Boom

This has been a very interesting thread....adding good points to the "minor explosions" thread which I feel is required reading for any coal burner!

I've a Hitzer 55 which is a very basic black box, nothing fancy and I run it in the basement. It has a loading door with spinner, an inner baffle with a big hole in it for direct venting controlled by a slide gate, an ash door and a bimetallic controlled flapper in the rear feeding combustion air....set at 7 or so.

I have a manual damper at the stove which I keep 1/3 open. From this current thread, it appears that is not needed.

Glad to hear differing views on a baro, as I do not have one. I run a wood stove upstairs that uses the same flue as my coal stove in the basement. The coal runs 24/7 for the heating season while the wood stove is now and then when I want to sit in front of a nice wood fire.

Draft at my coal stove, on a steady state basis, is 0.050" of water. When I am running the wood stove upstairs, draft increases to around 0.085 or so.

Blow backs:
I used to get them-the scary ones, but now only an occasional mild "woof".

Tending routine, every 12 hours:
I open the direct vent and the ash door to freshen the fire, from a running surface temp of 350 to 400F, I let it freshen to 550F and then open the loading door and shake the ashes down evenly....side to side.

Then I stoke one side front to back, leaving the other side with lively flames! Close the loading door and watch the temp drop a bit and then recover back to 550 - 560F which is the "warm up" for the new coal on the one side.

Now open the loading door and stoke the other side, now I have coal back up to the top of the firebrick. Blue flames are dancing all thru the first stoking as I close the loading door after the second stoking. Temp will drop way down to 300 something and then slowly climb back to around the 550F point....this can take 15 min or more and I think slower is better as the coal is being heated and the volitiles are going up the chimney. This period is the "warm up" for the second batch of coal.

Now, the ash door and direct vent are open the whole process! Air is coming in freely from the bottom and no restrictions to gases leaving up the chimney.

It's been said over and over but always bears repeating: Do NOT leave a stove unattended with the ash door open. Otherwise you are inviting an over-fired disaster! Temps can climb very rapidly!

After the second stoking recovers to the 550F point, it is time to close the ash door and restore air control to the bi metallic damper. This is when I used to get puff backs on a regual basis. Yes, there were lots of blue dancing flames at the time of the closing of the ash door.....but what do you suppose happened to the dancing blue flames when the air was cut off? The bimetallic damper was closed tight because stove is over temp for it's setting....it wants to control around 350-400F and the stove is at "tending temp" of 550F. The direct vent is still open....and the spinner in the loading door is always cracked open about 1/8" or less so air can go over the fire.....but probably not enough, and with no air coming in under the fire, the blue dancing ladies must die out and now gas can build up and ......Boom!

I found if I crack open the bimetallic damper by simply sticking a small nail in it....enough air is allowed in under the fire to maintain the blue flames that consume gas build up. But this amount of air allowed to bypass the damper is small enough to bring the fire back down to running temp of 400F at which point all volitiles have been burnt off....safely and quietly....and the damper starts to open on its own to control, and the nail drops out....restoring full control to the bimetallic damper.

The last step in the tending process is to close the direct vent. Usually I will not hang around for the fire to come all the way back down to the control point, 400F, but I will wait 5 to 10 minutes after the fire has recovered back up to 550F, from the second stoking and I have closed the ash door. With the "bypass" nail in place allowing some air to come in under the fire, if all is quiet for that 5-10 minutes after cutting off all the free air thru the ash door, then I am good to go....I close the direct vent and get on with my activities while the stove continues to cool back down from 550F to the control temp of 400F at which point the nail is released and falls out automatically restoring the damper to full control.

I have to run my upstairs wood stove manually and I have to say I really love the bimetallic damper on the Hitzer....and it works just as well when burning wood as when burning coal. I cannot imagine running without it! Manual draft control is just too iffy and requires a lot of supervision. I can completely ignore my coal stove for 12 hours at a time and know it will run safey and dependably at the setting, varying only about 50 degrees or so, which I find remarkable.

