Hitzer 75 Coal Stove.

The register is 16' feet above the stove in the upstairs bedroom. The house is a new england style cape.

My ceiling 6' above my 50-93 is barely warm to touch, it radiates mostly outward--You've got that stove running way to hot in my opinion--how do you have your drafts set? Does the heat only have one register to get out of the basement? I forget are you tied into duct work??? If duct work can you post some pix

Are you running the "direct damper" with the handle in the down position? (so the flue gasses go out the side of the firebox).

Yes, the damper is in the down position, indirect draft.

The air rises by convection from the basement naturally, no use of fans at all. The basement door is open at all times and I have several floor vents cut into the floor above the stove.

I haven't seen the problem yet. A 500 stove top is fine, 250 for the stack isnt bad. In order to cut loss to the basement, build a metal cabinet around the stove and run duct to where you want the heat. It is was easier for me to do that, then try to insulate the basement. Basically turn it into a FA model on your own. I heat 2400 sf with an 82, and 800 sf is basement and stone wall. I will run mine to 500 on the top right of the door.

sharkman, do you have a floor vent on the 2nd floor (16' above the stove) that is pushing 90*? I'm probably wrong, but are we talking to hot or not hot enough????? And yes, 250 & 500 numbers are right where they should be.

EarthWindandFire wrote:Yes, the damper is in the down position, indirect draft.

The air rises by convection from the basement naturally, no use of fans at all. The basement door is open at all times and I have several floor vents cut into the floor above the stove.

Usually one would only need a single floor register (of appropriate size) above or near above of the stove. This is a common mistake people make when trying to get a good natural convection circulation pattern for the house. Placement of the registers should be done with cold air return as the primary ellement. You are trying to provide a way for the cold air to sink so that you can get the convection current moving. The hot will naturally rise but does so and replaces the cold only when the colder air can sink.

hi,

I am no expert here but I am running a riteway model 37 with a water jacket welded to the stove. Basicxally it is the same model as what you are running. I burn wood and coal.I have no problem keeping my almost 4800 square foot house warm with 40 to 80 pounds per day. The stove will burn non stop with an initial full load of coal (to the top of the fire brick) and then a morning shake down of ember and add 20 pounds of coal, and then an evening shake down and 20 more pounds of coal. Every 2nd or 3rd day I add another 20 pounds of coal to bring it bak to the top of the fire brick. I have an outside masonry chimney and I have plenty of draft. I do not use a batometric damper, just the thermostatic bi- metal strip on the side. I will say that i also modified the stove to burn wood better by adding 3 3/4 inch metal pipes with holes drilled in them, to allow for a secondary burn while burning wood. I am using nut size coal right now. I have used stove coal with about the same results as nut. I will get dead spots in the corners that I have to poke through evry other day or so but that is about it. My stack temps usually run about 225F and the stove runs at 450F. I never had a manometer so I never measured draft. I just assume it is ok because the stack temp is easily controlled with the input air thermostat. One difference between this stove and yours is the loacation of the t-stat. Mine is on the exhaust burn chamber where yours is on the stove I believe. (on the stove i think is better). I see no reason for you not to easily be able to get 12 to 24 hour burn times out of that stove. Now, moving the heat is a different problem all together. In my opinion natural convection with duct work is the best (or water in my case) I am not one for using electricity to heat with including blowers. (I am experimenting with natural water movement right now so as not to use the circulators.

Good luck with the stove and please let us know what you find

thanks
dave

I read a thread on here from someone who was having trouble with their coal stove. One of the suggestions was to use a flame and check the doors for air leaks. The test went well and I was about done until I ran the flame along the bottom of the loading door and sure enough, the flame was sucked in. So, I need to work on getting gaskets for the doors which don't have any installed.

What prompted me to do this was that I noticed that no matter where I set the dial, the stove always seemed to burn at full throttle based on how much fuel I fed it. Last night I loaded the stove and it consumed all of its fuel to grey chunks of coal by the morning, leaving a lifeless bed of coal. I dumped a half bag of coal on the only red coals I could find and crossed my fingers that they would ignite. They did by the time I got home after noon time.

Another thing that was interesting was the amount of air sucked in by the spinner on the loading door. I had it barely open, maybe a single turn, but based on the amount of air leaking in from the loading door (and elsewhere no doubt) I have now closed the spinner completely.

No gaskets on the doors??? No wonder you thought it wasn't "airtight"! You will notice a huge improvement in control once the proper gaskets are installed.

hi,

I replaced the gaskets on my riteway stove with 3/4 in rope that I obtained from a local hardware store. I also believe home depot sells stove gasket kits. Also, my stove is not near airtight (as no stove is airtight). In fact by me adding the secondary nurn tubes more ar is pulled into the foirebox above the coal fire. I do not cover the input to these pipes up when i burn coal because i do not care if there is overfire air when burning coal. This stove also has the secondary burn chamber that has holes in that also for further burning. The only thing the secondary air does in my stove when burning coal is slow the air draw down through ther coal bed. Which is ok by me, if i need hotter i just open the thermostat slightly more. Also, I found that I had to drill a new hole in the input air plate and move the chain an inch further away from the hinge, this helped me control the fire when burning wood much better becaude the flue temps are so much higher when burning wood that it would swing that air control open and closed all the time. With the hole for the chain 1 inch further from the hinge the flapper did not open and close as drastically. This was more important for wood but i guess if your stove's ash pan is leaking your flue temps could be very high also.

Just a thought,

dave

Yes, pay special attention to ash door gasket.

hi,

EWF you have a great sey up there, after you regasket your stove what I would do is set up an open system (steam) with the water jacket. What that means is no circulator no relief valve just a radiator or 2 or 3. I would carry that heat into other parts of the house. It could be done very easily and cheaply. You could even do DHW help if you wanted to.


Just a thought for you
dave

freetown fred wrote:Yes, pay special attention to ash door gasket.

Exactly right. the loading door leaking a little is no big deal and actually helps to avoid puff backs. It's below the grates that you want as air tight as possibe for good control of the fire. If it's running max all the time then you have a leak somewhere below the grates, usually the ash pit door.

I just wanted to give an update about my coal usage this past winter with the Hitzer.

The stove burns almost exactly one ton of coal per month, just under two bags per day. The list below is just for my records, but it shows usage for someone looking to buy a hand-fired coal stove.

Bought 30 bags on November 10th.

Bought 50 bags on December 28th.

Bought 50 bags on January 26th.

And I will be buying 50 bags tomorrow, for the last time this season, so I burned 4 tons for the year.