New Install Hitzer 50-93 Questions.

Installed a hitzer 50-93 on Saturday in my basement. Unfinished basement, one story ranch home about 2500sq ft total. Fairly well insulated. The stove is located about 1/3 of the way under the house, basically under the dining room and kitchen. I have the basement door open and I am getting a nice amount of heat coming up the stairs into the kitchen/bathroom area. The problem is my living room is only 66 degrees. The basement is 77 degrees and it is 35 degrees outside today. I have a 6x12 heat register just to the left of the stove between the basement and the floor.I also have several other vents along the outside walls and some returns on the inside walls. I have the stove set on 11 on the dial. Blower on high. Using an IR thermometer I am getting 550 degrees on the right side of the stove and getting 275 degrees on the stack just before it goes into the chimney. I did order a bigger vent to replace the 6x12. Do those stack temps seem high? I do live on a windy hill, even though today is pretty mild. I'm worried about what is going to happen when it gets really cold.

With an un-insulated basement at 77 degrees the stove is putting out plenty of heat. To get heat into the living room providing a cold air return in that room should make a difference.

Me thinks with your description. You need a vent in each room & shut the basement door. Sounds like your sucking it all to the bathroom & kitchen. Kinda late, but outside walls are not the best choice for putting vents. And yes, a 6X12 isn't much of a vent when you are dealing with radiant & the concept of heat rising. What size are the other vents & where are they located my friend. That 50-93 will do a real good job heating the size ranch you have. You're just going to have to play with the vent/ air return issues. As far as your stove/ stack temps.--can't help you. Mine is either doing the job or not. What type damper do you have in your pipe & location?

Most of the other vents are 6x12. I stuck a box fan under the vent near the stove and blew up into the living area and temps went up 2 degrees. Right now my kitchen area is 70 and living room is 68. I don't have a damper at all, but I am going to order one. I'll have to try it with the basement door closed. Right now there are no vents in the kitchen area. If I close the basement door I assume I will have to put a vent somewhere in the kitchen area.

One thing you said is the fan is on full force, SLOW that sucker down so it is just about moving air , anytime you move air with a fan you are cooling it before it can do its job. Install a MPD not a baro. Open the slide on the ash door to about a half moon. You will need to adjust the stat on the stove to the stove temp you want, all the Hitzers are differant as far as the number setting and the heat you run the stove at so someone elses stove at the same temp might have a differant number setting. I do hope you are using nut coal or stove size. You will find the right settings and that stove will do the job if you take your time, Do not over fire it thinking you will get more heat, 600* - 650* is about all you can get out of the stove without hurting it. I'm heating the same house you are and my stove is at 400 and my whole upstairs is 72* Now I am sure there may be some differances in our two houses so you may need to run your stove hotter or cooler to do the same job but it can be done with 100,000 BTU's you have to work with. Just keep asking questions, no question is dumb, the only dumb question is the one unasked.

I can move heat to my upstairs thru a grate better with no fans running near my stove, as the heat goes to the ceiling it naturally will go up. if fans are running in the room my stove is in the air near my ceiling isnt as warm. I do have an 8" booster fan sitting on my grate to suck air upstairs if I want heat quicker I can use that.

Not sure if it was addressed, but your cold air returns must extend below the ceiling of the basement or they won't work. I would take them to the ground, but I think you can get away with 16" that should help with the natural airflow better.

Eric

So I tried shutting the basement door and it didn't affect the heat in the living room, just made the kitchen cooler. So I opened that back up. I shook and refilled at 9:00 pm. I did turn the blower fan on the stove down to low, left all the other settings the same. Went to bed. When I woke up this am I had lost 7 degrees throughout the house. Went downstairs and the stove was only 235 degrees and I had a firebox full of ash and a near full hopper. Do you think lowering the fan speed caused it to burn to hot to fast? Never had this happen yet. Wife is not happy to have a cold house in the morning.

You aren't going to get any change until you get your vents straightened out. Are you shaking & topping off every 12 hrs. Do you have your ash door vents open at all. If my stove was set on 11 (like fastcat said, each stove is different with the back flap thermo settings) but not too far off--anyway, if I was on 11--I'd be sweating my ass of & I'm heating 2500 sq in a 200 yr old farm house. What type coal are you using--nut, I hope. What brand?? Post some pix of what you've got. With the 50-93, people I know have done better with a manual pipe damper closed in the cold weather compared to a baro--each stove is different. BUT, you need to give more explicit details on exactly what you are doing operation & set up wise. Something ain't right--I'd bet money on your vents set-up--those 6X12 are about useless for getting heat anywhere--but, 77 this AM???? Keep talking & let's get you straightened out. Also, sounds like you've got a lot of heat just going up your chimney. Which ever damper you choose, get it installed.

