Diary of a Surdiac

i don't know guys... im pulling for ya... but that I think that area you see burning hot is coming from the primary air port on the rear center (its a ridiculous design for such a broad spread out 3" coal bed and cant possible provide even air up through the entire coal bed equally... air comes in and within inches shoots up towards the flu (the coal between that port and the flu pipe is gonna get all the attention while the rest of that broad spread coal bed does not.

The manufacturer comment about the glass panes being breathable to provide heat output (like this is why that use separate sheets of glass and just butt the seam against each other to provide for heat to escape out those seams into your living space is absolutely absurd (just wanted folks to realize that).

Even if you could baffle that incoming primary air to distribute equally front and back (which could be done with some serious moding) im not sure how you would ever get the outer 1-2" perimeter of that bed to burn equal through the cycle (the center would nice the outer perimeter would be a dull black "dead area")... remember... we want radiant heat to pour off the walls of the stove (we don't want blazzing heat in the center area only and buffer/insulation/dead zone to be around the whole perimeter thereby preventing radiant heat into the living space). herein lies the one of the major problems with this stove as an efficient coal burner.

Id be more apt to block of that port, bang a few primarys in the front bottom door with an adjustable slide draft control and disco the thermostat. LOL... (im half kidding because clearly you would just try a different stove before taking it to that extreme.

dcrane wrote: I think that area you see burning hot is coming from the primary air port on the rear center (its a ridiculous design for such a broad spread out 3" coal bed and cant possible provide even air up through the entire coal bed equally... air comes in and within inches shoots up towards the flu (the coal between that port and the flu pipe is gonna get all the attention while the rest of that broad spread coal bed does not.

I'm not so sure you're viewing it right , Dr Crane. The intake port is in the back bottom of the stove, but is open to the entire grate area. It isn't particularly "shooting" up the flu. No different than a stove that has a couple screw holes in the frt. Both are exposing air "under" the grate system. When my grates "aren't" clogged, the entire bed of coals burns healthy, across the whole grateing area, not just the middle.

Lightning wrote: Have a safe trip and Happy Birthday!!

Thanx Lee. 1 more day tho, the 31st. (I was a tax write-off for my father )

Vermonster wrote:Will be looking forward to some more progress. I'm still tinkering away.

Good luck with it. "Hopefully" we'll get it.
Update on this morning. went to bed at 11:30, and awoke at 5:30am (for the same reason), and the fire was still blazing. "But" the heat exchanger temp had dropped to 200* meaning the grates were clogged. The draft was still healthy @-.05. I "didn't" do anything to the grates. Wanted to see how much longer it would burn. Went back to bed, and returned at 8am, to a dead coal bed. And Lee, my draft was still -.04. I did disconnect the manometer to see if it was reading correctly, and it returned to 0, so it was still hot and flowing. So, as we all know, it is the restriction of the air to the coals, that's choking it, and not the flow of exhaust killing it. Once I get home tonite, I will try and insulate around the liners, and see if that helps. Have a "relaxing" day, Gents.

I shook the stove down good and went to bed at midnight. I don't have to work today so I set my alarm for 5am as usual so I could get up and check stove. That worked great, I pushed it off my nightstand and went back to sleep. Any how at 8am I flopped outta bed made a big coffee and headed for the basement. Stack temp was 110 and I could see a few coals. So that was around 8 hours. What I did last night was I sliced and raked the coals on that baby like I was mad at it. "Fricken, stove all I want is a good 12 hour burn!" I also stuck a piece of coathanger up through the grates and really cleaned it well. That was a better burn than I had been getting. In the evening while me and the Mrs. are watching tv I check the stove often. My wife asked last night when I was gonna check the stove" Going down stairs to see your girlfriend?" Yeah I'm a little obsessive about checking this thing and making some heat. I can see it now"Man from VT in love with a stove". That would be fine, I just want more burntime. Have a good day everyone, Im going to check my stove!

Did you keep it alive, or did it die?

No I saved the fire. Anything falling out of the hopper was glowing red. I shook it with the glass door open. Then closed the glass door and open the ash door and it took off. Is running well at this moment.

