Hotblast furnace to hot cooking me out of the house

First off I love this site and this is my first year burning coal. I've been having problems getting a good fire going and through hours of searching on here and playing I mostly have it figured out. I'm having problems with getting to much heat now. My stove is the Hotblast 1557m it's rated for about 2500 sqft my house is only about 1000 sqft. I had to open most of the windows in the house so that I could sleep. I'm burning sub-bitimus lump. Everything I've read says to get a good burn it needs to be full. But I can't turn it low enough. I got a great burn time also well over 12 hours. I'm just wondering what I can do besides leave my windows open all winter. I had the dampner on the ash door closed almost all the way and the one on the feed door closed all the way. I have the draft induction kit on it but it never runs cuz as soon as the fire is going the house is warmer then I want. I also just put in a barometric dampner. Which has really helped me get the fire going good and long burn times. I just need to find out how to shut her down more. Thanks in advance for your help.

The furnace is too big for the house. I don't think you'll ever get it to burn low enough (with that fuel) to be comfortable. If you are getting 12 hr burns then it's probably about as low as it can be with sub bit. I think you have too much stove for the size.

That's what I've been worried I would hear. I bought the stove a few years ago from a guy moving back to Florida and all I could think at the time is bigger is better. Would closing off like half the firebox help much or is that gonna just lower my burn time.

Seems to me you need to cut more air feeding the fire somehow. Check that the gaskets around the load door and the ash pan door are sealing tightly. Close a one dollar bill in the doors and try tugging on it to see if the seal is tight. Maybe air is getting in thru the gaskets. If so, you may need to replace the gaskets OR adjust the doors so they seal better..

If this proves not to be the case, I would try closing off half the fire box like you suggested.

Where are you located?

I'm in Casper wy and for how much coal we produce here you would be surprised how hard it is to buy for personal use.

OH wow, I have the Clayton 1557G which I believe is prit near the same furnace as yours.. I'm burning antracite which I know is a different beast than the sub bit. But I have managed to get very low burns with it so its not cooking me out of the house by making sure the only air getting in is what I let it have thru the air feeds on the ash pan door. I think you've got more air feeding it somewhere, thats my guess anyways

If possible can you send a pic of the firebox and grate system. I have a boiler that's 70% too much for my house and I placed cement blocks in the fire box and reduced the size by 50% and that stoped mine from dumping andmuch more easy to control.
I place a 8" block in front and it stradled the grates and 2" above the grates then put a 4" solid block on top of that and a 6" block in the back and that give me a 13" deep coal bed. By the end of the season the blocks are trashed from the heat and I throw them away.In the pic you can only see the top block. Hope this helps you out.

So Dennis your just using cinder blocks to block it off I read somewhere on here of a guy using future bricks.

And Lighting I would love to play around with antracite coal but the only place I can find it is 600 a ton and I'm trying to save money over propane.

Stngllhm wrote:And Lighting I would love to play around with antracite coal but the only place I can find it is 600 a ton and I'm trying to save money over propane.

Right, I get that but you might oughta check your seals for air getting in

Stng,

Welcome. Wyoming must be a great place to live!

I have the same problem with my stove. I too have put bricks in the firebox to make it smaller. I have had some great burns with loading the firebox up all the way initially, and leaving it alone. I use stove anthracite but have a lot of sizes mixed in my supply of old basement coal. My biggest problem is I'm afraid to cut the air coming in for fear of putting the fire out. Then I have to dump it all and start over again. I don't like it when the whole load catches fire, I hope to learn to get it to burn slowly from the bottom up.

I'm working on the stove now, and plan to put another layer of firebrick inside the first one. Maybe even a third. My firebox is 14" round x 9" deep, get it going too hot and it bakes me out of my small place every time..
I stopped shaking the grate because it's busted in two ( another story); I've just been removing ash by poking from the bottom.
Good luck, can't hurt to try and make the firebox smaller.

Using fire brick cut the fire box in half. Also construct some means of adding hot air over the fire to burn the gases in the coal.

So by cutting the firebox down how much burn time will I loose. And also when I got home I saw I had left the dampner on the feed door open so no wonder I couldn't get it to idle down last night I feel a bit retarded right now

So I have another newbie question what's an easy way to load this stove. Too get the coal to back I've been using a shovel to reach back and dump it. Has anyone made or used a shoot so you could just pour it in out of your bucket. Or what other options do I have. Sorry if I sound like a moron I've only ever felt with wood. So I'm learning as I go.

The hotblast and clayton stoves are a US Stove product.They are good wood stoves,but are finiky with burning coal.Here are a few threads to read over and also use the search button in top right corner and type in hot blast and clayton,some threads are for ant. and bit. coal,most issues are discussed and resolved
Can't get good burn time with sub-bit coal
US Stove Hot Blast Furnace Problems

Blocking off some of the firebox may be the only way to get that stove to be comfortable in that small a setting. Richard abd Dann both mentined the best ways to do this. You just have to do it without interfering with the grates ability to shake the ash down. As the other's mentioned, be sure that your primaries and ash door seals are good so that the only air to the fire is what you allow it. I think they must be fairly good since you've been getting 12 hour burns out of sub bit coal but it won't hurt to check.