Remembering the lessons from last year I go a small pile of coal fired up and tried for a fire only big enough to raise the temperature in the house a few degrees and dry it out. Forgetting the lessons from last year, I couldn't keep it burning to good, so I started piling on more coal and spreading the fire out. As the bed grew, the insert temp started to rise and by the time the bed of burning coal covered the grates, the insert was staying at about 250*. Since I wanted the fire to last through the night and into tomorrow (another 50s/40s day with rain) I went ahead and filled the fire box up about 2/3 of the way up the fire brick forgetting how much heat the insert threw off once the whole bed was lit and the blue ladies were dancing the night away.Well when I went in the living room to check the progress before turning in, the temperature in the room was a nice toasty 78* and the insert was merrily burning away at 350*.
Sooooo I after opening the windowstats and throttling her down to about 1/2 turn on the air I'm sitting here waiting for things to clam down some. I'm starting to think that there's always something interesting that goes on when you burn coal! 