You did good Vermonter. Shaking/slicing/poking the hell out of it is the only way of getting the ash out. If there isnt a real lively fire after shaking it, either liven the fire up good before filling the hopper by opening the draft for a while, or add a really small amount of coal first right on the live coals and let that get burning good before filling the hopper. You can save most fires if you are patient.

yep , understood Joeq... Even a lot of stoves with a screw type bottom door primary generally have baffles to distribute the air equally to each side of the ash area. But that photo looks a lot better in terms of burn area... its such a broad wide bed of coal that thing must throw serious heat for short periods when you have it all lite up like that? in the morning after its 8 hour burn, do you find it hard to gain back that entire bed of burning even across its field? are the outer perimeter areas dead and now you need to start shifting & shoveling to try and get red coals back to the outer perimeter while trying to get the unburned/clinks somehow shifted to the top center to burn completely into ash? this is what I noticed about this stove... (but I was just a kid at the time and may have been smokin a lil' to much )

joeq wrote:And Lee, my draft was still -.04. I did disconnect the manometer to see if it was reading correctly, and it returned to 0, so it was still hot and flowing. So, as we all know, it is the restriction of the air to the coals, that's choking it, and not the flow of exhaust killing it.

OK, very good.. I believe you are right. Did there seem to be a lot of "unburned" coal in the coal bed when you looked at it this morning?

Vermonster wrote:What I did last night was I sliced and raked the coals on that baby like I was mad at it. "Fricken, stove all I want is a good 12 hour burn!" I also stuck a piece of coathanger up through the grates and really cleaned it well. That was a better burn than I had been getting.

Joeq, It will be a combination of sealing that coal bed liner against the fire box and clearing ash like yer mad at it that should help improve your stove's performance. Sometimes its not a single change that makes a huge improvement. Instead, its a few small changes that add up to a huge improvement.

I don't have a tough time getting it going. I clean and slice like I am pissed at it. When I do this I see cherry lookin peices of coal falling out of the hopper. While I am slicing and dicing{remember the amazing ginsu knife?} I keep the door with the glass open. The sides seem a bit dead but when I close the glass door and open the ash box and give her some air that baby will rip. Then when it is going I open the glass door again and poke in front of the hopper and let a little coal come out. That gets going hot enough I have to close the glass door because its just too hot.

How large of an area are you heating? Did you try buckwheat or try mixing buckwheat with pea?

well,this thread has convinced me... i'll never burn coal,NEVER......... wait! wsherricks video's offer an alternative to stove slavery.SERIOUSLY guys,reading this thread only,would definitely turn me away from coal burning.Being a stove keeper slave is worse than being a slave to providing wood to our OWB every 6-12 hrs.Throw it away ,even a Harman will work better.just my .00001 cents

I have stove in basement. Trying to supplement heat basement and first floor. Its not perfect I know that, until I can afford a different stove this is what I will deal with. Any time this is heating my oil boiler isnt running and I'm saving some money. I will get a different stove sometime. This is my first coal stove, never burned these black rocks until about 8 days ago. I just need a bigger and different stove. Its all good by me. What about mixing some nut coal in with the pea coal? Its about 1400 square feet total.

windyhill4.2 wrote:well,this thread has convinced me... i'll never burn coal,NEVER......... wait! wsherricks video's offer an alternative to stove slavery.SERIOUSLY guys,reading this thread only,would definitely turn me away from coal burning.Being a stove keeper slave is worse than being a slave to providing wood to our OWB every 6-12 hrs.Throw it away ,even a Harman will work better.just my .00001 cents

There are a lot of success stories here on his forum. In my opinion, it would tell me not to buy a Surdiac stove if I were considering one. I'm not knocking anyone. Just saying that based on what I have read, I would not buy one.

Vermonster wrote:I have stove in basement. Trying to supplement heat basement and first floor. Its not perfect I know that, until I can afford a different stove this is what I will deal with. Any time this is heating my oil boiler isnt running and I'm saving some money. I will get a different stove sometime. This is my first coal stove, never burned these black rocks until about 8 days ago. I just need a bigger and different stove. Its all good by me. What about mixing some nut coal in with the pea coal? Its about 1400 square feet total.

My thinking was mixing in some buck would give you a longer burn time. You could indeed try nut coal but I believe it will shorten your burn time.

Burn time is dictated by the amount of primary combustion air you give it. Different sizes react at different speeds. Smaller coal responds slower to an increase in primary air, where larger coal responds faster to an increase in primary combustion air.

Also bigger coal can be forced to burn hotter but then burn time is reduced. Smaller coal is more cooperative at burning slower/cooler during warm weather.