CLAYTON 1600M STOVE

NOT SURE IF IM POSTING AT THE CORRECT FORUM...I HAVE A 1600M CLAYTON STOVE.WAS BURNING WOOD, CONVERTED TO NUGGET COAL. BOUGTH THE INDUCTION KIT / BLOWER FOR THE FRONT. EVERTHING OPERATES FINE....MY PROBLEM...THE COAL BED DOES NOT COMPLETELY BURN THRU....IT WILL EITHER CRUST OVER AND ONLY BURN IN ONE SPOT...I HAVE A GOOD HOT COAL BED AND WHEN I ADD THE COAL IT WILL BURN GOOD FOR AWHILE BECAUSE I HAVE GOOD HEAT COMING THRU MY VENTS, BUT AFTER AWHILE IT COOLS DOWN, THATS WHEN I FIND ONLY PART OF THE COAL HAS BURNED AND HAS CRUSTED OVER....WHAT OTHER INFO DO I NEED TO PROVIDE YOU TO HELP ME SOLVE MY ISSUE....

welcome to the forum. doug has your unit, i have one similar. are you loading the coal right to the top of the fire brick? sometimes thats an easy common mistake. load that sucker right up to the brim. what are your draft settings? manometer? barometric damper? do you have all over the fire air vents shut off?

Hi Steve, Please turn off your CAPs LOCK, typing in all caps is considered YELLING on most forums..

now, about your stove.. since from your username, you must be from West Virginia, and the way you describe the way your coal is burning.. then I'm sure you are burning WV mined Bituminous coal.. maybe run-of-the-mine, or washed stoker or nut sized ??

Bituminous coal likes to get sticky and create crust you describe, and burn under the crust, with little heat getting out. A lot of us call this 'bridging' over the fire, since the coal creates a 'bridge' over the burning part of the firebox..

This 'bridging' characteristic is the result of the 'swelling index' of the coal. Bituminous coals vary quite a bit. If you tell us which mine your coal came from, we may be able to recommend a different source for you to buy your coal from, that has less of a tendancy to bridge.

What I did when I burnt WV Bituminous coal was to put a few splits of wood, or small logs down the center of the firebox, and load the coal on each side of the wood. This way, the wood would burn up first, leaving a gap in the middle of the firebox, and the bridge would have a gap in the middle, and usually it would collapse on it's own.. the coal on each side would still have stuck together, but there was at least a gap in the middle to let the heat and air through the fire.

There are other ways to deal with the 'bridging' characteristic, the best is just to load the Clayton so that you can come back to it in an hour or two and break up the crusty bridge. But I know that often doesn't fit in our schedule very well.

I'm going to move this topic to the 'Using Bituminous Coal' forum for better exposure to the Bit. Burners.

Greg L

Hi and welcome to the forum. Here is a few post that may interest you. Slow Blue Dancing with Red Dressed Ladies in a Clayton CLAYTON FURNACE FIRED ON WOOD I'll be here if you need more help. DOUG

without redesigning the furnace for secondary air or reflective refractory over the coalbed, the easy solution is to change coal. Of the important measurements taken on properties of coal, the one that may be most essential to allowing easy combustion of bituminous in a hand-fired appliance is the Coke Button or Free Swelling Index (FSI). The coke button is a number that ranges from 1 to 9 and tells how much a coal will swell and stick together when heated. The higher the coke button, the more prone a coal is to swelling and producing tough coke. High coke buttons are good for met coal, as they tend to produce strong coke, however they are very very bad for home heating. Unfortunately much of west virginia coal has a coke button over 7 which will lead to the problems you are experiencing. In your situation, the problem is the coal, ask around, go to different coal sellers in the area, and take samples of their different coal to try. If they are knowlegable about coal, ask them if they have any low coke button or "free-burning" coals. Generally the larger sizes of coal with fewer fines will be less prone to this problem even in higher coke button coals. Where are you located, i might be able to help you find a source close to you with decent coal.

Yes they are correct. The Clayton can be made to fire bit coal well, but it is picky about the bit coal it burns. The larger bit coal without many fines has produced the best results for me. The secondary air draft, either fan or spinner, has to be open to burn the volatiles and give a more complete combustion throughout its burn cycle. When burning bit coal, I sometimes mix a log with it to maintain a good flame in order to burn the volatiles better. The larger the coal and smaller hotter fires have proven to me to give the best results until a well established bed of hot coke has formed. I also have to break the fused mass of coal up with a poker to get a better air flow passage through the coal. I don't mix it up, that will only fuse the ash and cool the fire. From my experience with bit coal, smaller more frequent hot firings, rather than one large smoky smoldering fire have proved best in the Clayton. The larger bed of bit smoldering fires tend to produce a lot of stringy black soot in the firebox, stovepipe, and chimney with a very messy clean up.

Thanks to everyone that has replied...1st let me apologize for the caps...im new to this sort of thing.....2nd...what is the manometer and barmetric damper?....again im clueless, but will take all and any help....3rd ...i do have all other vents shut down or closed except for the slide side vent on the induction blower...it stays pretty much open when getting the coal really hot and then close it a bit when we go to bed.......4th...the coal was brought to us by a friend who works construction down in logan co. west va...southern part of the state...is was half the price per ton than in the northern part of the state....again any and all help is appreciated...

A manometer is a draft gauge to measure the draw up the chimney in inches of water. The barometric draft regulator is a weighted flap that is placed in a tee section of stovepipe, which is calibrated to the specific inches of water the manometer or draft gauge reads in the inches of water. Both of these are very helpful tools in tuning a airtight coal burning appliance.

It sounds like you are burning Lump Bituminous Coal. This is a picture of a barometric draft regulator. http://www.usstove.com/prodimages/DR8.gif This is a manometer. http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/items/3T292?Pid=search This is a draft gauge, similar to a manometer, but hand held. http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/items/6T163?Pid=search
Hope this helps you understand better with the pictures.

you said all draft openings are shut other than your slide on the draft inducer? you need to let your bottom draft spinner open as that is where coal needs its draft, from underneath. i always kept my top draft open for a little while untill the volitiles burn off but then i shut it down to almost closed but use your ash door draft to regulate the heat. you should consider hard coal

Yes that would be the correct procedure when burning anthracite "HARD COAL" But when burning bituminous "SOFT COAL" it needs a 50/50 supply of air. There is just so much more volatile gases which need to be burned.

you arte right but what i meant is i would leave the top open for an hour or so until most volitiles would be burned off. then i shut it down. now i burn anthricite and all is good. oh Doug, thanks for your help on my stove. i got the Clayton in and it burns awesome. will post pictures as soon as i get my camera

I look forward to seeing them! Glad to have been help.

do i need a 50/50 supply of air other than the induction fan, should i open the spin draft on the ash door half way and leave it open 1/2 way....along with the induction fan.....thanks again for the info....i will check on the meters tommorow......i will take a look at the sites you provided.....

barometric draft control/manometer etc. is not going to have anything to do with your problem of coal bridging. opening the overfire air some might help. I've NEVER had to use anything close to 50/50 air on any hand fired appliance to burn bituminous. the secondary air should be open somewhat, depending on what the particular point of best combustion is for your coal, but no bituminous coal is going to burn well with too much secondary air. The bridging and thus the burn times MAY be helped by adding some overfire air, but if you are using southern wv high coke button bituminous, absolutely nothing will fix it completely until you switch to better coal. If you want good coal, go across the border to KY and pick yourself up some of the best free-burning coal in the world, stop suffering through bad coal.