Outdoor coal stove burning too hot, help please!

Hello, everyone.

My Dad and I last year pretty much rebuilt a Warm Morning Coal Stove that had been laying in our basement for years. We placed it in the garage and after a lot of difficult work including taking the stove apart managed to get it in working condition again. It worked great all last winter providing nice warm heat for the normally cold garage. However we have recently encountered a problem with it, the stove seems to be running to hot. We have one of those outdoor temperature gauages inside and it reads almost 80 degrees which on the lowest setting has never happed before. My dad thinks that air might be leaking in or something to that affect to be running that hot. Does anyone have any idea of what could be the problem? We also have insulated the garage with insulation and drywall but that can't be the problem.

Any help would be appreciated. Not sure what model it is but it has a brown cover on it if that helps.

Thank you.

definitely an air leak allowing more combustion air than you are planning. are the gaskets sealing as tightly as last year?

titleist1 wrote:definitely an air leak allowing more combustion air than you are planning. are the gaskets sealing as tightly as last year?

I'm pretty sure they are sealed last as good as last year. No noticable cracks and the like. I can't tell you how much furnace cement we used last year in sealing it up. Is this something I should be worried about or will it just run hot if nothing is done? Also is there any way to check for air leaks without taking the whole thing apart again?

an incense stick held around various parts of the stove should help locate the air leak.

if not corrected it will run hotter than planned and you may not be able to keep it from overfiring the stove and causing warping.

It does help if you can find the model number out but I think I know which warm morning you are talking about. I have air leaks all over my WM but I have learned to control it for another year. What type of coal are you using in it or are you using wood? That makes a difference because they do not burn all equally. is it Bituminous coal, Anthracite, or wood? I find that with Bit and wood you can easily overfire the stove, although the stove can take a lot because inside my home I have had my held at those temps before without any problems. A good way to get an over fire to stop in the WM stove is to open the flue all the way and the front door and let it draw in the cool air , it will keep the flue temps down rapidly while you shut down the bottom air control . after it is down a good bit then shut the top door and air control and shut the manual damper in the flue if you have one. It should take a little while to stabalize itself but it will get there even with air leaks unless they are horribly bad. Out of the three fuel sources anthracite is the most stable and easy to control in the WM stove. Bituminous and wood both burn awesome and to a fine ash but they are harder to control .

hope that helps you some

Smokeyja wrote:It does help if you can find the model number out but I think I know which warm morning you are talking about. I have air leaks all over my WM but I have learned to control it for another year. What type of coal are you using in it or are you using wood? That makes a difference because they do not burn all equally. is it Bituminous coal, Anthracite, or wood? I find that with Bit and wood you can easily overfire the stove, although the stove can take a lot because inside my home I have had my held at those temps before without any problems. A good way to get an over fire to stop in the WM stove is to open the flue all the way and the front door and let it draw in the cool air , it will keep the flue temps down rapidly while you shut down the bottom air control . after it is down a good bit then shut the top door and air control and shut the manual damper in the flue if you have one. It should take a little while to stabalize itself but it will get there even with air leaks unless they are horribly bad. Out of the three fuel sources anthracite is the most stable and easy to control in the WM stove. Bituminous and wood both burn awesome and to a fine ash but they are harder to control .

hope that helps you some

I think its a model 400 Warm Morning or something to that affect. Anthracite coal is burned in the stove. Its like at 150 some degrees at just idiling and 80 degrees in the garage. Whats also weird is that it started out fine this year but after a stretch of warm weather we had the problems started.

Whirlwind23 wrote:

Smokeyja wrote:It does help if you can find the model number out but I think I know which warm morning you are talking about. I have air leaks all over my WM but I have learned to control it for another year. What type of coal are you using in it or are you using wood? That makes a difference because they do not burn all equally. is it Bituminous coal, Anthracite, or wood? I find that with Bit and wood you can easily overfire the stove, although the stove can take a lot because inside my home I have had my held at those temps before without any problems. A good way to get an over fire to stop in the WM stove is to open the flue all the way and the front door and let it draw in the cool air , it will keep the flue temps down rapidly while you shut down the bottom air control . after it is down a good bit then shut the top door and air control and shut the manual damper in the flue if you have one. It should take a little while to stabalize itself but it will get there even with air leaks unless they are horribly bad. Out of the three fuel sources anthracite is the most stable and easy to control in the WM stove. Bituminous and wood both burn awesome and to a fine ash but they are harder to control .

hope that helps you some

I think its a model 400 Warm Morning or something to that affect. Anthracite coal is burned in the stove. Its like at 150 some degrees at just idiling and 80 degrees in the garage. Whats also weird is that it started out fine this year but after a stretch of warm weather we had the problems started.

Not sure I follow you? 150 degrees idling is good control. If you mean that the stove is at 150 degrees and the garage is 80? That's just due to the outside temps not being cold enough yet or the stove is too big for the space. If you can idle at 150 to 200 then there is nothing wrong with your stove. If on the other hand you have a leak and it is not able to idle and the stove runs at 500 or whatever then you have a leak.