Mountainman37 wrote:This has been a very interesting thread....adding good points to the "minor explosions" thread which I feel is required reading for any coal burner!

I've a Hitzer 55 which is a very basic black box, nothing fancy and I run it in the basement. It has a loading door with spinner, an inner baffle with a big hole in it for direct venting controlled by a slide gate, an ash door and a bimetallic controlled flapper in the rear feeding combustion air....set at 7 or so.

I have a manual damper at the stove which I keep 1/3 open. From this current thread, it appears that is not needed.

Glad to hear differing views on a baro, as I do not have one. I run a wood stove upstairs that uses the same flue as my coal stove in the basement. The coal runs 24/7 for the heating season while the wood stove is now and then when I want to sit in front of a nice wood fire.

Draft at my coal stove, on a steady state basis, is 0.050" of water. When I am running the wood stove upstairs, draft increases to around 0.085 or so.

Blow backs:
I used to get them-the scary ones, but now only an occasional mild "woof".

Tending routine, every 12 hours:
I open the direct vent and the ash door to freshen the fire, from a running surface temp of 350 to 400F, I let it freshen to 550F and then open the loading door and shake the ashes down evenly....side to side.

Then I stoke one side front to back, leaving the other side with lively flames! Close the loading door and watch the temp drop a bit and then recover back to 550 - 560F which is the "warm up" for the new coal on the one side.

Now open the loading door and stoke the other side, now I have coal back up to the top of the firebrick. Blue flames are dancing all thru the first stoking as I close the loading door after the second stoking. Temp will drop way down to 300 something and then slowly climb back to around the 550F point....this can take 15 min or more and I think slower is better as the coal is being heated and the volitiles are going up the chimney. This period is the "warm up" for the second batch of coal.

Now, the ash door and direct vent are open the whole process! Air is coming in freely from the bottom and no restrictions to gases leaving up the chimney.

It's been said over and over but always bears repeating: Do NOT leave a stove unattended with the ash door open. Otherwise you are inviting an over-fired disaster! Temps can climb very rapidly!

After the second stoking recovers to the 550F point, it is time to close the ash door and restore air control to the bi metallic damper. This is when I used to get puff backs on a regual basis. Yes, there were lots of blue dancing flames at the time of the closing of the ash door.....but what do you suppose happened to the dancing blue flames when the air was cut off? The bimetallic damper was closed tight because stove is over temp for it's setting....it wants to control around 350-400F and the stove is at "tending temp" of 550F. The direct vent is still open....and the spinner in the loading door is always cracked open about 1/8" or less so air can go over the fire.....but probably not enough, and with no air coming in under the fire, the blue dancing ladies must die out and now gas can build up and ......Boom!

I found if I crack open the bimetallic damper by simply sticking a small nail in it....enough air is allowed in under the fire to maintain the blue flames that consume gas build up. But this amount of air allowed to bypass the damper is small enough to bring the fire back down to running temp of 400F at which point all volitiles have been burnt off....safely and quietly....and the damper starts to open on its own to control, and the nail drops out....restoring full control to the bimetallic damper.

The last step in the tending process is to close the direct vent. Usually I will not hang around for the fire to come all the way back down to the control point, 400F, but I will wait 5 to 10 minutes after the fire has recovered back up to 550F, from the second stoking and I have closed the ash door. With the "bypass" nail in place allowing some air to come in under the fire, if all is quiet for that 5-10 minutes after cutting off all the free air thru the ash door, then I am good to go....I close the direct vent and get on with my activities while the stove continues to cool back down from 550F to the control temp of 400F at which point the nail is released and falls out automatically restoring the damper to full control.

