Trying to calculate coal usage for my stove

A few tips on how to burn the Baker more efficiently. 1st. Use your over the fire air controls for washing coal gases up the chimney after a fresh load or for burning wood. After the load has established a good flame, close the upper air. The upper air controls can't be closed completely due to the tabs in the door casting. When closed you still have the perfect amount of over fire air needed for coal. If you have too much over fire air I think it washes a greater volume of heat up the chimney without necessarily raising your stack temp, because it is a greater volume but not a higher temp you don't even realize the wasted heat. That is my own personal theory based on experiment and not scientific fact, take it or leave it, it seams to work for me. 2nd There seems to be a sweet spot on the lower air controls where it maintains the desired heat as measured on the load door, without letting the fire start to simmer, and at the same time not letting a greater volume of heat up the chimney. To many this will not make sense, and it would take a while to explane this theory. But for the sake of experimentation, with a mature fire, after reaching the desired temp, back the lower controls off till the stove starts to lose temp, then open them back up to the lowest possible setting, while maintaining the desired temp. 350 deg. on the load door, on the left, next to the view window is a good setting for a efficient burn. Try this and see if you can optimize your output.
For my Fireside without a baro. a 1/2 turn on each lower spin knob maintains 350 deg on load door.

Pete69 wrote:running at max recommended stove temp of 500deg. on load door, burns around 90-100lb. per 24hr. depending on what brand coal I'm using. I normally don't run it at max, and only burn 70lb. per 24 hr. at around 350-400 deg temp.

If I was using 70lbs at 350-400 that would be fabulous, but starting at 300 it uses 100lbs and usage increases with temp.

I have installed a manual damper in the pipe before the barometric damper, but can't light the stove until monday or tuesday when it cools down again. Perhaps I am expecting too much from the stove.
Bottom line is, if the stove uses this much by design I can't afford to keep it. Burning through one ton of coal in 20 days is too much .
I am grateful for everyones input and help, I will post my findings in a few days.

Thanks

Pete69 wrote:A few tips on how to burn the Baker more efficiently. 1st. Use your over the fire air controls for washing coal gases up the chimney after a fresh load or for burning wood. After the load has established a good flame, close the upper air. The upper air controls can't be closed completely due to the tabs in the door casting. When closed you still have the perfect amount of over fire air needed for coal. If you have too much over fire air I think it washes a greater volume of heat up the chimney without necessarily raising your stack temp, because it is a greater volume but not a higher temp you don't even realize the wasted heat. That is my own personal theory based on experiment and not scientific fact, take it or leave it, it seams to work for me. 2nd There seems to be a sweet spot on the lower air controls where it maintains the desired heat as measured on the load door, without letting the fire start to simmer, and at the same time not letting a greater volume of heat up the chimney. To many this will not make sense, and it would take a while to explane this theory. But for the sake of experimentation, with a mature fire, after reaching the desired temp, back the lower controls off till the stove starts to lose temp, then open them back up to the lowest possible setting, while maintaining the desired temp. 350 deg. on the load door, on the left, next to the view window is a good setting for a efficient burn. Try this and see if you can optimize your output.
For my Fireside without a baro. a 1/2 turn on each lower spin knob maintains 350 deg on load door.

Just saw this post, I know exactly what your talking about. My old stove ran the same way. For your 1/2 turn setting, I have to use @ 1 1/2 turns on each draft to achieve the same temperature.
I'll let you know what happens with the manual damper.

You also have to consider that your stove running at 350-400deg will be putting out more heat and using more coal than my stove will at the same temp, due to the greater surface area of steel absorbing and radiating heat. We are talking about around 150 lb of extra steel your stove has.
12,500 BTU per lb. X 100 lb. in 24 hr.
12,500 X 100 = 1250,000 divided by 24 = 52,083 BTU per hr max at 100% efficiency of burn and 100% efficiency of stove.
Lets not take into account efficiency of burn, and say the stove is 95% efficient. That's 49,479 BTU per hr. for 24 hr. you will burn 100 lb. of coal.
Using that logic, we can see, my previous estimates were wrong, using 65 lb. of coal in the Vigilant wasn't producing 50,000 BTU per hr. and to max out the Baker it would take a lot more than 100 lb. of coal.
I guess the big question now is, how many BTU do you need, and are willing to pay for?
You could now take the known or estimated max BTU rating of the stove and work the equation to find out how many lb's. the stove is capable of burning in 24 hr. and say cut that in half or 2/3 and if that is more than you are willing to burn, the stove is too big.
The first winter I stayed in my current house, I heated the area we spent the most time in with only one 25,000 BTU kerosene heater. It didn't heat the house but that was all I was willing to pay for.
To sum up all my thoughts on the matter I think that you can expect most hand fired coal stoves, old or new to run at around 90% efficient. Most manufactures have there stoves tested and rated in BTU's. Even though Baker doesn't state their BTU ratings, they know it. That is how they can rate them for a specific sq ft. Different coals are tested and rated for specific BTU per ton or lb. With all this known info. we can determine the performance of any specific coal and stove combo. under controlled draft conditions, that we can manipulate with baros, or extended chimneys.
The wild card is how much heat the area we are trying to heat will need, to stay at a desired temp.
So how can we say this or that is too much or too little coal burnt, without saying it in the context of how much heat we are producing.

Well, the manual damper did not help one bit. So it's time to find a stove better suited to my needs and wallet. Thanks for the help everybody.

Before you dump the stove, it might not hurt to try another brand of coal. Last year, I was burning about 80lbs.+ per day to maintain the same temps I have now currently burning 52 lbs. per day. I had at least 30 % more ash last year, & 50% shorter burn times too. Maybe I got lucky & got a shipment from a perfect vein this year? I don't know .... but I was thinking last year that I may have made a mistake going from my 48,000 BTU Mark I to the 92,000 BTU Mark III. No such thoughts this year. Just had a crappy batch of coal.

Been using the same coal supplier for the past ten years, it burns great in both of my old stoves with nice long burns. It's a blend of red and white ash. Been doing some more research and I have my eye on the Alaska Kodiak and the Hitzer 50-93.