I'm using blaschak nut. I shake and top off every 12 hours. Ash door vents are closed. My basement was only 68 this morning. I had nothing but ash in the firebox and of course when I shook and refilled it is going to take some time to get the fire back up. I have discovered that the vents in the dining room which are closest to the stove are putting out heat. The vents in my living room are drawing down the cold. It seems to work ok as long as I have a fan in the vent to help pull up the air. Before I went to bed the basement was 77 the kitchen 71 and the living room 69. Another lessoned I learned was- don't make changes to your stove before you go to bed.

I think you were pretty close to getting it dialed in with your first description of what you had going on.

The temp differential between stove and stack are pretty close to what I experience. You may be able to drop the stack temp to the 225 - 250 range, but that really isn't much different than what you had going on.

As with any "stove" the challenge seems to be getting the heat distributed and that will be easier / more difficult depending on the house layout and insulation / window quality. More or less floor vents, basement door open /shut, fan setting's, extra doorway fan, extra box fan behind stove, ceiling fan on/off blowing up/down etc. are all things I have seen people on here try to match their stove /house performance. I think the you will have to experiment a little to see what works best for you.

One suggestion that was already made is to get your cold air returns lower than your basement ceiling. This has proven true time and again from posts on here.

Our setup is basically the same as yours, stove in an unfinished basement heating a ranch. I don't have floor vents, been able to make it work without them to our satisfaction. The stove sits directly in line with the stairwell which has knee walls on either side at living room/dining room level and of course no door. The distribution fan on the stove blows it right at the stairs where it rises right up to the LR / DR area. The cold air returns down the steps, you can see the dust bunnies collect on the steps!!

I do run the distribution fan on the furnace to help circulate the air through the house on colder days/nights. The LR/DR upstairs this morning was 71*, back bedrooms were 66*, Kitchen was 67*, bathroom's somewhere in between. I plan on getting a shroud made up for around the stove and a larger circulation fan to tie it into the supply/return system of my ductwork. This should greatly reduce my coal usage and make the temps more even through the house. But after running like this for 20 years, there isn't much urgency on my part to get this done!

Like you said, it is better to make the changes early in the day so you can see the effect, rather than right before bedtime. Stick with it!!

I have a ranch as well - the stove in the basement by the stairs that are off the central hallway that runs down the length of the house. The heat rises up the stairs and distributes throughout the house pretty well on it's own. The interesting part is how the cold air gets back to the basement. The house has propane fired forced hot air that has ductwork run to all the rooms of the house except the kitchen which is at the top of the stairs, in the basement there is ductwork in every room except where the stove is. The air enters the ductwork upstairs and the falls to the basement, flows towards the stove where it is reheated and rises back up the stairs. Seems to work very well and doesn't need any fans or other means of circulation

Stack temp, Right now here it is 11* and my stove is running at 485*, stack temp is 150* with the MPD closed all the way, slide is open to half moon,fan on stove is on very slow and the house upstairs is 72.3* through out. I only have two cold air returns at the farthest points from my stairwell 4X12. One thing that was mentioned was stove facing the stairwell, IS YOURS? Mine is about 12' from the stairs and it faces the stairs. Use the fan you have pulling the heat up through the grate if it works best that way. How about setting a fan on low behind the stove 10 or 12' aimed at the stairs to direct the heat slowly in that direction. Do you use your basement or is it just and open dead space and all your living is upstairs? If it is dead space think about putting up a few 2X4s and tarp off the biggest unused area so the heat is a little more confined to head upstairs. How far from your stairs is your stove? Is your stove at one end or in the center of your basement? Pics would help, showing setup and location in your basement.

Stove is 15' from stairs facing opposite direction. Basement is unfinished but we use if for exercise and playing pool. I seem to have the venting worked out. My biggest concern is why I woke up to a stove full of ash and only putting out 250 degrees? The hopper was still near full, it seems as if the coal got burnt really quick. First time I had this problem. It was quite windy here last night. I assume I have one heck of a draft. I have a barometric damper ordered to hopefully take care of that problem. Also what should I run the blower on the stove low or high? Is there any benefit to using one speed or the other?

i would recommend getting a manometer to go along with the baro....

install it permanently so you can keep an eye on the draft numbers...
they can tell you a lot about whats going on