Venting A Russo C55 to a Fireplace(CAN IT BE DONE?) Im cold!

Hi Jash, do you have a hand damper in the chimney flue pipe?? try closing it a bit, and see if you can get a little less heat up the chimney and retain a little more in the firebox.

And follow coaledsweat's advice, you should have a deep fire. the deeper the better.

You need to shake and add coal when the fire has burnt down enough that either the grate is getting restricted with ash, or when the coal has burnt enough that it is black or dark in the middle.

With a 8-12" deep coal bed shaking twice a day should work, unless you are really burning the coal hot and fast.

Greg L

.

Thanks for the feedback fellas,
I took your advise coaledsweat totaled about 11" thick when i was done.
300* on the stat on the flue pipe out the back ,The damper was wide open Closed the ash door opened the vents all the way. I hit the hay at midnight, when I woke this morning and checked the stove @5:20 flu stat was reading 100* had a low bed of orange coals, the blower was blowing cold air, I opened the ash door wide open and 15 min later the temp starts to climb to 200*, close the ash door wait temp drops to 100*, open ash door, temp climbs, Shake it down... a bunch of my good orange coal end up in the ash pan along with a bunch of gray coal chunks, add more coal, crackle crackle temp goes down, frustrated, I throw an empty cardboard box on the coal, box lite's up coal temp on flu stat almost 450* add a little coal (i shook my good bed out) (newbie error) close ash door open vent all the way, flu open all the way leave for work (late cause of messin with the stove)...called the mrs. at home... flu temp at 0* barely any embers...

Did I just make a mistake????
When I burned wood in the stove, rolling flames, 500* flue & vent open, ash door closed... burn coal ash door closed vent and flu open no rolling flames at all glowing orange coals slowly snuffs itself out???

1.) I have an air starvation issue...
2.) I think I'm screwin around with the coal/too much...
hot glowing bed of coals, temp at 350* = leave it alone
I tried to push it for more heat... hotter house... I got it to 65* at the furthest point, TV room, and still i wanted more all while the wind blowing past the closed windows.

?? am I looking for too much outta the stove in such a drafty house?

Jash wrote:Im a bit concerned that the fireplace chimney is tied into the furnace . almost like an upside down "Y" configuration.....not sure will investigate further

Did you investigate your previous concern. If indeed it's tee'd into the furnace, you will have little draft, it's being used by the furnace. If it's shared you will need to do something different. Shared flues are a no-no with coal. Potentially dangerous depending on the configuration.

Yanche

Thanks Yanche/All,

Yeah, after thinking about it now I'm covinenced it's a 2 into 1 config. I wont know 100% until I can get on the roof and look down the flu to see if they are seperate all the way to the top of the chimney and just "share" the same opening at the top.
I do know that prior to hook up of the stove to the piping, I stuffed a t-shirt in my "T" to keep from pulling the heat out of the house and it damn near pulled it into the "T" all the way.
Also, when the furnace kicked on, the draw through the piping increased big time! thats why I installed the hand damper thinking I needed to slow down the air drawing up and out.

So it look's like I'm stuck being only able to burn wood in the stove not coal because of the fireplace/chimney/furnace configuration that right?

Does a wood fire need that much less a draft then a coal?

Obviously I can burn wood there It'S connected to a fireplace. Lucky for me I guess The Russo c35 is a wood/coal stove

I was hoping to get that roast you out of the house heating effect from burning coal with the long burn times. Unlike wood... stoke the stove every 2-3 hours looks like I need to warm up the chain saw......

If anyone has any other insight on if my config will work for coal please speak up.
Thanks

Jash wrote:Did I just make a mistake????

When you added fresh coal, did you bank it first? If you just threw more coal on the top of the fire, you smothered it. You need to rake the glowing coals to one end so it is a the top of the firebox, and tapers back to a depression. Place the fresh coal in the depression. Anthracite needs to burn from bottom to top, you need live coals on the surface to maintain the fire.
Very different than wood, but once learned it is so much better. You'll see.

Jash wrote:I do know that prior to hook up of the stove to the piping, I stuffed a t-shirt in my "T" to keep from pulling the heat out of the house and it damn near pulled it into the "T" all the way.
Also, when the furnace kicked on, the draw through the piping increased big time! thats why I installed the hand damper thinking I needed to slow down the air drawing up and out.

Does a wood fire need that much less a draft then a coal?

