First Fire in the Keystoker!

I must congratulate myself - the Keystoker indeed makes heat! Unfortunately, it's only about 45 degrees this morning, so it will quickly run me out of the house if I crank it too long.

Opened up a bag of rice, poured in 10 or 12# into the hopper, raked a little coal down on the grate, and used one of the 'matchstick' fire starters, which promptly did nothing. The coal just laughed at that feeble attempt. Next try was to use my Bernzomatic propane torch....which got me lots of sparks and popping, what looked like a fire, and which promptly went out.

Next idea was to steal some natural lump charcoal away from the Weber and pile a handfull or two on the grate, mixed in with a little coal. I hit that with the torch for a short time and we were off and running! Worked great!

Fast forward an hour or two - FIRE IS GOING OUT!!! Oh OH! Idle timer is working, draft is OK. What's with this? Finally put two and two together and realized I forgot to set the stoker stroke - it was almost all the way out so it wasn't feeding any coal. Cranked up the thermostat and let it stoke for a while, and all is running fine again.

Observations - this thing pumps out some heat!!!! YIKES!!!! At the same time, the temporary vent I'm using (corrugated aluminum dryer vent) is barely warm to the touch. I'm only running the stove at maybe 30%, but still I'm impressed. I'm flirting with danger - stove directly on the carpet, dryer vent chimney, stuck through a window..... But, CO detector is reading ZERO, and I have my fire extinguisher handy, and I'm not leaving the stove.

So, time to bring the hearth pad down to the basement, park the stove, and vent it with the PelletPro pipe.

Happy heating season!

Chris

Chris:
This is sort of like taking the car out for a spin, to test the 'new engine' before you have the trans fixed and the brakes working???



Hey, I do the same thing all the time. I wish I could have somehow fired up the AA boiler last night instead of the 'old one'. Good motivation to get it done and installed.

Sounds good, what does your wife think of it??

Greg L

Comment from wife: "It stinks"....... Indeed, I did have the basement pretty stunk up from getting the stove started up when she came downstairs. Now that it's been running for a while, it just smells a bit like new paint, but not bad at all.

Chris

She will ignore the 'stink' once you get the basement warmed up to about 90*, put in a load of beach sand, some sunlamps and a jacuzzi tub!!

You can have your own Key West beach in the basement, in Illinois!!

Greg L.

I am wondering when to light mine now that I've got it all cleaned. I have my heating oil running today.......maybe tomorrow. Hmmmn

byrdy11, no time like a cool weekend to give it a 'test run' you can 'hang out' while you figure out the settings, ask questions on the site.

This way you will be ready to fire it up for the actual cold weather, this is just a 'tease' from MommaNature.

Greg L

i used little pcs. of charcoal and some litgher fluid. make sure the grate is full couple inches into the air holes. piled the charcoal about 4" in , put little bit of coal on top of the charcoal , sparyed some lighter fluid. lite it and let it burn about 5 minutes , then turn the stove on. Chris if you could please keep me informed on your coal useage. thank you. also I thought the hopper was 50lbs. I put 2 40lb bags in and it filled the hopper to the top. so she holds 80lbs. I have burned about 80lbs so far. the ash pan was couple inches from full. the pan is 14"L x 11"W x 6 1/2"D. so those measurements minus 2". does it sound bout right. I wish I could weight it.

ken wrote: Chris if you could please keep me informed on your coal useage. thank you. also I thought the hopper was 50lbs. I put 2 40lb bags in and it filled the hopper to the top. so she holds 80lbs. I have burned about 80lbs so far. the ash pan was couple inches from full. the pan is 14"L x 11"W x 6 1/2"D. so those measurements minus 2". does it sound bout right. I wish I could weight it.

Be careful with lighter fluid in an enclosed space (stove)!! Better to use some Match Lite charcoal instead.

I don't think my hopper would hold that much. I don't think I could fit more than 50 lbs. in mine, but it does have a sloping rear section that takes up a bit of space - at least the coal can be fully utilized rather than having a dead space.

I'd estimate that I burned 6 or 7# in about 6 hours with the stove pretty much just putting along.

Chris

I trial fit the venting setup tonight - looks like it's going to work out REAL nice!

Chris

Nice looking pipe!

I still get a shock when I see the stove sitting on the carpet!

Great looking install Chris, you really are doing a first class job.

Another pic or two....

Need to cut through the drywall for thimble clearance, then 5" hole thru the poured concrete with a core bit, and then I have vinyl siding on the outside to deal with.

The plan is to do the drywall first, then go all the way to the outside with a 1/2" hammer drill, and use that hole to locate the cut through the siding on the outside and to center the core drill location.

Gawd, I hope I don't screw it up....or the wife will kill me... :rightfighter5:

Oh, I plan to paint the inside pipe black. It was a LOT more expensive to buy pre-painted pipe from Simpson...

Chris

Chris, I think you should drill the hole, then in a loud voice you are sure she can hear say something like: OPPS !!! OH NO!!!

Then catch the look on her face when she comes running to see what happened... have your camera ready..



Greg L

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LsFarm wrote:Chris, I think you should drill the hole, then in a loud voice you are sure she can hear say something like: OPPS !!! OH NO!!!

Then catch the look on her face when she comes running to see what happened... have your camera ready..



Greg L

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Oh man, that could be a bad deal. Might end up with the stove in the garage, along with a sleeping bag for me.... :dontknow:

My luck, I'll end up doing that for real. But, I tend to obsess and measure about 10 times before actually drilling or cutting anything when it comes to major house altering modifications to be sure I don't have to end up calling a professional to fix my screwup.

Chris

Matthaus wrote:Nice looking pipe!

I still get a shock when I see the stove sitting on the carpet!

Great looking install Chris, you really are doing a first class job.

A shock how? Too nice a place for the stove to be? You do know that's not the permanent home for it, right? I'm not that nuts.....

Thanks for the compliment, though. I tend to over-do things a bit, but I hate to sit back and wish I'd done something different/better. Might as well put all the work in up front and do it right once and for all.

Chris