Coal-Trol Seems to Be Malfunctioning

Now I'm certain that something's wrong with our Coal-Trol thermostat. Aside from the stove not maintaining a night setting of 69 degrees any longer, but instead allowing the temperature to drop to 67, which also shows a low FR or zero FR, yesterday I increased the DAY setting ONLY temperature from 70 up to 71 by using the UP arrow. As I understand it, this increase is temporary, and once the next DAY cycle arrives, it will revert to the actual temperature set for DAY, which is 70 (and that's what it used to do). Our daytime cycle began at 6:15 this morning. It is now 8:03 AM, (with our clocks turned back already), and the DAY setting on the Coal-Trol is still D 71. It did not return to 70, which is what we had it set for.

Also, I noticed that last night, at 8 PM when it changes to the night setting, the Coal-Trol display showed N 70, which means that that setting increased by 1 degree up from 69, which is the temperature that we have set for nighttime. However, I absolutely did NOT raise the night setting during the daytime yesterday, I only raised the day setting by 1 degree. I am 100% certain of this.

So it does seem as if our Coal-Trol has developed a problem.

Changing the setting by just one degree from day to night
may just be a rounding error in the control. Try a few degrees
difference from day to night. I have mine set the same. I figured
a few degrees didn't make a lot of savings in coal.

True, but I did not change the night setting, yet it is changed. Also, the temporary change to the day setting did not revert back to the actual set temp for the day setting, and it should have.

There should be no rounding errors on these settings.

When you changed the Day Setting temporarily did you do it from the round robin or did you use the menu key to get it to the "D" temperature setting to make the adjustment? If you were on the "D" temp screen then you adjusted the setpoint, you did not make a temporary setpoint change.

To make a temporary setpoint change you use the up and down buttons while the control is in the round robin display cycle (where it cycles every couple seconds through current temp, current temp setpoint, and current time). Then when the next programmed setpoint is reached it will assert itself, getting rid of the temporary setpoint.

Neither of these adjustments should affect the night time setpoint, only adjustments while on the "N" programmed setpoint temperature or time screens should do this.

If there is a problem, we definitely want to get you running right. Please call our shop Monday to discuss this issue with us (315-299-3589). We'll likely want to run through a guided programmed setpoint change and a temporary change, and adjust the times for a programmed change in order to make sure they are functioning normally. If we find a problem we'll be more than happy to take it in under warranty.

Hi Paul, did it from the RR display, and now I realize this... shouldn't it have displayed as:

O 71, rather than D 71? Now I just tried moving the temp back down to 70 from the RR menu, and the display read: O 70. O = override or something like that?

I can't find the instructions for the coal-trol, but that sounds right to me. Also, at no time whatsoever did I attempt to change the night-time setting but it seems that was raised when I raised the daytime temp up yesterday.

When I used to have a Leisure line Pocono, I just set the temp to 70 and left it go. Changing the setpoint to "try" to save coal at nighttime by 1 or 2 degrees will not save any measurable amount of coal.

Hi, it has nothing to do with saving some coal, but everything to do with that one degree cooler allowing me to sleep and being able to breathe! Otherwise its too warm in the bedroom to sleep, and I wake up completely stuffed up. Initially I wanted to set 67 or 68 and 70, but that was too much of a swing, so I compromised with N 69 and D 70.

You may be asking a bit too much, there is overshoot and undershoot. The Coaltrol does an excellent job of running the furnace. When there is a call for heat, it ramps up then waits to see what effect it has. If there is a setting for the ramp up time, try decreasing it.

I usually just leave mine at 68 most of the time. It maintains pretty good.

Is it possible you accidentally hit the up or down button when you were going through the night temp setpoint screen? We haven't ever run into a problem with changes to one setting influencing another like this. It is one of those "it works or it doesn't" kind of things. If there were a software issue like this we would have gotten complaints out of the wazzoo. While it is remotely possible that there is a chip or some heretofore undiscovered bug in the software causing this... I don't want to discount it (your change to day temp causing a change in night temp) entirely as a possibility, but it really is a low probability thing. If you can demonstrate this happening again, please do call us (315-299-3589) and go through it with us as we would definitely like to know (especially if there is a bug and not some one off chip problem) and want to get you setup with a fully working unit.

mozz wrote:You may be asking a bit too much, there is overshoot and undershoot. The Coaltrol does an excellent job of running the furnace. When there is a call for heat, it ramps up then waits to see what effect it has. If there is a setting for the ramp up time, try decreasing it.

I don't feel I'm asking too much, the Coal-trol and stove maintained 69 degrees overnight last year with no problem, and 70 degrees during the day with no problem. I was actually amazed and very pleased and how well the temp was controlled. But, towards the end of last year's heating season, our overnight temp began dropping to 67 every morning. The stove was just started up again a week ago, and 67 each morning has begun again. If it's set for 69, I don't think the temp when I get up should be 67 with a FR of 0 or 16, for instance. Seems that it's maintaining 67. It doesn't begin to ramp up until after 6:15 a.m., when the day setting calls for 70. I feel that the Coal-trol is simply not working properly; certainly it's not working as it did last heating season. All I'm looking for is for it to work and maintain as it did already last season.

pvolcko wrote:Is it possible you accidentally hit the up or down button when you were going through the night temp setpoint screen? We haven't ever run into a problem with changes to one setting influencing another like this. It is one of those "it works or it doesn't" kind of things. If there were a software issue like this we would have gotten complaints out of the wazzoo. While it is remotely possible that there is a chip or some heretofore undiscovered bug in the software causing this... I don't want to discount it (your change to day temp causing a change in night temp) entirely as a possibility, but it really is a low probability thing. If you can demonstrate this happening again, please do call us (315-299-3589) and go through it with us as we would definitely like to know (especially if there is a bug and not some one off chip problem) and want to get you setup with a fully working unit.

It's not at all possible that I hit any button in the night temp setpoint screen. All I did was hit the up button in the RR to raise the day temp. I am 200% certain of this. I never entered the setpoint screen for the night temp.

As I said, please do call us, we want to get you up and running. Can you repeat the issue you had with the temporary setpoint change causing a change in both day and night time setpoint settings? If so, please have a list of steps prepared when you call us. We haven't run into this kind of a problem before (or at least I haven't heard of it).

Now that,boys and girls,is what I call "Customer Service" . Thanx,Paul.

pvolcko wrote:As I said, please do call us, we want to get you up and running. Can you repeat the issue you had with the temporary setpoint change causing a change in both day and night time setpoint settings? If so, please have a list of steps prepared when you call us. We haven't run into this kind of a problem before (or at least I haven't heard of it).

Will try to call this evening, I'm at work during the day. However, I'm trying to get things squared away before surgery on Wednesday for a torn rotator cuff. After that, I won't be able to use my right arm for anything, hence, trying to get things done beforehand, like cleaning fish tank filters and other stuff. I may not have time to call until after the surgery. We lost this entire weekend too, because we had to devote it to getting our 3 Dobermans de-skunked, P U! And their collars, bedding, living room rug... lots of fun, LOL!