day night problem with hy fire 2

Two days ago I installed the Coal trol basic with the hyfire 2. It works fine with the following exception.

When it cycles from day of 68 to night of 65 it works fine. When it cycles back to day at 4:30 am it starts normally but doesnt stop when it hits the day time temperature of 68, in fact, it hit 72 before I manually selected a lower temperature, I turned it down to 55 just to stop the high feed rate.

Any suggestions?

I have been running a Coal-Trol on my old style Alaska since October. I get up to 5 or 6 degrees over shoot at times (day is 71, night is 75), but it always settles down within an hour or so. The smaller the difference in day VS night settings the smaller the overshoot. My T-stat is around the corner from the stove.

I would suggest you talk with Paul or Neil at Automation Correct and go through your set up and make sure there is nothing to be "tweaked". Other than that your control seems to be operating the way mine is.

Interesting on your observation of the more the difference, the more the overshoot. I will monitor that closely and experiment with that finding. Thanks

In general, we have found some or no overshoot occurs. (never undershoot). The biggest factor that contributes to the overshoot is the particular heat loss of the dwelling that the stove is in. Both good and poor insulation may cause more overshoot than "Average" insulation.

Remember, we can only control heat input to the dwelling, not heat loss.

The Heat Loss Factor [HLF] is an advanced setting designed to address the overshoot. For some it has worked well, others not so well.


Please, give us a call, and we may be able to help your situation.

Automation Correct, dont get me wrong, I am very pleased with the control! It was very easy to install, the panel and controls are very simple and straightforward. Just was wondering if there was something I could do to correct the overshoot. I was monitoring the FR and it was still at 77 when temp had passed the 68 set point to 70 degrees.

My house is very well insulated, R-58 in the ceiling, double paned windows etc.

I can see where I am going to save a lot of coal with this unit, with the previous manual operation I was always guessing what the temp would be overnight and during the day. Now I set it and forget it. I have figures for the amount of coal I have put in the stove each day for the last three years. It will be interesting to compare.

I will call you as you suggested to see if there is something else I could do. Believe me, this is a minor inconvienence compared to the manual controls.

Any resolution with this overshoot problem? I am now having the same issue. I set my day and night settigs down to 68 degrees last night, got up this morning, 76 degrees! Its now upto 78. I think it may be a defective thermostat. Has been working outstanding upto yesterday. Any thoughts. Paul

Hi Paul, is probably just that your min fire output is more btus than can keep the set point with warmer outside temps. Check the feed rate % and see if you are at zero or very low, if so than the just keeping the stove lit is providing too much heat. If so you can always open some windows.
Otherwise talk to our good friends at Automation Correct!

i have 2 questions...

i have a mag stoker and installed a programmable honeywell digital therm with Adaptive Intelligent Recovery. during the night i had the set back to 65 and for the day it was to go to 72. during the recovery stage, obviously the stove is calling for heat. well, the stove gets SUPER hot. a digital/laser thermomter had the top of the stove at 500*(+). it gets so hot i can smell it in my bed room! hence i stopped the programming and now i just leave the house @ 71*. new home, 2400 square feet, very well insulated.

so, my question, with the coal-trol, does the stove get SUPER hot during the recovery or is the feed rate regulated so as to not get over feeding?

realizing i have a mag stoker with the control panel on the back, how does the coal-trol differ from a regular programmable therm with Adaptive Intelligent Recovery? in other words, why should i but a coal trol?

My feed rate showed "0". still a lot of fire. Un-plugged everything and let it sit for a few minutes, plugged it back in and its back to working flawlessly! It needed to be reset? Paul

All, I had sort of the same problem happen after I installed a Pioneer LE in my mothers house. It seemed to work better the longer it burned. Don't know why, it shouldn't be that way. As far as a lot of fire a "0", the coal that had been pushed onto the stoker unit would have to burn up before the fire would return to normal burn. Maybe reduce the amount of difference between day and night settings until it burns for a week or so then increase it by one until the correct setpoint is reached would help. Just thought I would chime in so that if there is a problem, Automation Correct could look into it. Maybe we are all expecting too much.

First, Ericjack:

The coal-trol offers the option to you of selecting a max and a min feed rate. If you're uncomfortable with level of fire and heating you're getting at a max burn rate, you can reduce it as you see fit. Also, the way our control works, it will not automatically call for 100% feed rate (or whatever your max is set to) when the temperature is below the setpoint like standard thermostats do. Instead we will ramp up slowly (larger differences between temp and setpoint will ramp more quickly). In this way a setpoint change can often be accomplished without hitting full burn, particularly on these warmer days or in well insulated (and good air circulation) houses.

Second, Paul: If you see that happen again (it is at FR 0, but the stoker/feeder is still chugging away for more than 2 seconds or so every 1 to 2 minutes) please call us. That shouldn't happen.

Lastly, for everyone:

Once settled to a new setpoint the control will maintain a +/-1 degree temperature range. On setpoint changes, though, it can take a while for the new setpoint to be met (as with any thermostat) and in many cases there can be slight to moderate overshoot. 2-5 degrees is not uncommon and usually will not last for very long. In rare circumstances larger overshoots have been reported. Usually this indicates an installation problem (very poor air circulation/heat transfer, improper thermostat positioning, etc.). If everything is installed properly, though, then it can sometimes help to use the HLF (Heat Loss Factor) setting. Changes to this should be one tick at a time and each adjustment should be tried out for at least a couple days to see how things respond. This may not solve your problem in which case we encourage you to call us so we can try to trouble shoot your problem and suggest some solutions. We prefer to do these things over the phone as they can take some time and involve a lot of questions and answers going back and forth.

We do recognize that minimized overshoot is the preferred function of any thermostat and we're continuing to improve the software in this regard (and others), as always. Unfortunately there are tradeoffs for minimized overshoot that make this problem difficult to solve perfectly and without complex setup proceedures.

This feedback is very useful in getting better control implemented and we're grateful to everyone who posts here with their experiences.

pvolcko wrote:Instead we will ramp up slowly (larger differences between temp and setpoint will ramp more quickly). In this way a setpoint change can often be accomplished without hitting full burn, particularly on these warmer days or in well insulated (and good air circulation) houses.

This is one of the greatest things I've noticed about the Coal-trol. Instead of feeding a ton of coal, it slowly ramps up or down. I've been around +-1 degree now for 4 days without a problem. If i'm constantly going in and out of the house or opening doors a lot, I do see it drop perhaps 2 degrees from the set point.

Thanks Paul. Except for the one blip. it has run flawlessly for almost 3 weeks, and we in upstate NY know hoe the temps have swung. From 55 to 20 and still maintains 73 +/- 1 degree. Great product!!! Paul