Bit coal in a new VigII stove,

I bought a Vigilant II stove about a mounth ago and have been trying to figure out how to make it function efficiantly. The stove sits in a 1600sqft garage and is used to heat the garage only. I have a 16' chimney or should I say the stove sits with 10' of single wall pipe atop it which conects to an additional 6' of tripple wall stainless pipe as it exits the building strait up through the roof. I can not get the stove to function effectively. I have been running it for the last 4 days and cannot get it to maintain a constant tempature. I have a good strong draft or so I think until I close the internal damper and the stove just iddles down to nothing in about 2-3 hours. I added some photo's to try and show what the stove is doing. Photo 5 shows the stove just roaring away right after being loaded with coal as it does this both my temp guages will peg out even when the stove is all closed up it will go like that for about 30-45 min with the ash door closed and the internal damper shut. After about 30-45 min it will go from roaring to under 200 on the pipe guage and the stove guage will drop from pegged to about 250-300 deg in just a few hours. I tried something new the other night and loaded coal in the stove to about 1" below the top of the brick once the flames started big and orange I left the internal dampner open but closed the ash door and set the flapper door so it was only about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch open. I watched it for the next hour and the stove dropped to about 750 and the pipe went to about 600. I then went to dinner and came back about 3 hour later and the picture of the temp guages is what I had and then I had what I thought to be a nice blue flame tht I have never seen but have been seeking to see for a month now. The pictue of the blue orange flames with the doors shut was right befor I opened the door and took the picture of the smaller blue flames.

Finally towards my question, It seems as though I need to get more air to the stove so that I can close the internal dampener and keep some of the heat that is being lost by having it opened. I burn Bituminus coal, would it cause damage to the stove if I removed the restrictor plate that gets removed for Anthracite coal? Anthracite coal is not available in my area but I think that remaoving the plate will allow me to get more air to the stove.

Thank you for any sugestions that you may be able to offer.

Jon

A lot of things going on there with your stove burning bit coal.

I'll let other add their expertise with that stove and bit coal, but looks like you need to be burning some larger sized coal for starters.

House or Lump coal...maybe even bigger The size you are using now will be good for getting the larger coal lit.

The coal available to me locally comes in 1/2",1" and lump, I have been running the 1" size.
Jon

Not any experience on my side with Bit as the fuel in a VigII. You said that your restrictor plate is in place but you didn't speak about the three clean out plates. Are they in place too? If any of them are missing or not installed correctly, you'll loose draft from below the grates. This makes the stove behave like you describe, like it's in need of more air.

When your stove is overfired like you've stated, the thermostatic air inlet will eventually shut down in an attempt to keep the fire under control. When I burn anthracite, I don't mess with the thermostatic control unless I need a little more/less heat. That adjustment might happen once or twice a day and then again maybe not for weeks once it's cold outside. I run my adjustment handle about straight up. My stove runs steady between ~ 600 to 700*F.

Be careful about leaving the ash pan door open. I don't leave the ash pan door open more that 30 seconds under normal recharges, most times never. It just blows all the heat up the chimney and quickly causes an overfire condition. The stove shouldn't run at over 700* for long.

When I reload the stove, I close the internal damper as soon as I see flames. Usually that's when the stove temperature is ~ 400+ and the stovepipe temperature at ft above my stove is ~ 230 +/-. The thermostatic flap might be open as much as 1/2-3/4" or as little as an 1/8". When cruising temperature is reached, it might only be cracked 1/16" or more, depending on how much heat is being drawn off the cast iron. Try shutting the internal damper earlier. Closed, the hot exhaust has to travel to the back of the stove which allows the thermostatic air control to warm more quickly. If it warms quicker, it closes sooner and more slowly too. If you keep the damper open, the heat blows by the stove top and it will not get as warm as quickly as when the internal damper is closed. All that heat that misses the stove top is heading right out your chimney. Not good for heating unless it's really warm outside and you're trying to keep the heat out of your room.

Sorry, I guess I should add a bit more, all the clean out plates are in place. I last loaded the stove last night and the stove completly cooled down so emptied the stove out and cleaned it up and made sure the cleanout plates were inplace.

When I bought the stove the dealer delivered it and helped me place the stove, I had a manual pipe damper but the dealer told me it was not needed and it was not installed when we set the stove. As the stove sits I have 10' of 6" single wall pipe and then it jumps to 8" tripple wall as the flue exits strait up through the ceiling and out the roof. I remeasured the entire length of chimny and flu and I am about 4-6" shy of the 16' the instructions state should be in place.

