What you describe here is exactly the way the MPD was operated by my parents in the three coal burners we had. A central heating hand feed Burnham boiler, a small summertime only "bucket a day" and the wonderful combination kitchen stove. A Caloric brand combo, coal and propane. Mother got new in 1948. Four gas burners and a gas oven/broiler plus a coal stove. There was always a big cast aluminum tea pot of water on the coal stove. The gas part was still used when I sold the house in the early 90's.Dallas wrote:I don't know how I to direct this thread. While I have a certain history and feelings toward manual pipe dampers, once again, "I'm no expert".
Growing up, everybody that I knew, burned coal. Some had coal boilers, some coal hot air, some Warm Morning parlor stoves, some had "bucket-a-days" for domestic hot water, in addition to their other heating unit, some had only coal kitchen stoves, etc..
The thing that they all had in common, was that they all had manual pipe dampers (MPD). The automatic barometric damper was NOT anywhere to be seen. The baro damper seemed to come along later, when the oil burner was introduced.
The MPD was typically opened during coal loading of the stove, it was opened to get the fire "cookin'", it was probably opened to shake down the ashes ... to let the dust escape up the chimney. Once the fire was going good, the MPD was closed to some extent. This seemed to keep the heat in the stove and also controlled the burn of the stove. The MPD is typically smaller than the diameter of the stove pipe it's mounted in, plus there are holes through it's center, so even "closed", there was quite an area for hot gasses to get by it and go on up the chimney.
LsFarm wrote:Jpete, how often do you clean out the accumulated fly ash that accumulates around the bottom of the 'near vertical' manual damper? The damper restricts and slows the flow of exhaust and fly ash, so it will form 'drifts' of ash, just like snow drifts. I know this from personal experience.
Using a manual damper is like driving a Model T ford, you have to be aware of the throttle, load, manually set the timing for the quality of fuel, and watch the engine for overheating. A barometric damper is like driving a modern car, that does all the adjustments for you. A barometric damper is adjusted with a manometer,and will give very consistant draft over the fire.
Using a Manual damper without several CO detectors is playing 'coal-burning roulette'. I'm glad to hear you have at least one installed.
Greg L
LsFarm wrote:I have read and reread your first post here and I still can't see why or how installing a manual damper in your downstairs coal stove chimney could correct draft reversals, or increase draft. Heat is what creates draft in a chimney, even room-temperature air is sufficient to create a significant draft up a chimney.
LsFarm wrote:You don't seem to understand how a barometric damper works... there is no addition of 'too much' room air till there is 'too little draft'.
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