hitzer 30 93

bs, try cutting the back flap down to half open & ash door 1/4 moon--turn that blower off for a bit---remember, coal takes around an hr or so to respond to any adjustments--don't get frustrated--we all went through the gettin goin bull-*censored*, but it has to be. What's your chimney set up like?

My chimney is a red brick with a teracota liner going about 2 feet above the peak of my cape cod house. The stove ties in to the chimnry through my sandstone foundation wall. Seems to be drafting nicely.

I'm burning anthracite nut coal from a local coal supplier. My buddy is burning the same coal from the same place in his ds stove and is getting great results so I believe it to be of good quality.

I've made the adjustments Fred recommended, will let you know the results. Thanks for all the advice

bucksnort wrote:Alright, I spent our first night with the hitzer running and wasn't to impressed just yet. I know it needs to be dialed in but I should be getting more then 7 - 8 hours of burning. I can get the stove up to 400 degress but 7 hours later its about out and barely reading 200 degrees. It did this last night and it repeated itself today when I just got home from work.

I have the back damper open the whole way and the front ash tray area open 1/8.

I also noticed around the whole center fire that was still semi-red it was all ashed up. I am sure this means it was burning but does that mean it was burning to hot?

Yes, you're burning too hot. Here are my 30-95 settings. No dampers of any kind; 1.) Ash pan door vents: Open til holes are round. Now cut in half for half moon. Then cut in half again for 1/4 moon. 2.) Back dial is set at #6 in my shop. For your house, you may want to set the back dial at #7, and no more than #8 (straight up). 3.) ONCE the mass of the stove heats just enough to close the back flapper, turn the fan on LOW, and enjoy. You should never have to run the fan any faster than low. The 30-95 is a real firecracker of a stove. It has the capability of really cranking. But, cranking isn't what you want to do. Run the 30-95 as I described, and you'll be happy. The 30-95 will "over fire" easy, and you will be lucky NOT to loose the fire in the 12+ hour frame. The 30-95 is not as efficient as the 50-93. The 30-95 looses more heat up the chimney than the 50-93. In other words, higher chimney temps = stronger draft = easyer stove "over fire", = shorter burn times, and clinkers. So, keep your settings down in the range I mentioned. Remember what I said in my other reply. You only need to pre-heat the basement air. Cut a large hole high in the main cold air duct. Let your furnace do the rest. When tending the 30-95, Shake grates useing very short choppy movements til pieces of coal start to get caught in grates. After shaking, you may need to poke ash at both sides, as well as in front of hopper. Top off hopper with fresh coal. You're done for another 12 hours. My 30-95 goes an easy 24 hours between tending with fan off. An easy 12 hours with fan on. If your chimney draft is very strong, do as Fred says; Add a manual damper. Let us know how you make out. Oliver

Well, I made the recommending changes. I put the back dial to 8, left the front ash pan vents cracked to an 1/8 moon, had the MPD at about 3/4, and ran the blower on the lowest setting. When I shook down the ask pan and loaded the coal before going to bed, I had a nice fire. The temp was reading between 350 and 400 wit the blower running. However, when I woke up this morning the fire again was almost out, reading barely 200 degrees, but I still had a half a hopper full of coal. It's not like this was a long burn, about 10pm to 5am. To get it going again I turned the blower off, shook it down, and opened the ash pan door for just a few minutes. Within 30 minutes I had a good fire again, back up to reading 450 degrees. However, I am thinking that by the time I get home from work again the fire will most likely be just about out. I guess I don't understand why I'm not able to sustain a consistent burn for such short lengths of time? With it going out so quickly I can't get my basement warm enough to heat the house at all.

I did notice this morning that I had alot of fine ash in my fire box. Not sure what that means? Also, this may be a dumb question, but my hopper is angled and I have it placed in so that it angles the coal toward the front of the box, I'm assuming this is right and not backwards? It seems that my fire is burning nicely in the middle of the box and in the front of the box when it's goin, but it doesn't look like it's doing much toward the back of my fire box. Any other suggestions?

bs--when you get home--take a poker & go in from the top do the edges real, real good--sounds like you're seriously ashed up-- If needed--shut the bitch down & de-ash the firebox & start from scratch-- post some pix of your set-up including some inside pix of firebox--don't get pissed, but this isn't as complicated as it seems--pix will help alot

As a good friend I think I figured the solution to your problems. I bet your chimney is dirty. What you need to do is get a live chicken and place him in the stove with it not running. When he flys out he will clean the chimney with his wings.

AlmostThere wrote:As a good friend I think I figured the solution to your problems. I bet your chimney is dirty. What you need to do is get a live chicken and place him in the stove with it not running. When he flys out he will clean the chimney with his wings.

That won't work! LOL. That's why birds die in chimneys. They can't spread thier wings to fly out. I know you were only joking. But, that is why chimneys have dead birds in them.

freetown fred wrote:bs--when you get home--take a poker & go in from the top do the edges real, real good--sounds like you're seriously ashed up-- If needed--shut the bitch down & de-ash the firebox & start from scratch-- post some pix of your set-up including some inside pix of firebox--don't get pissed, but this isn't as complicated as it seems--pix will help alot

To add to what Fred says, you may have clinkers in firebox also. Check for clinkers behind the hopper too. As far as the hopper goes, you have it in correctly. It should angle towards the front of stove. Speaking of the hopper; is it warped? The sides should be completely straight, and parellel to each other. Look carefully! If any one or more sides are not completely straight, and parellel, then you have a warped hopper. This will allow coal to hang up in the hopper as you describe. It will also shorten the burn time as you describe. The worse the warp, the worse the coal hang up. Keep us tuned, Oliver

UPDATE: I went and helped my buddy out tonight since he had college class until 9 pm. I got to his house and just killed the fire and cleaned the whole stove out completely. The stove had a TON of ashes so I am assuming that is why it wasn't holding a constant burn. Long story short I spent two hours building a good base. See Pictures. We will see what happens tonight.