As I cleaned out the stove tonight I did pull the grate out and removed the restrictor plate to see how it would work. When I fired the stove up I did get flue temps up to about 650 but the stove only got up to 800 for about 5 min and then cooled down to 675ish. When I left the garage and went in the house the griddle was at about 675 and the flu temp was around 450 and dropping but the griddle temp was slowly dropping and looked like it was maintaining at 650. It sure did seem to be alot better tonight as I fired it up, I tried not to keep the ash door open and only opened it twice for about 30 seconds to establish a flame after dumping a two layers of coal in. I started with a handful of bbq briquets and some kindleing and when it was going good I place 2 handfuls of coal in waited till they were light and then put about 1-2 inches of coal around the edge of the firebox and then when that was light I filled the center. Once my starting layer was going I added 2-3 inches of coal and then filled the box to the top of the grate once that was lit. The whole process took about 1 hour and I didnt get the guages peged like before.

When I go to work in the morning I'll post the temp of the stove, it will sit for about 10 hours unatended. It will be interesting to see if the removal of the plate does anything. I did notice that the flapper in the back was open about 1/2" and was kind-of bouncing between 1/4" amd 3/4" something it hasn't done in the past.

What temperature was the griddle when you damped down this time? Did you fill up to ~1" of the side exits? Filling this high would give you a coal bed about 9-10" deep and a bit more measured from the lowest part of the grates. Sure am interested to hear how it ran thru the night ...

When I closed the damper the griddle was at about 800 and the flu was just above 600. When I got back to the garage this morning to go to work the griddle was just over 500 and the flu was near 200. When I left the stove for the night I marked the guages and the griddle was around 670 and the flu was almost at 550. I had the fire box filled to about 1-1 1/2" below the top of the bicks around the fire box which would have given about a 9" deep bed of coal.

When I loaded coal in the stove this morning I did take a bit of time to establish a fire again and due to my job I had to take off and leave the stove so I'm not sure if I'll have burning coal when I get home tonight.

I also added pictures of the ash pan after sitting for the night and one to show the coal bed in the box after a night of burning. The outside temps were in the mid teen's overnight and this mornign it was about 30 and snowing outside.

Let me know if you need all need more info.

Thanks, Jon

Great - you held a fire overnight A few hints to try out ... fill up a little more and close the internal damper earlier, when the stove top is ~ 400-500*. I heap it up more toward the back plate and closer to the side vents. I use a little coal shovel to pull the coal up toward the back and away from the top of the grill. The sooner you damp it down, the more heat you'll keep inside the stove and not loose it up the chimney. This will help you have a thicker bed of coal for a longer time and make for a shorter cycle time when you reload with fresh bit. Your morning fire pictures shows a thin bed of coal and ending the cycle time with a thicker bed is a good goal to shoot for.

I don't know if it will help at all since you're burning bit, but there's a secondary air inlet on the left side of the stove. When you damp down wile the volatiles are burning off of a load of bit, opening it a little might help with secondary combustion of the volatiles. At least that's what that opening was supposed to do when the Vigilant design was a wood stove. I don't use it at all but I only burn anthracite.

I've been leaving that secondary port on the left side open not sure what to do with it since I don't recall the manual saying anything about it. I'll start playing with it and see if it makes a difference.

Thank you all for your imput, I just built the house and the garage and put the Vigil in the garage and I have a Jutol F55 in the basement of the house. I attempted to start the wood stove in the house but smoked myself out the first time I lit it and it has sat since. I have never used a stove before and figured if I smoked up the garage I could just open the door to air it out. Someday I'll try the house stove my plan is to burn wood and lump coal with it to reduce the heating bill a bit.

My father inlaw has a Stokermatic standalone that is brand new sitting in the box that I have been trying to make a deal with him on but the wife put a stop to it saying that I needed to just use what I have.

Hi Jon and wecome to the forum.
I burned a Vigll for a few years with nut anth only, at about 500*F to 650*F, 12 Hrs between refills, shaking/slicing once for a 24 Hrs burnt.
I think that you'r better to close the left side air trap. Located at that place makes it impossible to bring any air over the fire top to burn gases. It only by-pass the combustion air that should come from under the coal bed only. All places making a path to by-pass the coal bed must be avoided. An all around closed fire pot is the best to burn coal, it can be round, square..., as long as the sides go up all around.
An other thing I can suggest to you is to put the second thermostat on the stove pipe about 14" + above the stove's top.
Good luck

Hello, I have a 2310 and burn bituminous coal in it. I burn egg to 8" sized pieces and screen the coal with 1/2" hardware cloth to minimize the fines. My chimney is 6" by 11' tall. I wondered about removing the restricter plate but did not for fear of hurting my new stove.

