Another New Coal-Trol Issue???

Since we had the dry contacts installed on our Coal-trol module last week, the furnace fan has been controlled by the Coal-Trol module, and it was set (by the appropriate DIP switch) to come on at high speed for heat. It was running at high speed until this morning. While scrolling through the advanced menu, when CFM displayed on the thermostat screen, it shut the stove off, until I scrolled off CFM. After I scrolled to the next menu item, the stove came back on. It was after this occurred that we noticed that our Carrier furnace fan was back to operating on low speed. We can tell its on low since we barely have any air flow from the vents on low speed.

Is this supposed to happen -- the stove shutting off, just while scrolling thru the menu items??? And why is our furnace fan back to low speed?

When you hit the CFM setting screen it runs the convection fan at the speed indicated to aid in setting it. To do this we temporarily force the FR value to 1, in order to run the convection fan at minimum speed. If your SFT is set higher than 1 the aux output/dry-contacts will be off while you are on this screen.

The more important setting for control of the dry contacts if the SFT setting in the advanced menu, Supplemental Fan Threshold. This setting indicates the FR that the dry contact will be turned on at. It defaults to 15, but can be set to anything from 0 to 30. Higher settings mean the FR has to get up higher before it kicks on the aux fan. Lower settings the opposite. A setting of 0 will run the aux fan all the time.

The Coal-trol does not control the speed of the aux output or the fan that it is controlling. It is an on or off output. So if you're finding that the furnace fan is not running at the high speed, then it is probably because the aux outputs are not on due to the FR not being high enough to kick it on. If you want the aux fan on more often or at lower stove heat outputs, then lower that SFT setting as desired.

Paul, at the time when the furnace fan went to low speed, I specifically checked and the FR was at 99. SFT is set at 15. It was running on high speed just fine until scrolling brought me to the CFM menu item. Stove went off, I scrolled to the next item, stove came on, furnace fan was then running on low speed. Even now, the furnace fan is on low speed, and FR is at 89. I understand what you said above, and now we're wondering if the temporary shut off caused a reset of some sort in the furnace. My husband spoke to our friend/licensed electrician who helped with the DIP switch setting, and he thinks that may be what happened also. My husband is going to check this out.

My husband opened our furnace. He checked the position of the DIP switch that set the furnace fan speed to high, and it was still in the position that it was set at for high speed operation. He then set it back to the original setting, turned the furnace on and the fan came on at the low speed, he let it run awhile at the low speed, then put the DIP switch back to the high setting. However, nothing changed, the fan is still running on low speed, so it appears something happened with the circuit board during the temporary "shut down" when I scrolled to CFM display. We're hoping that the fan will run properly when the furnace itself is used, since we'll need to use the regular heat with the furnace because we're going away for vacation Thanksgiving week, and we'll have the coal stove shut down during that time.

I'm not sure what to say. The dry contact is nothing more than an electronically controlled switch. The circuit is powered by the furnace and is low voltage. Doesn't seem likely anything would have been damaged by going through this menu. Hopefully it is just a matter of a reset of some sort on the furnace.

Unfortunately, our furnace fan will not run on high speed. Last night when the stove came off idle and FR went up, the fan did come on, but at the low speed. This a.m. we had 69 degrees w/FR of 99, and the fan is running low speed. I have the thermostat set for 70 day and night now. I just don't understand what the heck is going on, seems we are just not getting the performance we had last year, where the exact same temp settings were maintained beautifully with one burner and the house was toasty, until the temps went down into the teens, when we had to light the 2nd burner. It's 40 degrees here this morning, I should not need both burners for a 1600 SF house with 40 degree outside temp.

As far as the furnace fan, it's looking to me as if something got fried on the circuit board. Maybe the sudden shut off and quick call to come back on... I'm familiar with things on circuit boards getting fried, unfortunately, since I have and maintain several Roombas and Scoobas. I'm the one who deals with keeping them running in tip top shape, cleaning sensors, motors, troubleshooting and fried circuit boards. Hubby does help to remove screws, though!

We've yet to try the fan with our furnace to see if it will run on high when the furnace calls for it. Doesn't seem likely that it will, but who knows? I hope we don't need to get a new circuit board, financially that will be another hardship...

