Natural Draft Wood/Coal Stove...?

Hi, new to the forum and using coal. I aquired a Clayton wood/coal furnace with my house. It has a motorized natural draft on it. I have no problem burning wood, but coal I cant keep burning. I get a nice bed of hardwood coals burning and add a layer of coal and it wont last. I leave my ash pan door open to get some air under the fire, but this doesnt seem to work. I'm wondering if I got a forced air draft on it if this would keep it going. Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated!!

Welcome to the site 430...

I assume you have some kind of grate for the floor of your firebox. I did a search for your furnace and looked at the instalation/owners manual. It described the install of firebrick but either I missed it, or it didn't say anything about the grate system.

Coal needs air, lots of air. And you have to pretty much force air throught the gaps and passageways around each piece of coal for it to burn. A natural draft will work but you have to follow the guidelines like I describe below.

If you have a small fire going in the front of the firebox, you must block the grate on the rear of the firebox. You might try just laying firebrick over the grate. You have to have ALL available air that can come in and go up the chimney go through the bed of coal. Otherwise the air will take the easy route and bypass the coal, and it will starve for air and go out.

If you have a chimney good enough to support a wood fire, you should have enough draft to pull air through a coal fire.

Next, a coal fire needs to be deep, coal won't burn very good if you just add a few pieces on top of a wood fire. A big chunk of Bituminous coal will burn this way, but not completely or effeciently. You need to heap coal on at least 4-6" deep as a minimum and keep it that deep, or passageways will burn through the bed of coal, the air will bypass most of the coal and it won't burn.

I hope this helps you, Greg L

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Thanks Greg!
It has grates on the bottom. The "natural draft" portion actually will let in air just over the top of the coal. This works good for fire. I have tried it with that open and the ash door open. I kept the ash door open so more air would come from under the fire/coal. It still peters out.
Today I got a large bed of wood embers/coals, shooked some ash out, added a nice bed of coal, closed the natural draft portion and opened the ash door. Pretty much the same thing. Its going, but I think because of the woods coals its still hanging on and its not that hot. Another "coal" guy told me coal needs air from underneath, not from over top like wood.
I cant imagine this coal is bad or could it be?

Is the only source of air coming vrom under the fire, through the ash door? If not close off all others.

My boiler is hand fed, the firebox is 15"Lx20"W x 12" deep. I've had a fire going since about noon. The combustion blower brought the water up to temp, and shut off, the combustion fan hasn't run since. What I mean is that the natural draft has been enough to pull air through the pile of coal and turn it all bright red.

As for bad coal, I've heard that coal that has sat outside in the sun and weather for 40-50 years might have some problems getting lit. But it's only something that I've 'heard' or read.

When did you get your coal?? If you bought it recently and it is recently from a mine, and hasn't been sitting outside for decades it should burn.

Do you have a shop vacuum?? Maybe you can see if a combustion blower is needed by using the shop vac as a blower for a few minutes and see if the fire perks-up. Hook up the hose to the vac's exit, and the other end to the ash door vent, see if you can seal off any leaks from the hose.

If I remember right, your stove has a sliding damper above the fire, probably to reduce smoke coming out the door when loading fuel. Try opening this damper to allow maximun draft to the fire.

Hope this helps. Greg

i currently burn anthracite in a clayton 1800 wood coal furnace. the first year of using coal was rough. my lessons learned list as follows.
1. have lots of patience!
2. follow the rules everytime.
3. barometric damper is mandatory.
4. dont rely on one coal supplier try different coals fire. (experiment)
5. your kindling fire may be the most critical step because it does two things,
a. it heats the chimney quickly for good draft
b. it provides the intense heat needed to start coal.
6. wood should be very dry and not bigger than 2'' dia.
i use oak pallet wood (no nails that jams the grates)
7. once wood fire is completly burning start adding coal a little at a time, one to two rocks deep
then close feed door completly,open draft slider(top pull knob),open ash pan door and let all that good
air do its job(ash pan and grate must be clean before you do anything).
8. after 5-10 minutes you may add more coal. small amounts at a time follow step 7 again.
9. follow steps 7,8 until coal bed is at the top of bricks
10. adjust draft as low as possible without losing fire. experiment.
I've had fires go 36 hrs on one load. my current fire is 9
days old, no relights.practice+patience=solid fire.

coalcrazy wrote:i currently burn anthracite in a clayton 1800 wood coal furnace. the first year of using coal was rough. my lessons learned list as follows.
1. have lots of patience!
2. follow the rules everytime.
3. barometric damper is mandatory.
4. dont rely on one coal supplier try different coals fire. (experiment)
5. your kindling fire may be the most critical step because it does two things,
a. it heats the chimney quickly for good draft
b. it provides the intense heat needed to start coal.
6. wood should be very dry and not bigger than 2'' dia.
i use oak pallet wood (no nails that jams the grates)
7. once wood fire is completly burning start adding coal a little at a time, one to two rocks deep
then close feed door completly,open draft slider(top pull knob),open ash pan door and let all that good
air do its job(ash pan and grate must be clean before you do anything).
8. after 5-10 minutes you may add more coal. small amounts at a time follow step 7 again.
9. follow steps 7,8 until coal bed is at the top of bricks
10. adjust draft as low as possible without losing fire. experiment.
I've had fires go 36 hrs on one load. my current fire is 9
days old, no relights.practice+patience=solid fire.

Good advice here!