When I start my stove or revive a weak fire I add about a half a 5 gallon bucket on top of the fire and open the ash door and watch the pipe thermometer and close the ash door when it reads about 300* then I close the ash door. Then the stove pipe temp continues to rise to about 450* then as the stove reheats and the bimetalic thermostat starts to flutter the pipe temp drops to about 250* then I fill the stove to all the way up and its good to go for 12 hours. If im just reloading and there is a strong fire still going and the air inlet is close to fluttering or closed I just fill it up, if the bimetalic air shutter is open more than about a half a inch I only add a half a bucket or less, till the stove heats up enough to flutter the air inlet then i fill it up.

I have found that if i fill the stove when the air inlet is open very much the fire will rage and the griddle will get auful hot (a dull red in the dark) till the inlet flutters and chokes it down but, a half a bucket of coal wont put out so much volital gas that it overheats the stove.

Carefull without the air ristrictor plate and Merry Christmas.

Well I just got home and feared the stove might have gone out because I left it after filling only to the top of the front grill and didn't see any type of flame. Well I found the flu temp to be at about 150 and the griddle on the stove was just under 450 and I had about the same amount of red ash in the stove as I found this morning. I loaded it with a few small shovel fulls of coal and waited for them to catch and then filled it to the top of the grill and waited for the fire to pick back up again. Once I had the second layer lit I filled the stove so that I had coal heaped up even with the top of the brick on the sides and slopped up from the grill to the top of the back bricks. I waited a few miniutes and when the coal ignited and and the griddle hit 400 deg I closed the damper and made sure the ash pan was closed tight and left it for another night. The stove ran from 08:00 when I went to work until 17:00 when I got home. I've added 2 more picks to show the guages when I got home and one to try and show the draft I had after adding the second layer of coal that was even with the top of the grate, when I opened the griddle to take the picture I didnt get hardly any smoke coming out of the stove it all went right up the flu.

When I go to work tomorrow I'll update. Being Christmas Eve I'm not sure I'll get a chace to sneak out to the garage to check on it so I might have to leave it from now until 10 or 11 when I go to work unless I have to go in sooner.

Jon

carlherrnstein wrote:Hello, I have a 2310 and burn bituminous coal in it. I burn egg to 8" sized pieces and screen the coal with 1/2" hardware cloth to minimize the fines. My chimney is 6" by 11' tall. I wondered about removing the restricter plate but did not for fear of hurting my new stove.

When I start my stove or revive a weak fire I add about a half a 5 gallon bucket on top of the fire and open the ash door and watch the pipe thermometer and close the ash door when it reads about 300* then I close the ash door. Then the stove pipe temp continues to rise to about 450* then as the stove reheats and the bimetalic thermostat starts to flutter the pipe temp drops to about 250* then I fill the stove to all the way up and its good to go for 12 hours. If im just reloading and there is a strong fire still going and the air inlet is close to fluttering or closed I just fill it up, if the bimetalic air shutter is open more than about a half a inch I only add a half a bucket or less, till the stove heats up enough to flutter the air inlet then i fill it up.

I have found that if i fill the stove when the air inlet is open very much the fire will rage and the griddle will get auful hot (a dull red in the dark) till the inlet flutters and chokes it down but, a half a bucket of coal wont put out so much volital gas that it overheats the stove.

Carefull without the air ristrictor plate and Merry Christmas.

I cant say mutch yet without the restrictor plate since Ive only reloaded it twice since removing but what ever I've done seems to have helped. I wish I could find egg size coal hear or 1" that was all 1" size and not all the other junk that comes with it. The City that I live in is pretty mutch supported by a coal mine and most the population either mines the coal or huals the coal, any way I have a neighbor that brings it to me for $16 a ton so it is cheap heat.

Well I did get a chance to run out to the garage last night so I shook it down and added a little bit of coal to get the stove as full as I dared and at about 10 today and after 15 hours of unatended burn the stove was running just above 400 deg and there were nice blue flames dancing ontop of what coal was still remaining. When I opened the front doors the level was to the top of the grill so I added a couple of small shovel fulls of coal ontop waited for it to ignite and then shook the grates and the level dropped to fill just barley above the top of the grates but remained lit. Filled it abck up to the max waited for the griddle to reach 450 this time and then closed the damper.

I did play with the air port on the left side of the stove last night, I had it mostly closed except for about 1/16" today as I loaded it I sut it all the way.

I think I may have figured this thing out, or I'm just getting lucky. I think that when the snow melts of the roof and I dare to climb up on it I'll add 1' of pipe to the chimney.

you need to burn lump coal, not the stoker that you're using. You might want to keep an eye on your draft w/ that 6" flue pipe, 8" is recommended with bit coal to prevent soot clogging.