Clayton 1600 not getting hot

Well we purchased a 1600m two weeks ago from TSC for supplimental heating in a sectioned off greenhouse and set it up as a free standing unit, heats with wood great. Magnetic therm above the door will hover around 490-500 degrees. When we switched over to coal we can not get the temp over 390 for any length of time. Barometric damper installed and running at .06wc the most draft the chimney will pull is .08wc if I cover the baro with foil. We did have to add another 3 feet of duravent chimney. While getting the coal fire going temps will approach 390 stay there then drop of to 350. the stack temp before the baro will hover around 250 as the stove themp approaches 390 then it drops to 200 and the stove temp will drop to 350. The chimney from the furnace is a 4' vertical stove pipe, to a 90 bend to 4' horizontal to the thimble and exterior tee with 12' of triple wall duravent with a screened chimney cap. All of which was cleaned when the 3' extra feet was added. I keep the feed door draft closed and have been adjusting the draft on the ash pan door. Tried buring nut and it would not burn completely and have just changed over to trying stove. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Liz

Here is a post which may help you with burning anthracite coal. Slow Blue Dancing with Red Dressed Ladies in a Clayton

I do have to say from my experience of burning anthracite coal in this stove, that it doesn't put out as many Btu's as burning wood. What it will do is provide you with about half to three quarters of the heating capacity as burning wood, but it will provide almost twice the burn time and do it cleanly and efficiently. You should be able to get the stove temperatures above the feed door to stay around 500-600 degrees with a stack temperature before the barometric draft regulator around 350 degrees. I would consider this scenario to be about optimum before you start to clinker the coal from the higher burning rate.

Anthracite is slow and lazy and you have to get out of the wood burning mentality. Read the post and I'll try to help further if you still can't get it going.

Hi Doug,

Well we got it up to 500 last night with a stack temp of 385. This is what I had to do doesn't seem quite right but it was warm... I loaded the coal to the edge of the fire brick and mounded it in the center. The ash pan damper is turned out all the way and the feed door damper was turned out 6 turns. I also had to set the baro to .08 if I set it lower the temps all started to drop . With all that the coal bed was glowing like the fires of heck. This morning the stack was 200 with a baro of .04 and stove temp of 300. The back 3/4 of the coal bed was glowing but the front was out lotta gray looiking coal. the back corners were also out. Kinda expected the front to be out with reading about no air from the feed door damper and that the coal burns front to back. I read that some people have put bolts in the baffles in the front and rear plates and it seems to help. Also with the front coal out like that, should I clean that gray coal out and rake the hot coal forward or just start reloading. Any ideas would be be appreciated that 500 felt great.

Thanks,
Liz

Dizzyliz wrote:Hi Doug,

Well we got it up to 500 last night with a stack temp of 385. This is what I had to do doesn't seem quite right but it was warm... I loaded the coal to the edge of the fire brick and mounded it in the center. The ash pan damper is turned out all the way and the feed door damper was turned out 6 turns. I also had to set the baro to .08 if I set it lower the temps all started to drop . With all that the coal bed was glowing like the fires of heck. This morning the stack was 200 with a baro of .04 and stove temp of 300. The back 3/4 of the coal bed was glowing but the front was out lotta gray looiking coal. the back corners were also out. Kinda expected the front to be out with reading about no air from the feed door damper and that the coal burns front to back. I read that some people have put bolts in the baffles in the front and rear plates and it seems to help. Also with the front coal out like that, should I clean that gray coal out and rake the hot coal forward or just start reloading. Any ideas would be be appreciated that 500 felt great.

Thanks,
Liz

Keep the feed door damper closed.
Anthracite likes all the air coming from below.
You use the feed door damper while loading to burn off the volatiles after you got blue flames close it up..
Sounds like you are on your way to being warm and happy..

Well it sounds like you are slowly getting it through the school of hard knocks. I wouldn't mess with the air holes in the cast iron sections. Leave them be. You need them for the secondary air. Depending on the size of coal you are burning and how hot you desire to burn, the actual burn times between recharging may be as little as six ours and as much as sixteen hours. I would expect an average burn time of eight hours at 500 to 600 degree temperature between recharging. Keep the coal full and only shake a hot fire. It is not unusual for me to have to shake the shaker rod 50 times to clear the ashes twice a day, maybe even three times. I think the leaving the coal put and not disturbing it too much will perform best.

Talk to you later.

This unit is located in a greenhouse? Is it running wide open throughout the entire burn? Is the need for heat ever met enough for the furnace to shut down?

Yes it is in a greenhouse....right now the need isn't met because well it's been 18-20 degrees at night but as spring approaches it will. I was running a 125k btu wood burner and it knocked the oil bill down by 50% but would have to reload it with wood every 2 hours and would be out by 3 am.. Basically just offsetting the oil usage, wanted something to run through the night .....last night was great. 55 degrees inside...18 degrees outside with r-2 as an insulation factor and the oil burner only ran a little bit.

I would try to get all of the air entering through the ash door vent. With the furnace located in a green house, you may have to open the spinner a lot to keep it going well. You are on the right track leaving the barometric draft regulator at a much higher setting. It is a good possibility that the air entering the draft regulator may be cooling the chimney stack enough to slow the draft down. So, you may have to be satisfied with running the furnace not as efficient to maintain a good draft at the temperatures that you require.

With the barometric set at a higher point, you can possibly throttle back the ash door spinner to maintain a good fire. I installed a similar furnace in my buddy's green house and he has a similar set up as you have described. He also has a problem with draft because of the chimney cooling effect. So he has to run his ash door spinner wide open to maintain a good fire. What we have attempted with reasonable success to obtain a more constant burn and better efficiency from it is we installed a manual stovepipe damper inline, before the barometric draft regulator. This seemed to allow for a more even and longer burn, but only at a wide open spinner setting. The barometric was set so high that it only functioned when there was a strong wind. This may be something to try.

