Yep, you guessed it..another hotblast issue...

hey all, newb to the forum, and to heating with coal.. So I've been burning wood in my hotblast 1557M as my only heat source for the past 3yrs and did so pretty well. So this past weekend, I realized the last load of wood I had ready, turned out to be absolute garbage and after literally staying up all night for 3 nights, I decided to buy a couple bags of Reading anthracite..

After reading through literally hundreds of threads on this site, I found all the tips/advice I needed to get a good, deep, HOT bed of coal burning. Now, I had previously relocated my induction blower to the ash pan door.. so I decided I would find the "sweet spot" where the coal would just "smolder" until the t-stat calls for heat and kicks on the induction blower..once heat setting was reached, blower would kick off, and allow the fire to go back down... well, it WOULD be working great, IF I could keep it goin when the blower isn't running. I've gone as far as opening up the little 'damper flap' on the blower when its off, which I can feel the thing really sucking in the air, but the orange-glowing coals still slowly die out..

I don't know if I have too much draft, or not enough?? I did a complete cleaning of the furnace and chimney before I started with the coal. Grates are clear.. as of now, I do not have a damper installed mainly cause I don't know if its worth he money.. sorry this is so long, but I'm at the end of my rope with all this..

p.s. for the few hours that it does work with the t-stat setup, I've already noticed a huge difference in how evenly the house is heated now compared to wood.

*Edit* as far as the draft goes, I realize I need a manometer to actually check it, problem is no one around me sells them so I have to order one...

What size coal are you burning? Nut?

How much coal are you adding to the Hotblast? It needs to be 6-8" thick to sustain a fire, and the air must not be able to bypass the coal through the grates.

sorry, yeah I'm using chestnut size, and once I get it loaded, its up to the top of the brick, probably about 8-10". entire grate is covered. I have also covered the openings in the cast plates in the front and back of the unit. (inside)

when I open the door, eventually i get the blue flames over the whole bed just like when the blower is running.

many owners of the hot blast have had problems buring coal in them.Try to read the entire thread it has coversd most of the problems you will incure with your stove. Good luck, others with your type of stove will help with better advice successfully burning anthracite coal in a clayton furnace

EDIT: pay close attention about closing off the air holes with insulation,I believe someone said there was too much over air draft

franco b wrote:

countryboy26047 wrote:when I open the door, eventually i get the blue flames over the whole bed just like when the blower is running.

So obviously you need more air when you wish it to idle. Perhaps you could drill a series of holes in the ash door in a circular pattern covered by a spring loaded flap to adjust. It will take some time to get just the right amount since the coal responds slowly.

I believe in the 22 page thread, someone posted, the air was by passing the coal bed untill they pluged the holes with insulation.

thanks guys, ill check into that thread again and pay closer attention...Damn ADD lol

I have the Clayton 1557G probably very close to your furnace.
I don't use any powered draft for combustion.

Have a look at these posts I wrote, I think they will help
Good Luck!!!

Fly ash and/or residue insulating firebox?

HotBlast 1500 coal burning newbee help

In the above thread I mentioned I wasn't using a Baro, but I now am and love whats its done to keep a steady heat output!

Here come the KINKERS!!!

Shaking Down/Reloading A Mature Fire

Thanks Lightning! And Ironically, I just got done finding out what my problem was and the irony part, I honestly JUST MADE two tools almost identical to those you show in the post about shaking/refueling! lol The wife came downstairs and there I lay on the floor, shoving a metal rod in the bottom of the furnace.....not 15 minutes after getting my shower lmao After I got done wrestlin around with it, she's burning friggin awesome now! The only reason i am using the draft induction is so I can have better control of the heat upstairs through the T-Stat, which is why I was working on finding that 'sweet spot' of having a good fire when the t-stat called for heat, and once the house was at the set temp, blower shuts down, and the fire just goes down to a nice hot bed, ready for the next 'calling' lol. Thanks again everyone, and I'm sure there will be more to come! haha

*Edit* As for the grates, I know I said they were clear, as I did thoroughly clean them when I did the full furnace/chimney cleaning... was having problems from the get go, but I'm almost positive that the first fire was cause I had no clue what I was doing lol (which led me to this site originally), and after that the couple times I've shaken it down, little did I know that the spot where the front and rear grates are joined had snapped, and I was only sorta moving the front grate. Oh well, lessons learned and grate ordered.. lmao

Oh yeah, I had to replace a grate too! THe front one, I broke it off with the shaker handle. I thought I could palm smack it to crush a piece of coal that lodged in the grate. I won't do that again. If I get a piece of coal caught now, I use the slicer tool and pull it out with that from underneath, works great!

Instead of using a thermostat, I wired the blowers to run 24/7. I simply adjust combustion air to regulate heat output. I get a nice consistant heat that way instead of my house cooling then warming then cooling then warming. BUT the trade off is that I'm using more power to run the blowers all the time. I actually use a ruler to measure how far open my primary air flap is open. I should post pictures so people better understand what I mean but can't at the moment.

Yeah use those tools to poke from underneath AFTER loading fresh coal. Make sure though that your load door is proped so it doesn't puff back while you have your face 6 inches from the ash pan. I lost some eyebrow length doing that

well now, I'm having the opposite problem now apparently...wife just sent me a message, its 87 in our house. Lmao when I left for work, I made sure the damper on the blower was just about closed so apparently I better get to gettin that ABD installed! Lmfao

as for the 24/7 blowers, I used to do that with wood, but for one I like to give the blowers a break, and as for temps, they only fluctuate about 3 degrees, that being if I have the T-stat set at 74, it kicks in and starts heating when its 73, and shuts down when it hits 75 just like a gas/oil furnace would, really don't even notice the fluctuations. Now if it was going from say 70-77 constantly then yeah, that would suck lol

Here is the pic the wife just sent me about 10min ago..like I said I have my supply almost completely shut, and its 43* outside so yeah, pretty sure I have a bit too much draft now, can't imagine what it'll do when the temps hit the low 20's this weekend... had her check the temp. right now and its not overfiring, sittin around 356 at the front of the stove above the feed door.

I had a problem with mine yo-yo ing until I installed a barometric damper. Since I installed one, it runs steady all day long. My warm air duct varied only 3 degrees across a 14 hour period today, without touching the combustion air flow.

Also, I sealed off the over fire combustion air (the draft on the load door) since it was making the front half of the coal bed burn up faster than the back AND just helping to carry heat up the chimney.