I got a Chubby!

SteveZee wrote:

nortcan wrote:Well, maybe the time for me to form the: Brides club?

Yep the Chubby and the Bride! Kinds go well together!

HAHA The Chubby always comes with the Bride. Just a part of life! You guys crack me up.

Alright, got it installed in place of the woodstove, turned Larry's video on and followed the instructions. I was not succesful with my first attempt. The kindling wood I purchased at a local hardware store is pine, I think. I had to remove the coal and start the process all over. The second time I used some charcoal and got her going. Been running since about 2pm, it's 6:20pm now. The stove read 400 degrees. It's 19 degrees out right now. The basement temperature, where the stove is, has gone up 4 degrees. I'd like it to warm up quicker. Should I open the lower door vent to get it a little hotter? Any and all advice is much appreciated. I will get pics up soon. It's not a pretty unit though.

Yep I would open up the primary and get it up to 500 or 600.
I do have to say that a chubby in the basement is not going to do that much unless your basement is well insulated and that's all you want to heat with it is the basement room. If thats the case, yep crank her up some till you get the temp then throttle back and make sure it's full up.
It's pretty cold here in Maine (zero tonight) and I've been cranking the Herald all day about 550-600. Feedin it an extra scoop here and there all day too to keep it ripping along.

Here are a couple of pics!

Congrats and WELCOME to the Chubby Cult!

When heating a basement you may need a couple of days of heavy firing. There is a lot of cold thermal mass down there. So don't despare if at first you don't think things are getting warm enough fast enough. So open those vents and get that Chubby up to 600 or so and let her do what she does best!

Congrats again on getting a Chubby. Don't worry.. I still walk around the house blurting out "I've got a Chubby!" The dog doesn't understand it but the wife sure does...... WOO HOO!

Looks like you don't have the Chubby filled up all the way. Fill the Chubby to the top of the fire pot and then cone the coal as high as you can get it. The chubby will return the favor with a much longer burn time. The Chubby loves to burn stove coal. If you burn stove coal, compact the coal when you load it to get a nice long hot burn. I know this goes against conventional wisdom, however, stove coal needs to be compacted to close the air gaps around the coal which will give you a nice long hot burn. Congrats on your burning of the Chubby. Welcome to the club.

The snowman.

the snowman wrote:Looks like you don't have the Chubby filled up all the way. Fill the Chubby to the top of the fire pot and then cone the coal as high as you can get it. The chubby will return the favor with a much longer burn time. The Chubby loves to burn stove coal. If you burn stove coal, compact the coal when you load it to get a nice long hot burn. I know this goes against conventional wisdom, however, stove coal needs to be compacted to close the air gaps around the coal which will give you a nice long hot burn. Congrats on your burning of the Chubby. Welcome to the club.

The snowman.

Wish I had known that when I was running a Chubby. I was running Nut through it. Also, mound that pile of coal as high as it'll go. When I was running one I piled the coal as high as I could fit the shovel in the door. Then I'd take a paper lunch bag and load that with coal and shove it through the top of the stove. There was a time I was running it 600*+ and was only seeing 8 hours on it and it was only keeping the house 68*. My wife would have to shake the stove down around 1500 and throw a few shovels of coal on it so it'd make it till I got home at 1700, half the time it was about dead when I got home.

When I was burning the Chubby, I would load the stove with stove coal to the top of the pot, reach in the stove with a gloved hand and compress the coal to close up the air gaps around the coal, load more stove coal in making a cone. My Chubby has the air tubes that run through the inside of the stove for the distribution fan. I would cone the coal until it would touch the tubes. I then would compress the cone to close the air gaps. I would close both doors and leave the manual mpd open (I also had a baro). After about ten minutes I would close the mpd all the way and walk away from the stove. I would not have to touch the stove for twelve to thirteen hours. I was running the stove at 625F. I never had a puff back while following this procedure. The Chubby would churn out the heat for the entire twelve to thirteen hours.

The snowman.

Thanks for all the advice. Please keep it coming, it is very much appreciated!!!!!!

Well it has been a week and I have to admit that it's been a learning experience. I took the advice regarding packing the coal down and overloading the Chubby and am ver pleased. I slept late this morning, by 3 hours, and had to re-start it. It's quite a bit more work than the stoker, or should I say time consuming, but much less work than the corn stove I once had and the wood stoves I had for many years.