I have to run my upstairs wood stove manually and I have to say I really love the bimetallic damper on the Hitzer....and it works just as well when burning wood as when burning coal. I cannot imagine running without it! Manual draft control is just too iffy and requires a lot of supervision. I can completely ignore my coal stove for 12 hours at a time and know it will run safey and dependably at the setting, varying only about 50 degrees or so, which I find remarkable.

Mountainman37, Someone on this site once mentioned putting a paper clip on the flapper door. You might want to try that instead of the nail. It's good to have a little air flowing all the time. Seeing you don't have ash pan vents, the paper clip would fit your situation ferfect.

Someone on this site once mentioned putting a paper clip on the flapper door. You might want to try that instead of the nail. It's good to have a little air flowing all the time. Seeing you don't have ash pan vents, the paper clip would fit your situation ferfect.

I tried that for a while with my Model 82, and it did help. Eventually I drilled two small holes in the metal flap, that way even when the damper was closed the stove still got a small amount of airflow. I also ran the stove with the direct damper open for 30 min. or so after reloading. Once I made it through the learning curve I had no more puff backs.

As for the manual damper, I had one installed on the pipe connected to my stove. I experimented with it a few times, but found no improvement in the stove's performance.

markviii wrote:

Someone on this site once mentioned putting a paper clip on the flapper door. You might want to try that instead of the nail. It's good to have a little air flowing all the time. Seeing you don't have ash pan vents, the paper clip would fit your situation ferfect.

I tried that for a while with my Model 82, and it did help. Eventually I drilled two small holes in the metal flap, that way even when the damper was closed the stove still got a small amount of airflow. I also ran the stove with the direct damper open for 30 min. or so after reloading. Once I made it through the learning curve I had no more puff backs.

As for the manual damper, I had one installed on the pipe connected to my stove. I experimented with it a few times, but found no improvement in the stove's performance.

markviii, Now that's creative! Drilling a couple holes. What size holes did you drill? If a person doesn't have ash pan vents, drilling a couple holes in the metal flap would be perfect.

You had to ask...I've since sold the stove and don't remember the exact size. I drilled two holes, one on each side of where the chain is attached to the flap. I would guess that the holes were 3/16". There are no ash pan vents on the model 82, and the stove is VERY airtight.

markviii wrote:You had to ask...I've since sold the stove and don't remember the exact size. I drilled two holes, one on each side of where the chain is attached to the flap. I would guess that the holes were 3/16". There are no ash pan vents on the model 82, and the stove is VERY airtight.

markviii, I have to ask you this; Why did you sell your HITZER #82. You don't like heating with coal anymore? You hit the Lottery? Stove too big? Bought a different stove (maybe a stoker). Went to boiler??????????? Just curious.

Well guys, I really like the idea of drilling those two wholes in the bi metal flap. I had also though of running a vent out the house so that the bi-metal pulled air from the basement or from outside so when/if I got a puff-back it would shoot it out of our living area and not into the stoves fan intake and out into the room. However I will have to try both of those things this summer when I get a new Hitzer 354 with double door option. The Hitzer 50-93 is being sold to my neighbor and I am putting in a Stradford SC100 that I have completely redone. This stove will heat the house through the spring time at which time I will order the Hitzer and install that over the summer with vent, newly order monomitor, sealed stove pipe and manual damper and barro damper but this time set up with the aid of the manomitor. I don't feel that the baro will be work a crap but I guess all of you guys along with Coal Burners speeches must have gotten though this thick head at one point and time. I cant wait to order the Hitzer!!

Thanks again,
Glenn

oliver power wrote:

markviii wrote:You had to ask...I've since sold the stove and don't remember the exact size. I drilled two holes, one on each side of where the chain is attached to the flap. I would guess that the holes were 3/16". There are no ash pan vents on the model 82, and the stove is VERY airtight.

markviii, I have to ask you this; Why did you sell your HITZER #82. You don't like heating with coal anymore? You hit the Lottery? Stove too big? Bought a different stove (maybe a stoker). Went to boiler??????????? Just curious.