Couple things to consider. Install a damper. My opinion is a manual damper would benefit your situation greatly. You can read all day here about the barometric vs manual damper argument. In the mean time throw a manual on it and you can read in the garage without sweating.
Also.. I would not dismis your insulation and drywall as the potential difference. Your stove may be running the same but just has an incredibly tighter (air leak wise) and more heat reflective environment to operate in making the same btu output as last year seem totally hotter.
What's your opinion on the area directly around stove when you come in from out in the cold? If it feels about the same standing next to it warming yourself then its probably not changed.
I started with a small barn and over the last ten years improved to a fairly tight room where my cabinet shop resides. I am amazed how different sealing it up over the years has made it downright hot with the stove running.
Older cast stoves have a lot of air intake leak areas and its hard to seal them all but a damper will do wonders. Just be careful with it and don't overdo it and absolutely buy a co detector!
Hope this helps!

SteveZee wrote:

Whirlwind23 wrote:

Smokeyja wrote:It does help if you can find the model number out but I think I know which warm morning you are talking about. I have air leaks all over my WM but I have learned to control it for another year. What type of coal are you using in it or are you using wood? That makes a difference because they do not burn all equally. is it Bituminous coal, Anthracite, or wood? I find that with Bit and wood you can easily overfire the stove, although the stove can take a lot because inside my home I have had my held at those temps before without any problems. A good way to get an over fire to stop in the WM stove is to open the flue all the way and the front door and let it draw in the cool air , it will keep the flue temps down rapidly while you shut down the bottom air control . after it is down a good bit then shut the top door and air control and shut the manual damper in the flue if you have one. It should take a little while to stabalize itself but it will get there even with air leaks unless they are horribly bad. Out of the three fuel sources anthracite is the most stable and easy to control in the WM stove. Bituminous and wood both burn awesome and to a fine ash but they are harder to control .

hope that helps you some

I think its a model 400 Warm Morning or something to that affect. Anthracite coal is burned in the stove. Its like at 150 some degrees at just idiling and 80 degrees in the garage. Whats also weird is that it started out fine this year but after a stretch of warm weather we had the problems started.

Not sure I follow you? 150 degrees idling is good control. If you mean that the stove is at 150 degrees and the garage is 80? That's just due to the outside temps not being cold enough yet or the stove is too big for the space. If you can idle at 150 to 200 then there is nothing wrong with your stove. If on the other hand you have a leak and it is not able to idle and the stove runs at 500 or whatever then you have a leak.

We have an oven thermometer on top of the stove cover and it reads around 150 ish degrees even when the little lever on the side is set to low. Like I mentioned before it did not start out this way this year but began maybe a week ago after we had those warm temperatures, before that it was fine. Could it be a firebrick problem?

titleist1 wrote:an incense stick held around various parts of the stove should help locate the air leak.

if not corrected it will run hotter than planned and you may not be able to keep it from overfiring the stove and causing warping.

Would the stove cover have to be removed or will leaving it on work if i do this method?

are telling us that you are worried about the stove reaching 150 degrees ? 150 degrees is no where near over fire. right now it is about 50 degrees outside and I have my stove burning some hickory at a steady 450 degress. even if you are speaking of 150 degrees Celsius you still are not near the overfire range. Are you just curious of temperature variance between the 80 and 150 at the same exact air flow settings? Many factors could be involved and I wouldn't worry about such a small variance. But I am really wondering if you really meant that you are worried about the stove being at 150!

Whirlwind23 wrote:

titleist1 wrote:an incense stick held around various parts of the stove should help locate the air leak.

if not corrected it will run hotter than planned and you may not be able to keep it from overfiring the stove and causing warping.

Would the stove cover have to be removed or will leaving it on work if i do this method?

you would want to remove the cover.

by any chance does it look like this?

150 degrees is nothing. I'm not sure I'm following your problem? Do you mean you can't get the stove past 150 degrees? That's a whole other issue if thats the case and could be low draft because of the warmer temps or ash build up etc... Please clarify the nature of the problem.

SteveZee wrote:150 degrees is nothing. I'm not sure I'm following your problem? Do you mean you can't get the stove past 150 degrees? That's a whole other issue if thats the case and could be low draft because of the warmer temps or ash build up etc... Please clarify the nature of the problem.

No it seems to be burning much hotter at the lowest setting than it ever did before. It also seems to be consuming much more coal than before as well. Both of these result in the garage being at almost 80 degrees. Im just trying to articulate my problem with my next to nothing knowledge of coal stoves, so please forgive me.

Smokeyja wrote:

Whirlwind23 wrote:

titleist1 wrote:an incense stick held around various parts of the stove should help locate the air leak.

if not corrected it will run hotter than planned and you may not be able to keep it from overfiring the stove and causing warping.

Would the stove cover have to be removed or will leaving it on work if i do this method?

you would want to remove the cover.

by any chance does it look like this?

This one.