Did you clean the inside of the stove and the flue pipe? Clean the grate holes and under the grate? Ash build up on the inside of the stove can cut down on heat transfer. The grate holes will fill with fine dust and small chunks, cutting combustion air flow and fire efficiency. Make sure the gasket on the back of the burner is still there and making a good seal (also the seal on the bottom edge of the grate if it has one), air leaking from here can kill fire efficiency. Clean out the pan the grate sits on, another source of reduced air flow. There may be two C-channel tubes on the back of the stove leading to the flue, make sure these are cleaned out inside. If you have a power venter, make sure it is cleaned out from stove to venter fan blades (including the blades! ). If a chimney, make sure it is cleaned out and the flue is cleaned out.

If the FR is 99 and you are not getting the heat you expect out of it or it isn't maintaining the temp you are used to at that kind of output... You mentioned having to move the MAX setting lower compared to last year, this is indicative of a less efficient burn as a matter of fuel, stove and/or venting mechanics, beyond the control of the Coal-trol. You also mentioned that you started to see what could be described as lower heat performance toward the end of last heating season, again indicative of something getting clogged or losing efficiency. It may also be a difference in the coal you're burning starting toward the end of last season.

Hi, my husband says he thoroughly cleaned the stove before startup, using info from Dave's (WNY) post on what/how to clean. Not sure if he checked gaskets you mentioned though. I'll check on that.

The Max of 32 is what we had to use last year. We started w/factory setting, were dumping hot coals, gradually lowered max until we finally found that 32 is the magic number. We only raised it again after speaking with Neil last week, who suggested we try that since the stove was now broken in - he thought we might see a difference. But, same thing, dumping hot coals, had to reduce max back to 32. So the max setting is not reduced this year, its back to what worked for us last season.

Husband did clean flue, convection fan, etc. too.

The coal we were using at the end of last season was the same coal we were using during the winter, which we got a second delivery of in February.

What has me most bummed right now is that our furnace fan won't run on high speed now, so we're back to the weak airflow we had last year. What my husband did yesterday was to open one of the "vents" in the front of the Hyfire to allow heat out of the stove. The stove is several feet away, but in front of the stairs up from the basement, so the heat just rises up the stairs. That's helped a lot and I guess is good for a temporary fix.

I just want to say that I appreciate the attempts from everyone to help with this. It's frustrating, because I know that this stove is one heck of a stove and it has the ability to make my entire house toasty, along with the coal-trol to regulate things. Since we seemed to have things working pretty well last season, we thought it would only take a few adjustments to have it perfected this season, like getting the furnace fan to run on high and preventing the heat from coming out of our return ducts upstairs.

Please don't get offended but are ALL the fans of the one burner plugged in? The blower, combustion? If yes, the only thing I can think of is that the Coal-trol is defective.

Any new status? Did you get it working correctly?

Hi Dave, hope you and family and a wonderful Thanksgiving. I just got the sling off my arm yesterday, after arthroscopic surgery for badly torn rotator cuff on Nov. 10. Can use 2 hands now, but the shoulder and arm are very weak and stiff. But, since I can type now --

Poconoman, no offense taken - Everything is plugged in and set up correctly. Everything has been double and triple checked.

The furnace fan WILL run on high speed when our regular furnace calls for it -- my husband did test it. The furnace fan still will NOT run on high speed anymore with the coal-trol and coal stove though. The coal-trol is controlling the fan as far as turning it on and off, but only on low speed, that's it. We don't think we even want to muck around with the furnace fan circuit board anymore. It works with the Carrier furnace and we don't want to possibly end up with damaging and having to replace it.

I still think that the coal-trol is not operating correctly. We should not have had readings where we were 2 degrees below the set temp coupled with low FRs of 0, or 14 or 12, etc. That to me indicates maintainence of the too low temperature, and does not indicate that the stove was working to bring UP the temp to the desired set temp of 69. I would have expected, with being 2 degrees below the set temp, to have a high FR, at some point a 99. We were away from Nov. 20 and just returned home last night. We had the coal stove off. My husband relit it last night and we will see how it goes, now that it's colder out.

So we are still as we were last year - low speed fan, except that hubby closed the upstairs return ducts that the heat was coming out of last year so that upstairs is not getting all that heat from the returns. In that respect, things are better.

Now we just want alternatives for circulating the heat better out of our registers. Helper fans?

Just to let you know that I plug my Poco dist. fans straight in to the wall and let it run on high all the time. It's a trick that the guys at Empire motors who rewind motors for a living taught me. My Killowatt records very little or no extra juice and the motors sound happier. 60 pure sine waves a second keeps windings and capacitors happiest and the motors coolest they say. However, if the noise is offensive then you need to fix things.