lots of smoke

i have a buderus 02.40 wood/coal add on boiler, for 2 weeks it worked great a lil smoke(which i figured was due to a missing smoke screen) but all i did was open the door a crack and the smoke cleared then i could manage the fire. the other night i tried to add more coal and it was smokeing alot, unbareabe, so i figured it might of been a lil too much coal and not enough red coals, that i may be smothering it, so i opened the bottom door to try and burn it up and give it a cleaning, when i went to clean it there was alot of really thick black dust almost like tar all around the top heating grates so i thought that this might of been the problem that it was blocking the smoke from exiting, so i cleaned it good but today the same thing is happeneing when i open the loading door the smoke it unbareable to stand to load more coal, i can light the fire great, and burns well, with no smoke, but one i add coal to it after about 20 minutes of burning it starts to smoke, im only putting on 2 small shovels of coal at first, so i done think its an over loading problem, im thinking a draft issue, but it worked so well for 2 weeks that it has me puzzled. is there any suggestions or should i just call in a tech? thanks alot

Hello Stonie, welcone to the forum... It sounds like your are burning Bituminous coal, not Anthracite. Anthracite when added to a fire will snap and pop like 'rice-crispies' breakfast cereal and have blue/white dancing flames coming up through the coal.

Bituminous coal has lots of volitiles in the coal, think of it as if the coal was soaked in used motor oil. When you add Bituminous coal to a hot fire, these volitiles boil out of the coal, and need to burn with LOTS of very hot, oxygen rich air. Very few stoves, furnaces, or boilers are designed to burn Bituminous coal correctly. The result is lots of smoke, lots of soot clogging your chimney.

I suspect that you need to clean your chimney because the soot has restricted it

If you would, fill in your information with where you are located.. Or just post it in a reply. Also where did you buy your coal, and how much did it cost? [this will help determine the type of coal]

Hope this helps. Greg L

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hey, im in nova scotia, canada i paid 100.00 a ton there doing strip mining down the road from my house this is where i got the coal, its not nut coal either its chunky and when its burned its kind of sticks together and it does seem like its oozing when its burned. im not sure if strip mined coal is any different then "shaft or under gound" mined coalbut i have a little coal here thats from a few owners ago and that was nut coal and it burned different then this new stuff i just got

Welcome to the forum! You will learn lots here as all of us have.

As Greg said the most important aspect of the coal you are burning is the type not the size. Your coal is bituminous and has special needs and stove requirements as Greg also said. Anthracite coal comes from PA and whether it's strip or deep mined it has the same characteristics for burning.

Nut coal is describing the size. The coal you inherited may be anthracite and that would explain the different burn.

A picture of your stove and the two types of coal will help members of the forum identify what you have.

im both types of coal are bit coal, the guy that used to own the place ran the old coal mine here before he died and thats where he got the coal. also someone mentioned that he may be the chimney dirty, as its may be drawin but just not enough to pull the smoke from the stove and that because of this its leaving a soot buildup inside the furnace and further more blockin the piping on the furnace from being able to suckout the smoke, but when i look at the chimney it seems clean and the piping on the stove was just cleaned and so was the furnace but now there seems to be a build up of soot on the inside again since i tried to light another fire this morning.

Bituminous coal can plug up a 6" chimney pipe in a day or two !! One of our forum members had a really nice mesh cage made for the top of this chimney, to keep squirels out. His Bituminous coal soot clogged the screen within a week of burning.

If you didn't have smoke before, and have it now, I'd bet that the air passageways are clogged or at least restricted with soot.

Greg L

I'm going to move this to the Bituminous forum.

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btw thanks everyone for the info, so you think i should have someone come clean the chimney, when i check it with a mirror it looks clear but then again i dont know much about this stuff.

We need photos of your boiler instalation to be specific, but where the flue pipe comes our from your boiler, is there a vertical section, followed by a horizontal section??? The horizontal section will usually clog up first. When I was burning Bituminous coal, I had to clean out my flue pipes every two weeks, they would have 'curtains' of soot hanging from the top of the flue pipe, reducing the unobsructed area to about 1/3 of a clean pipe.

Check the outlet of the boiler and look inside, vacuum or clean as needed. It's a messy job, wear a mask.

Once you remove the pipes between the boiler and the chimney, inspect the bottom portion of the chimney for soot accumulation, take the pipes outdoors [I'd transport them in a big trash bag, sealed shut] and clean them of soot.

Your pipes are unobstructed from the boiler to the chimney right?? no dampers or heat reclaimers right?? If you have any devices in the flue pipe soot will accumulate on them and clog up even quicker.

Hope this helps, Greg L

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from the boiler to the chimney is on stright pipe. no bents or veriticals, everything is clean i just cleaned the bottom of the chimney and its was full but still the same thing. im thinking that when i was getting alot of smoke for the 2 or 3 days before the cleaning the soot built up in the chimney and is obstructing somewhere but with a mirror it looks fine its strange that it happened out of the blue too.. sorry the batterys in my cam are dead right now but i will take a picture later on if need be.

it is a characteristic of most bituminous coals such as those in nova scotia that have a high/mid volitile content to produce smoke and soot, it's just the way it is. what seems to be the problem however is the you are now experiencing smoke not going up the chimney but rather coming back out the loading door correct?? it is likely that the chimney itself has an obstruction, the pipe leading to the chimney or the baffels withing the appliance itself have accumulated either soot, flyash or both; either way it would appear that you're not getting enough draft to keep the smoke in the appliance and the chimney. how warm is it outside at your location??? if it's aproaching 50º F many chimneys especially short/exterior ones will not draft well. my advice would be to let the fire go out, clean the heat exchanger of the appliance itself, and see what you find, also take all chimney pipe apart, inspect and clean, also put a ladder up to the chimney, get yourself a chunk of lead, a rope and a chimney brush and drop it down the chimney, pull up and repeat many times, use a flashlight to varify nothing such as a dead animal, or collapsed flue tile has plugged the chimney. and if you have a chimney cap, screen, top etc. GET RID OF IT, they are nothing but a hassel and in many cases appreciably reduce draft.