the fire sluggish, plus cool the hot exhaust and have less heat for cooking/baking. It'd be like leaving the loading door open on the 116.

The many, tiny air leaks around the edges of those ten removable top plates is all the secondary air a range needs for a coal fire - even after putting in a fresh load of coal. That's why we don't hear of anyone complaining about coal-fire puff backs with a range.

Paul

It is kind of exciting. I keep jumping up to check on it. Yeh. Makes me think base heater but we have had a brutal cold snap and I have been glad of the 116. I was going to put tile under but dropped lid covers a few times and will put wood floor as originally planned. Broke three tiles in about ten places.
There isn’t much to do to run the range really, and as I understand it we set it to bake unless loading? It has burned non stop since I started it except last night, but usually I rim a bad warp with ash to keep the air in and last night I didn’t but I speculate and guess wrong very often. I don’t get the oven above three hundred but that might be the way I have temporarily lined the firebox with wood stove bricks.
I can boil a kettle though. It is a low summer kitchen roof and it wouldn’t hurt to add a few feet up top and maybe a spinning bonnet. All I have cooked is a skillet cookie so far though, and ovaltine, but I’ll get there. The cookie was perfect though.... I’m looking at everyone’s cooking pictures!

I wouldn't want a tile floor in any kitchen. If you use a wood floor put some furniture pads under the stove feet so they don't press into the wood. Very often they used those thick glass furniture pads. I tried looking online, but I can't find any large enough diameter for the Glenwood feet to sit inside the glass rim.

Yes, it always stays in oven mode, except when refueling. Otherwise, in direct draft it's less than a foot from the firebox to the stove collar, so it'd be sending most of the heat directly up the chimney.

Yeah, I think wood stove firebricks insulate more than refractory. Your likely losing some oven heat transfer from the firebox side, which that and the top of the oven are the hottest walls of the oven. Plus they take up more space and that means less amount of coal burning, so less heat volume being produced.

Also check to see how well the oven door closes. If it leaks too much around the edge then there's cool air being drawn into the oven because of the vent holes into the flues that are located up in the back right corner of the oven.

If the oven door passes the dollar bill test, then to get the oven temps up higher try experimenting with more primary opening to make the fire hotter (still, no secondary opening at all), and then close the MPD a bit more to slow the exhaust speed and give it more time to soak in through the oven walls.

That looks like your using stove sized coal ???? If so, that's fine when you want it to heat up quickly for frying and baking, but with that shallow firebox, you'll get longer burn times and better damper control if you use nut coal. It adds about 10% more coal in the firebox. And, with that increased nut coal volume burning you'll get more heat volume output for hotter cooking/baking for longer times before you'll need to add more coal.

Stove coal works better in deeper firepots like the 116.

Paul

Absolutely nut coal burns better in the range. I have been using both and did not take a photo at 3 a.m. this morning when I just had to run down and see what was going on, but it was really beautiful when only nut coal was up to the top and the oven temp looked good. It looks perfect and burns nicely and the stove coal I have trouble with in the range, although I prefer it in the 116 except when starting up.
Have looked in with flash light, will go and look at post photos of underneath oven. Hard to see where the air comes down under oven and where it goes up the chimney. There is a hole at the back of the fire box in the metal. I hope it is normal?

Wren wrote: ↑

Thu. Jan. 04, 2018 5:15 pm

Absolutely nut coal burns better in the range. I have been using both and did not take a photo at 3 a.m. this morning when I just had to run down and see what was going on, but it was really beautiful when only nut coal was up to the top and the oven temp looked good. It looks perfect and burns nicely and the stove coal I have trouble with in the range, although I prefer it in the 116 except when starting up.
Have looked in with flash light, will go and look at post photos of underneath oven. Hard to see where the air comes down under oven and where it goes up the chimney. There is a hole at the back of the fire box in the metal. I hope it is normal?

If that hole at the back of the firebox is about an inch diameter, that's for one of the pipes for a "water front" - a cast iron water jacket that goes along the front side of the firebox in place of fire bricks. If air can get from that hole to above the firebed that'll make it tough to get the oven hotter. That hole should be sealed with refractory if you can. If not, see if you can pour ash powder down in any gaps behind and between the firebricks so that air can't bypass the firebed.

And just so that your aware, technically the "front" of Glenwood ranges is the "hearth", or the ash door end. Most people assume it's the firebox and oven door side, but that's really the right side. It's a hold over terminology from the earlier cook stoves. The oven doors were on the sides of cook stoves.

BTW, I think Wilson may have the molds to cast new fire bricks for that model, if you don't want to go the refractory liner route.

The Glenwood's oven flue pathway is from the firebox across the top of the oven to the right front corner. If you lift off that right front round cover you can look down into the vertical section of flue that is the right hand wall of the oven leading to the flues under it.

Then the exhaust turns under the oven and travels to the left under the front half of the oven floor. It then turns 180 degrees around the end of a baffle dividing the front flue from rear flue and travels back to the right rear of the oven floor to another vertical flue that leads up to under the right rear round cover. Then turns to the rear to the small chamber under pipe collar .

So the sides, top, and bottom of the oven get heated. The rear and the front of the oven don't. To help get oven temps higher without over working the firebox I made a sheet metal box to cover the rear of the oven and filled it with two layers of one inch ceramic wool insulation. That made a big difference in oven temps and because it's an insulated heat shield it allowed me to set the range within about 10 inches of a wall.

Paul

Thanks! I was wondering about all those things. Not at home but I’ll take photo, yes about an inch on right side of back plate, metal box about six inches square on back
Or rather, on the left side if the ash door is the front.
Ohhhh! Many thanks to Wilson!!! I picked up a package from Wilson Friday I think and the brick hold back and bar for the grates came marked very clearly with chalk, and again I can’t believe how perfectly they fit. Took grates out and put them in properly. Took out brick and used “something else” now oven can be controlled by ash door air slide. I am in awe. I can get 350 or 400, probably more but I won’t until lined properly. I guess a custard would be planned but I bet it would cook on a shelf. So surprised, the range follows rules for me more than the 116.
If I thought I could figure out the water jacket I would do it. Saw a diagram showing tank and so on.
Glad to know where air goes to make sure they are clear. Haha, I’ll leave piles of ash in the other corners.
About 35 below with wind chill Fahrenheit here. Terrible, and as Garrison Keillor says, “that’s nature -trying to kill us”.. A good winter to be using coal.
That’s a big farmhouse, and you heat part with the range? I must get the roof insulation in, snow melted off range end , a waste of heat. So much to do