Settings - back dial 8
Blower - Off right now.

AlmostThere wrote:UPDATE: I went and helped my buddy out tonight since he had college class until 9 pm. I got to his house and just killed the fire and cleaned the whole stove out completely. The stove had a TON of ashes so I am assuming that is why it wasn't holding a constant burn. Long story short I spent two hours building a good base. See Pictures. We will see what happens tonight.

Settings - back dial 8
Blower - Off right now.

The fire looks good in the picture. A little on the bright side though. I'm assumeing it's because of being fully cleaned out, and fresh fire. And, back flapper is still open, or just closed. Fill the hopper. Give the fire a chance to settle in (maybe an hour). If the fire continues to burn "Bright" (bright orange), you need to cut back on the air a little more. Weather it be ash pan vents, back dial, or both. I'd start with back dial. Maybe run on #7. Leave the ash pan vents at 1/4 moon. If it still continues to burn bright, maybe you have a bad / worn ash pan door gasket. The flames look slow & lazy. That's how the flames should look. If the flames were short, and choppy, it'd be because of an air leak at the front load door. I'm not trying to be an alarmist here. I went a little beyond where I should have at this time. All in all, it looks like you're heading in the right direction. I went back and read through one of your post. You mentioned temperature readings from stove body. Where on the stove body did you take the temperature readings. If on top of stove (heat exchanger), you would have a false reading. Upper front sides will give you a more correct reading.

If the fire is going out and there is still coal in the hopper it is because the ashes arent being shaken enough. It is smothering itself in its own ash. Now that the stove is cleaned out it will run good for a few days then slowly start doing the same thing unless you get more of the ashes out with each shake down.

well today I went after work and helped my buddy out again. I found the Hitzer burning at 400 degrees with a nice flame. Ididn't shake her down since it wasn't 12 hours since he did last. His house was only 66 degrees but a long cry from the 55 it was yesterday. we now need to dial her in and get the house to a comfortable 70 -72. hopefully she can do it.....

As mentioned--that basement is going to have to get nice & warm before the heat starts distributing itself upward & that's a time thing--don't adjust anymore then SAY--1 number at a time on the back thermo & maybe just a sliver on the ash door--sounds like it really going in the right directioon---10 degrees ain't nothin to sneeze at He should be shaking 6 or 8 short choppy throws & make sure the ash pan doesn't get any more full then it's actual height--to much surely restricts under air.

AlmostThere wrote:well today I went after work and helped my buddy out again. I found the Hitzer burning at 400 degrees with a nice flame. Ididn't shake her down since it wasn't 12 hours since he did last. His house was only 66 degrees but a long cry from the 55 it was yesterday. we now need to dial her in and get the house to a comfortable 70 -72. hopefully she can do it.....

Use the furnace. Let it run as if you had no coal stove. Cut a hole high in the main cold air duct. Maybe 150 square inches in size. The furnace will distribute hot air evenly throughout the home. The furnace will use hardly any fuel. You'd be surprised how little fuel the furnace will use. And it's because it's drawing in pre-heated air from coal stove. If you use "Fan Only" on the furnace, it will cool the pre-heated air from the coal stove. Let the furnace run as if it had to make all the heat. You'll be happy. You'll reep all the benefits of heating with coal, without any of the common distribution problems others have. I still maintain the 30-95 by itself is too small for heating the up-stairs from the basement. With the help of the furnace, it should do just fine with such a small house. Also, as others have said, don't let ash build up. The first thing I do when tending my 30-95 is to empty the ash pan from previous tending. I shake softly, watching the fire bed drop. I then poke any build up of ash on top. Then do final shaking. If you poke first, then shake, you'll get fly ash bellowing up on air currents, covering everything, including the glass. Again, keep us posted. Edit: I've noticed with my 30-95; it will really crank out the heat if needed; and lots of it. But, I'd be having the same problems you are. The 30-95 needs to run slow & steady, not hot & hard. Should you need to run hot & hard for a while, it'll do it. Then, shake her down, top off the hopper, and lower the settings. You'll get her zeroed in. Looks like you're doing a fine job already.

Well things seem to be going much better. After the clean out and using the recommended settings, I've been able to sustain a nice fire for 12 hours, and could probably go longer. My basement is starting to feel saturated with heat and it's getting my upstairs close to 70. Oliver, to your point about running my furnace to move the heat, I actually had to disconnect my oil furnace to be able to tie my stove into my current chimney, because I know you're not supposed to have two furnaces into one chimney, and I wouldn't have had room for both anyway because of the layout of my basement. So I'm relying solely on the hitzer to heat the home. I'm hoping that it can do it when the nights get colder... After reading a lot of the posts on here I wish I would have went with the 50-93, but when I was looking to buy a stove, the hitzer dealer I was working with talked me into the 30-95, evening knowing that it was going in my basement. He told me it would be better to run the smaller stove hard than to run the big one too low. I'm starting to wonder if that's true, maybe I should have checked here first!