I bought a different home. The new house already had a hand-fed boiler installed, along with an oil boiler and hot water baseboards. The hand-fed boiler had only been used for wood, but the handle for the shaker grates was still leaning against the wall . The boiler burns coal pretty well, so I saw no need to keep the stove around. I sold the Hitzer to a friend of mine (long time wood burner), who is very happy, and very warm. My dad is still running his Model 82, I get to fool with it once and a while.

grobinson2 wrote:Well guys, I really like the idea of drilling those two wholes in the bi metal flap. I had also though of running a vent out the house so that the bi-metal pulled air from the basement or from outside so when/if I got a puff-back it would shoot it out of our living area and not into the stoves fan intake and out into the room. However I will have to try both of those things this summer when I get a new Hitzer 354 with double door option. The Hitzer 50-93 is being sold to my neighbor and I am putting in a Stradford SC100 that I have completely redone. This stove will heat the house through the spring time at which time I will order the Hitzer and install that over the summer with vent, newly order monomitor, sealed stove pipe and manual damper and barro damper but this time set up with the aid of the manomitor. I don't feel that the baro will be work a crap but I guess all of you guys along with Coal Burners speeches must have gotten though this thick head at one point and time. I cant wait to order the Hitzer!!

Thanks again,
Glenn

Manometer Dwyer Model 25 Mark II Or a Dwyer series 2000 Magnehelic Differential Pressure gauge and a Field Control type M Type RC or Type RCBT Draft Control also three screws in each section of stack pipe and in the Draft control ring

http://www.dwyer-inst.com/Products/Product.cfm?Group_ID=26

http://fieldcontrols.com/draftcontrol.php

grobinson2 wrote:Well guys, I really like the idea of drilling those two wholes in the bi metal flap. I had also though of running a vent out the house so that the bi-metal pulled air from the basement or from outside so when/if I got a puff-back it would shoot it out of our living area and not into the stoves fan intake and out into the room. However I will have to try both of those things this summer when I get a new Hitzer 354 with double door option. The Hitzer 50-93 is being sold to my neighbor and I am putting in a Stradford SC100 that I have completely redone. This stove will heat the house through the spring time at which time I will order the Hitzer and install that over the summer with vent, newly order monomitor, sealed stove pipe and manual damper and barro damper but this time set up with the aid of the manomitor. I don't feel that the baro will be work a crap but I guess all of you guys along with Coal Burners speeches must have gotten though this thick head at one point and time. I cant wait to order the Hitzer!!

Thanks again,
Glenn

What no Alaska kodiak 3 stove

Coal Burner,
I thought about the Alaska because yours would be a good deal cheaper then a new 354 but I really do like the Hitzer company and I do like the overall design of the stove. The other thing that I really liked is that with the double door option on the Hitzer I can have just a slight over the coal bed air flow that will get rid of some of that coal gas that seems to like to blowup on me when I load the stove too fast.

Thanks,
Glenn

grobinson2 wrote:Coal Burner,
I thought about the Alaska because yours would be a good deal cheaper then a new 354 but I really do like the Hitzer company and I do like the overall design of the stove. The other thing that I really liked is that with the double door option on the Hitzer I can have just a slight over the coal bed air flow that will get rid of some of that coal gas that seems to like to blowup on me when I load the stove too fast.

Thanks,
Glenn

Cracking the viewing or loading door on any hand fed stove with out over the fire air knobs or vents will do the same thing washes & gets rid of the gases up the chimney after loading a fresh load Just crack open the top door for a few minutes no more booms Yea the Hitzer is a good company but Alaska Company is closer to you

Coal Burner,
Very true. I have been burning wood in the 50-93 for the last three days and it is quite a nice wood stove. Smokes a little when you open the door but very very efficient. Sold the 50-93 today to a buddy at work who will be a new coal burner this coming season. Plan to order the Hitzer 354 with double door option this coming week.

Thanks,
Glenn