Keeping My Stove Going While At Work

Here is my Mk I. You can see the baro damper just before it goes through the wall. I'm running stove coal right now and love it. I usually burn nut and sometimes pea in the fall and spring. I can really load it up with pea and idle it down when the temps are in the 40's and 50's. When it's really cold out, and I try to get a lot of heat out of pea, it just sucks up the coal and chokes itself out with ash. Get yourself a baro, even if you don't have a manometer to set it, you'll be better than you are now. And then try to step up a size on your coal. I got 16 hours out of one bucket of coal yesterday and around 12 today. You've got more capacity than I do so 12 - 20 hour burns should be no sweat. Figuratively of course. In reality, there probably be some sweating going on!

Baro damper, Nut Coal and the proper air settings make for 12-16 hour burns on my Mark II...
Piping into the 8" stainless chimney should give you a killer draft...
Consider an 8" baro then reducing the pipe to 6" near the stove...
That is what I had on my Mark II...
Same chimney with the new DS Machine Basement #4 with only a 6" baro and the baro door is almost always pegged open...

CapeCoaler....That is how mine is set up....8" pipe thru ceiling but 6" off the stove. Just needed to know where on the pipes the baro would go as I would need to know whether to get an 8" or 6"..I believe past 2 posts say get the 8". Thanks.

http://www.fieldcontrols.com/draftcontrol.php

Scroll all the way down to the bottom there is a sizing chart.

Going to throw my 2 cents in here. The first thing I will tell you is hang in there and don't give up. I was in the same boat as you about a month ago. Had been burning coal with a Harman stoker stove for about 8 years with no problems. Installed a Harman boiler which is hand fired and was ready to pull the plug on it. See the thread I started called Help with a SF-260. After all the help I received from this forum I am now a coal burning fool. I still have things to learn, like when it gets warmer what settings I will need but now I can go at least 12hrs on a burn and just have a better feel for what the stove will do. So the bottom line here is stick with it. Also I will agree with the others here, get that dampener installed.
I always started my stoker with charcoal and tried that with the boiler and found that using wood was the best. Again my 2 cents. Put a layer of coal down and build the wood fire on top.

Good Luck
Bob

uffbros wrote:My pipe coming off the stove is a 6" and goes up 30" and then goes into a 8" pipe up thru the ceiling out to the stainless steel chimney. What part do you install a barometric? Towards the top or in the middle? I would need to know as I would need either the 6" or the 8" depending on where the install goes.

Install anywhere in the vertical pipe, NOT in the stainless steel chimney. I don't know whether the 6" control is adequate, or whether you need to replace part of the 6" pipe with 8" so you can use the 8" control. Check the sizing chart that Razzler referred you to.

Most people use the Field Controls RC draft control (barometric damper). You can replace part of the pipe with a tee and install it in the tee. Or, you can cut a hole in the pipe and install it with the strap and adapter that comes with it.

The same control is used on a lot of oil burner installations. You can probably get it from a local heating supply dealer. Comes in either black to match the stovepipe, or in gray.

I ran 8" Metalbestos from the roof to the inside of the house...
Then 8" single wall pipe from that point to an 8" tee 2' from the stove...
Put the 8" baro in that tee...
Then used a reducer to 6" then a 1' section of 6" straight pipe...
Then a 6" tee into the stove.
This setup worked great and allowed me to clean the ash from the bottom of the tee where the cap was...

Well as I guess would happen..I come home 9 hrs..15 min later and it is almost out..There is a little red glow in the center and I open the door and it's been an hour and not much happening...not catching. I had the damn bottom draft at 1 turn from closed....last night was great on 1.5 turns....Was burning great this morning after 7 hours..Seems like the last 2 hours and I can't make it. How can you folks get 12 doing the same thing as me besides a damper and get double the time I get and still running? This is getting old real quick. Sorry but really frustrated with this.

uffbros wrote: How can you folks get 12 doing the same thing as me besides a damper and get double the time I get and still running? This is getting old real quick. Sorry but really frustrated with this.

I know the feeling and you answered your own question.

With no damper, the atmosphere is free to suck up all that heat at will.

The best way it was described to me was your chimney is like a drinking straw. You can suck liquid up the straw with very little effort. Not take a pin and put a hole in the straw halfway up. It's a lot tougher to suck liquid up the straw.

That's what a baro will do for you.

Is the coal all burned to ash or is the fire just going out...
Have you tried burning Nut size coal...
You are shaking every 12 hours...
The Pea might be choking out on ash or bridging if you need a good deal of heat.

You will be posting a lot happier with a BARO installed.

I think that a pipe damper would go a long way to helping as well. By the looks of your installation you might not have enough room for a pipe damper and a barometric damper too. The fire is obviously burning too fast; any way to slow it down without putting it out should be tried.

The coal is being burned up....There was even moderate coal left on top.Today there was a little orange glo left in the middle..Not enough to get going on it's own again...Yes I shake every 12 hours. It has burned great all night tonight. It is 80° in here all night. I am going to look into a baro damper asap. Should I get an 8" or a 6" one? The 6" pipe coming off the stove goes up 35" then connects to the 8" pipe that goes 15" and then into the ceiling thru the roof to the stainless steel pipe stack on roof. Do we want to put this baro in the 8" or the 6". Thanks.

You want the baro about 18-24 inches off the stove...
The easiest would be to pop in a 6" tee and use a 6" baro...
Otherwise if you have the clearance...
Replace all but the last 18-24" of 6" pipe with 8"pipe, 8" tee, 8" to 6" reducer and 8" baro...

Thanks for all the info coming in. This mornings observations. With a 7 hour burn I had bottom draft at 1.5 turns...It was 84° in here and the pipe was 220°. The coal was mostly burnt up and an excellent fire was going with blue flame. So more than likely 2 more hours and I'd be in the same predicament that I have been posting about all along(Rebuilding when I get home). I must have one hell of a draft. Now to recap..Yesterday I did 1 turn of draft while away and fire was almost out and had to add wood to get it going again. 1.5 turns over 7 hours while I slept produced 84° and coal burning great but wouldn't make it another 2 hours that I need as a minimum. I will obviously go in between and use 1.25 turn of the draft but I really can't see that small of a change making any difference but I have no other choice at this point without the Baro to slow down draft. Will post back with today's results. Thanks.