Update - went out at 10pm furnace was chugging along at 525. it's a nice 60 degrees in the greenhouse, 19 outside. I will have to dial it back to get to 55. Shook it down really well and loaded it back up for the nite. Will see how it is in the morning. Thanks for all the help.

Well checked it this morning and it was out with about half a load of gray coal.....cleaning it out and starting over. Can I burn the gray coal?

Most likely the gray coal won't do anything for you. Sounds like you are using the insulated chimney pipe so I wouldn't think that cooling of the exhaust hurting your draft would be an issue. I also have insulated pipe for a chimney and exhaust cooling isn't an issue for me, although I realize each setup is different. Was the coal completely out or was it still burning in the rear of the firebox as you described from a previous burn?

If what is left in the firebox is completely burned through then I would say you are pulling too much draft through the coal bed and burning it too quickly which may be what you need to do to maintain heat in a greenhouse or you just can't get enough coal in the firebox to last through the night burning it at the rate you need to.

If what is left in the firebox is ash with a good bit of unburned coal than I would say you are getting over the fire air through the firebox somehow and your combustion air is bypassing the coal bed.

Well it is unburnt coal...gray pieces with a lil black in the middle. There was still a small glow in the back but not significant, about 1/8 or so in the back. It definitely wasn't ash I filled up a lil more than a 5 gallon bucket of gray coal. As i cleaned it out i did find a bunch of clinkers toward the bottom. Restarting the fire now, will look at dropping the temp a lil. The nite before it burned pretty well at 500, last nite it was churning at 525.

As far a s cold air cooling the chimney i think the cool air going though the coal bed is part of the issue because the floor temp is low but it was the same the past few nites. We also have a short chimney. I believe that is having a cooling effect on the firebox and chimney Wish for a couple nites in the 30's to see what the difference will be, maybe next week. Will see how it does dialed back a lil bit, it burned well the nite before, i know we can repeat that <positive thinking>.

As far as air over the fire the nite before the feed door draft was out 6 turns last nite it was out 2 turns.


This is definelty different than burning wood and hope to get the knack soon.

I really do appreciate everyone's input it is very very helpful.

I'd try shutting down the over fire air all the way and giving a little less air through the ash door. Unless someone with a Clayton or its clone can verify it's necessary, the unburned coal indicates to me that the over fire air isn't helping. It is different than burning wood, but with a little trial and error you can get it figured out for your installation and start to enjoy the much longer burn times and steadier heat from coal.

If you are burning anthracite coal, keep the feed door draft spinner, if you have one on the door, and the draft spinner between the doors if you have one, or the optional combustion draft fan off and closed if you have that, closed. All of the combustion draft air should be entering through the ash door draft spinner.

The other spinners or draft kit is for burning wood or during an initial charge or recharge of bituminous coal or anthracite coal to burn off the volitle gases for the first fifteen to thirty minutes. Keeping theses drafts open after that just cools the fire and does not allow a complete burn of the coal.

By using only the ash door spinner, the coal should burn through to a powder like ash. That is what you want. If the coal starts to clinker still, you are probably burning it past the ash fusion temperature of the coal that you have and will have to lower the burn rate to accomplish a complete burn without clinkering. That is not saying that you won't be able to burn the coal at these higher temperature, just be prepared to let it go out and restart the fire in 5 to 7 days. That is just part of the deal then with that particular anthracite.

Bituminous coal with tend to fuse together in one big lump and will have to be slightly broken up with a poker to create some air passages. But don't mix the bituminous coal up or the ash will cool the fire and the bituminous coal, which is now coke, will tend not to completely burn through.

I hope that this helps.

Update:

Well it's been a lil while and have been busy plowing snow and trying to get everything tweaked. After my last post I was settling in to burning stove sized anthricite because the nut was being a pain. I was loading the stove one afternoon and closed the feed door and shut it tight I heard a muffled pop....the door was not closed tight. I noticed the door was not square. Opened it up and saw that the gasket was not lining up and the door was rubbing against the steel of the feed opening. So I looked at it then looked at it some more and realized that the top hinge pin was off by about an eighth of an inch and no way to adjust it. Sooo I called US Stove and they sent me a new door also sent me a new blower motor the old one it had a sqweek in it. Well put the door on this past Saturday...what a difference We are getting burns through the night. I am trying nut again and got two nice burns through the night going for three.

I would like to tweak it a bit more..... I have the draft at 8 I get the stack temp before the BD to about 340 (with both blowers running) and the temp about the feed door is about 430 with 7 1/4 spinns on the ash pan door. If I am reading everything right........if I lower the draft I will keep more heat in the box. Now I have tried this and the stack temp before the BD will drop to 250 and the temp above the feed door will drop to around 350and the fans cycle on and off. It is making me nutz

I am running cold air through the return and I wonder if it is just pulling the heat out of the firebox too fast so I have to run with the higher draft?

I have run with a draft of 9 and can get the temp over the feed door to 500 and higher.

Also what are the temp limits measuring it over the feed door for the fire box? I would like to stay between 450 and 500 been a goal of mine but if we get a really cold night can it be pushed higher?

Also the blower they sent to me had a bad motor and I called and poof another one is on the way. I asked if they wanted me to ship the first one back they said not to worry bout it. They just asked me what the problem was with it, the motor has a bad vibration, the whole stove vibrated seems like the windings have a dead spot in it somewhere. They seem to be pretty good about their warranty stuff been very happy so far.

Just still have a ton of questions and you guys have been a great help.

Thanks
Liz