There are plenty of coal units out there that are plumbed to one chimney shared with other units (water heaters/furnace/boiler), not recomended, but they work just fine. The guy I bought my boiler from had 3 units plumbed to one chimney for almost 30 years with no trouble (yeah, it was about 40'). It sounds like you have plenty of draft, a barometric damper would be an absolute must if things are as you describe.

Coal stoves need about .03-.06 draft, it really isn't much, but it must be stopped @.06. That is what the barometric does, it breaks the draft at .06 and prevents overfiring the unit. Does your unit have a draft blower and/or power vent or stack blower?

It sounds like a lot of your heat is getting out through the chimney.

I had no idea about raking the coals to one side and putting the hot coals on the top of the new coal.
Man do I feel dumb...

A roaring wood fire is hotter than a coal fire. But a wood fire will last only a few hours before needing a fresh load of coal. This is what drew me to coal and away from wood. The much longer burn times with coal.

I think you are correct with #2, expecting too much from an insert to heat a drafty house. Coal is long slow heat, Not a roaring blowtorch.

I believe you had too much air to the fire, and burnt up the coal overnight. You had only a little coal remaining in the morning, right?? and mostly ash and a few burnt out coals/embers. You needed to get to this fire a few hours earlier, when there was still some life in it.

With a near dead fire, open the ash door, if the temp comes up DON'T shake, first add a few inches of coal and let this new coal catch fire, Then add a little more, let it catch, THEN shake, getting the ash into the ash pan, shake untill you see a few glowing embers fall into the pan.

Then load on the deep bed of fresh coal, and it will burn for hours.

If you are trying to get too hot a fire, you will burn up the coal faster. Close the flue damper down, get the temp lower if you can, this will increase the stove temp and reduce the burn rate.

I hope this makes sense and helps. Greg L

O yeah I need to clear this up apparently,

I made sure I had the t-shirt in my hand prior to hooking up the stove and build the fire.
I like my wobbly pop's as much as the next guy, probably more, however I was a far cry from... "so hammered i forgot the shirts in the pipe"

I know coaledsweat talks about banking the hot coals. I would advise against this until you get the hang of burning coal. What I found was if I open the door for a few and then shake, I can add coal right away. Rake the new coal around and leave an opening of the glowing coal. It was real important for me to learn the different stages that coal goes through as it burns before I started poking, raking and just generally messing with it. I started on a stove that just would not burn anthracite. Now I have a stove that burns it really well. I've had my fire going for a good month now. Very happy with my new Hitzer.

Good luck
Don

Jash wrote:I had no idea about raking the coals to one side and putting the hot coals on the top of the new coal.
Man do I feel dumb...

Don't try to play with the hot coals, just pull them up toward the firebrick and put the fresh coal in the hole you made, that's it, don't play with it.
You just need a live fire somewhere on the surface of the coal bed.

Well that explains one of many things Im doing wrong I' just add to the top no raking, no arranging just shovel on top an watch the show (or lack of)

Actually I don't bank a low, almost dead fire, it is a sure way to have it go out. If you only cover the old anemic fire with a few inches of coal so that you can still see the red coals though the gaps in the fresh coal, then you will be fine, you cannot smother it if you can see the red coals. Let the fresh coal get started, then if you must, then bank the fire.

Banking is only necesary if your stove has a low draft and is prone to gas ignitions. [minor explosions]

Greg L

I agree. I havn't had to do any banking. But I'm burning stove coal. Its hard to smother a fire with stove coal.

Don

Hey jash,I can get my c55 up to 6 or 700 degrees if I'm not carefull. I'm not sure about the c35 model, but from your pics it looks like the same as mine minus the brass trim.It sounds like you have plenty of draft,you just need to spend more time experimenting with settings and depths of coal you add.3 weeks with mine and I'm still learning things,little tricks.That stove should heat the area you're trying to heat.My workshop is about 500 s.f. with no ins.,tons of air infiltration,when it's 15 deg. outside I can still keep the temp in the shop at 65 to 70.Your fan shouldn't be blowing cold air,the thermostat for the blower should stop the fan somewhere around 300 to 350 stove temp. Make shure when you shake it down you have all the ash out,I've had to stick the tool for removing the ash pan up under the grates to poke out some ash and small unburnt peices out.If you have good air flow comming in under the grates and good draft you should easily be ale to get the stove up to 6 or 700 deg. Although that's a little to hot I probably would have melted my stove if I had not caught it in time.once you get it half full or better with hot coals load it up the top of the firebrick let it rev up a little bit and shut er down as far as you can with out choking it. I get 14 hour burns no problem! good luck