Lighting nut coal

Check out the knowledge base and other posts for the barometric damper and manometer info. It will help you have more control over the draft through the fire, especially on windy nights like tonight, which will help hold heat in the stove and burn less coal. You don't need it for the short term though you may not get a good steady 12 hour burn, it depends on how much draft your chimney / stove set up pulls.

Fill that firebox to the top of the brick!! It will take two 5 gallon buckets of coal probably.

Thanks titleist, ill look into gaskets. Nice to know you know the stove so well, I'm going to move my thermometer I think.

Ok pocono, and titleist, since I closed the door and open 3 turns it dropped to 100 degrees to 250, and I just added coal to the bottom of door. I am thinking of reopening door now to get new stuff burning and get heat up again. Now at 220...

PS, yeah most of those cracks are from chucking logs in, lol. I got a guy who's gonna redo the whole thing for like 75 bucks or so, this includes a new elbow pipe and horizontal pipe. The fire caused some separation in seams, being held together now with high temp caulking. Yes risky I know, especially burning coal, as a matter of fact he said if you burn coal get a co detector. SOON!

Another thing to keep in mind with the Mark III .... if your not running that fan on the back there, the stove itself will run a bit hotter at a given dial setting, due to the increased draft from all the heat going up the chimney. That blower sends quite a bit of that heat into the room Instead of up the chimney.

I run mine pretty hot every night (hottest spots around the stove are 630° or higher, at 2.5 turns out on the dial. Without the blower, at those same settings I'll hit 720°. Stack temp was 100° hotter as well - going from the normal 250° to 350°. All these temps taken with a non-contact thermometer, except for the stack temp, which is from a magnetic one.

The other thing is, if your chimney pulls a stronger draft than mine, you could be overfiring the stove at 2.5 turns out. It will take a little experimentation to figure out where the dial needs to be.

Fire looks good so far! Filler right up, although I'd try not to cover that missing piece of firebrick there .... but heap it up in a mound everywhere else, like in my previous pic that Richard posted.

This topic actually belongs in the "Hand-Fed Stoves" section, I'm moving it there. You guys have been busy while I was shoveling all that buck out of my truck!

Fill it to the top of the rear firebrick and slope it to the front firebrick. Once filled I would estimate 20 minutes max on leaving the ash door open, then close it and leave the spinner at 3 turns or 2 turns if you want to quit playing with it.

Move the mag thermometer to the top front side of the stove for a bit to check the temp there.

I think you have now gradumagated to coal burner!!

SMITTY wrote:
Fire looks good so far! Filler right up, although I'd try not to cover that missing piece of firebrick there .... but heap it up in a mound everywhere else, like in my previous pic that Richard posted.

I have a flat bed as high as the front bricks, no mound, bad? I need a mound?

The more you put in there, the longer it will burn.

titleist1 wrote:Fill it to the top of the rear firebrick and slope it to the front firebrick. Once filled I would estimate 20 minutes max on leaving the ash door open, then close it and leave the spinner at 3 turns or 2 turns if you want to quit playing with it.

Move the mag thermometer to the top front side of the stove for a bit to check the temp there.

I think you have now gradumagated to coal burner!!

OMG that's a lot of coal! All the way to the top bricks? Ok this raises another q, lol, I'm on bag 2 already today. If I'm going to use 70 pounds a day and 5 bucks a bag that's $10 a day, $300 a month, and coal becomes more expensive than anything else! I was told 40 pounds last a day or 2, that's 60 a month. So really, all the way to the top of the back bricks? I did a semi mound, still 4 inches under top of back bricks.

That's what I do, & I get a 24 hour burn, depending on how hot I run it.

Your first load is going to take more than usual, because your building it from scratch on just a layer of wood ash. After the fire has established itself for around 24 hours, you'll still have 4" minimum of burning coal to pile onto after shaking down. It won't always take this much coal.

I use about 60 - 70 lbs a day -- and I have the most drafty house on the east coast.

yes its ok to open the door after you add coal. it is indeed normal for the temp to drop significantly after loading it up as such. A major safety issue is to never leave the stove unattended with the ash door open. many use a kitchen timer for 15 min after a reload to remember to go shut the door. it is that important to prevent a runaway stove.

you can spend endless time reading here and learning about your new adiction to coal, in the knowledge base and will be amazed at the results of that knowledge.

P.S. pictures are always a good way for learning and sharing

yes really! yes the initial fill up is a few bags but with good adjustment you will lower the consumption rate. we buy coal in bulk by the ton. up here its less than 200 bucks a ton or about 9 cents a pound.... equal to 3.60 a 40 # bag..... as opposed to about 6.50 a 40 @# bag from the store....

The pounds per day you use is very very specific to your stove location and how well insulated your house is. You can get an idea if you know how much other fuel you used in the past to heat your house.

I will burn at most 4 tons this year for heating a 2000 insulated sqft and 1700 uninsulated basement sqft. I pay $205 per ton from a guy in Quarryville, chances are he's close to you since you are in Lancaster. I do burn some firewood in early fall and late spring when its not so cold.

Ok well I loaded more, about an inch below bottom of cracked back brick in a slight forward slope. It's a lot of coal in there, but probably not as much as you would say to use. I'm going to leave it overnight at 2 turns open and see how it does. Very curious to see what morning brings!

I really want to thank you all for helping so much. It was your advice (and frigid temps) that got me to finally get this thing working! Great group of folks, and I see you discuss more than coal! I look forward to chiming in here and there with my radical 2 cents. Until then I'll have 100 more questions I'm sure.

Again thanks a million, um, see ya tomorrow!

Any other overnight advice??

No problem - stay warm.

Just keep an eye on it for the next few hours with regards to your dial setting. If it seems to be getting too hot -- stack temps over 300°, you might want to turn dial in a half turn at a time. Keep in mind any changes you make can take over a half hour to take affect. Coal is very sloooow to respond to changes.

Great advice Smitty. I will watch indeed, and odd you say that, stack temp is currently 300! Man, great board, ya learn cool expressions like ''stack temp". The good news is I knew what a smoke stack was so I figured it out!

There ya go!

If your NOT running the blower in the back of the stove, 300° would be ok. WITH it running, that will be a little hot ... and in that case I'd turn the dial in a half turn.

You'll be a pro before you know it. You'll know you did everything right when you wake up in the morning hours later, & feel a nice, warm house. That's a great feeling.