cant keep the fire hot enough or long enough

thanks been having a little hard time keeping the fire going all night... if i shake it every three hours its ok but i dont feel im gettin enough heat out of this stove..when the front is all red i can feel a little heat but when it starts to go dim i loose alot of heat if i close the damper the fire will go out within 2 hours
so i checked the chimney it looks great and no build up,I tried operating the stove with the ash pan opne to see if i could get some extra heat ,also tried making sure the coal was dry and room temp ..still not enough heat i feel for this stove .

dh, post some pix of stove/ pipe & location

I took the stove apart and raised the hopper to the higher setting gonna give it a try ..its already more heat than normal and i put the side damper on 4 ..which is half open AFTER STOVE WAS HOT.. SO WELL SEE

patients......coal burning is a very,very, s l o w learning process thats so worth the effort.

also what im saying is most adjustments on hand fired stoves take 30min to an hour to matastsize (you know what i mean)

mtgdeadhead wrote:I took the stove apart and raised the hopper to the higher setting gonna give it a try ..its already more heat than normal and i put the side damper on 4 ..which is half open AFTER STOVE WAS HOT.. SO WELL SEE

You will definitely see a difference with the hopper higher which makes for a deeper bed of burning coal. Once the bed is burning well the thermostat opening should be almost closed. Move the thermostat setting only in small increments with time between to allow the stove to adjust, until you get the feel of how the stove behaves. After that never move the thermostat again unless you want more or less heat and only small amounts.