Saey Hanover I not staying lit.

We recently purchased this stove and it has been a pain ever since. I am used to keystoker stoves, so this one has be baffled. We can get a good, hot fire going it for about a day, maybe two at the most. All of the sudden, it will have this beautiful fire, then poof, goes out. I am not familiar with the Baro damper that is installed. I have heard that there is quite a learning curve on these stoves. Someone, please help! This thing is about ready to go on Craigslist!

It sounds like you aren't loading enough coal in the stove to sustain a fire, and/or the draft is too weak. Make sure you are filling the firebox with coal, and get a manometer to adjust the draft properly. A cheap and easy experiment is to cover the baro with aluminum foil and see if that makes a difference.

Please describe your stovepipe and chimney setup, and tell us what size coal you are using.

Some pix of the set up always helps when trying to give suggestions.

Ok. I will take some pictures tonight as I am at work right now. The Baro was on an existing wood stove and honestly, I know nothing about them. I was told I needed one with this stove so it was perfect that it was already there. I know that pea coal is recommended for this stove, but I was also told that I could use nut coal. We started out with the pea coal, and we couldn't keep a fire for more than 8 hours. After some less than stellar nut coal, we did find a good one. I agree that enough coal isn't gettin put on the fire. I am hesitent to add more since the fire looks nice, but there is absolutely no heat coming off from it. I am afraid of smothering it. I understand that from other posts, the Baro damper should flap slightly? Mine does not move at all. So, I should cover the damper with aluminum foil and see if it burns better or if what changes? I am sorry, I am not used to this set up whatsoever. It seems like we have a tremendous amount of ash within the coal. We have tried to shake it down more/faster to no avail. Maybe we are messing with it too much. The dealer that I purchased it from said that he had one running for some time with the nut coal, so I figured it was a win-win...everyone else I talk with says to switch back to the pea coal....Any further ideas before I can get some pictures?

BethAnnPlank wrote:I agree that enough coal isn't gettin put on the fire. I am hesitent to add more since the fire looks nice, but there is absolutely no heat coming off from it. I am afraid of smothering it.

You won't smother it. An anthracite coal fire needs be least 6 inches deep to sustain itself, and 8 or 12 inches is better yet. Too shallow of a coal bed will result in a fire that is tough to control, and one that won't stay burning.

Go to upper rgt. (search) type your stove in & hit search, quite a bit of stuff there-- my reading is showing pea coal is best for your stove--you have a bimetallic flap thermostat in the back---is it working OK?? yep, pix will help a lot---one thing was the importance of proper install????

I have been running this stove since the middle of last winter, my father in law has ran this stove for years. We both are using nut coal and it runs fine. Do you have a manual damper?

I shake mine once a day on warmer days, twice on colder days. I do knife it one every few days. I agree with the previous posts that you need to shake it until you see red coals. It does require a lot of shaking.

You should be using the hopper, so there should always be fresh coal falling down on the fire. Once I started my stove last winter it stayed lit all winter. I started this stove in the middle of October and it is still going with its first match this year. Once you get this problem figured out it will stay lit from the beginning of winter to the beginning of spring. Do not get rid of this stove yet.

I have a chance to buy a good, used Hanover 1. Does it also burn wood?

Any stove will burn wood, just not very well.

I'm with Franco on the ash removal, gotta shake it till you see orange embers falling thru and you have a nice glow radiating downward thru the grates. Also you mentioned the baro isn't moving. Its either not set right or you aren't drafting enough. I would suggest you get a manometer to check draft pressure

I have the saey 92 which is not much different than what you have I think. I had the same trouble. I think it is the grates need to be redesigned. You can shake hell out of it and not get enough ash out. I had the same trouble. So evry 2 days or if the fire looks unhealthy, mine has 3 places to stick something into the grates to get ash out. I have an old saw I use, just stick it inand kind of sweep it over the grates, ash will fall out everywhere. One trick I found is, get some fresh coal on it and going before you do it, or it will go out. When you get though knifing it, shake it a little and empty the pan. Then fill it up. I fill mine to the top of the fire box, then bank it all the way to half way of the stove, so the coal is kind of like a triangle in the stove.

Oh yeah, the ash issue... I had the same trouble when I started. Good fire for a few days, then I just couldn't get much heat and it was suffocating. So, I dunno if your grates look like mine but heres what I did. I made a tool I like to call the slicer. I simply bent up a piece of metal angle brace material. I stick it in thru the ash pan door and go up thru the bottom side of the grates between the grate and the frame. I'll pull and push it back and forth after the shake down. It clears the way for air to come up thru even better. I also have a 1/4 steel rod bent into a 90 degree angle to go up thru the holes in the center of the grates.

did you get it figured out?