Coal Trol for Dummys

Hi folks

I have a Reading Juniata stove with Coal Trol and power vent that I just installed. I am new to all this coal business. I have been seaching this site for info but as of yet I have not found a comprehensive "for Dummys" info list on what all these settings do. Does one exist that you can point me to? If not would someone be so kind as to put one together? I am looking for something like:

Min - this adjustment will reduce the size of the fire on the grate and yield less heat output, the efficiency will.....?
Max - this adjustment will increase the size of the and yield more heat output, the efficiency will......?
Firing rate - this adjustment will ........?
Feed -

I don't know if I am even close but this would be helpful for a newcomer like me. I am getting confused with the terminology and function. I have the stove set up in my shop and the fire is about 2 inches wide on the grate. I have about 2 1/2 inches of ash on the grate end. The temp is set low, I have both day and nite at 55 degrees.

How do you know that your coal is completely burned and you are not pushing it off the grate before it's completely exausted?

Any takers?
Thanks

if you do some reading in this section....a LOT of info on the Coaltrol and features and settings.

Coal-Trol Min and Max Setting

The top thread on this area of the forum has a good deal of info in it going over some of the features of the coaltrol V3 and the advanced settings menu: Coal-Trol V3 Firmware Features

You should also have gotten a user manual with your Coal-trol that provides information on the SETUP menu items.

As for your questions on coal being completely burned or not, your stove dealer should be a resource to you and there have been many threads on this topic over the years here on the forums, such as:

Feed Rate
Ash Amount in Anthracite.
Holy Clinkers !!

Those are just from the last week.

Some more:
Lot of Black Coal in Ash
Is There Something up With Blaschak?

I found these searching the forum for "unburned coal".

Lastly, if you have any questions on the operation of your Coal-trol feel free to call the shop, 315-299-3589. And this forum is a great source of info too.

Hello, Your posts and replys have been very helpful. I just bought a new Coal Trol (TS2 - V4) unit for my Alaska Channing II. Everything was working until we just had a cold snap and the thing just seemed not to respond as it should. I called Automation Correct (developers of Coal-Trol - 315-299-3589 - very helpful) and got the following details/explanations:

1. Thermostat Location - The thermostat MUST be mounted on a wall (it has sensor holes top & bottom). It shoud be mounted at eye level about 3-4 feet from the stove, either side.
2. Min/Max Settings (Feed) - It IS important to set the min and max feed rates per the chart in the manual depending on which stove you have.
3. "Is there a way to reset the Thermostat back to factory settings?" - YES -
a. Press the Menu Button for 20 seconds until "ADVANCED" appears, then release button.
b. Press the Menu Button 3-4 times until "RESET" appears, then hit "UP" Arrow.
c. Press the Menu Button a couple times to get out.

This is how it was explained to me.

Hope this helps.

With coal, it takes time to respond (unlike regular gas furnaces that are almost instant heat within a few minutes), Coal stoves can take a while to come up to temperature, if you house cools fast, the stove/thermostat may take quite a while to come back up to temperature if it drops 1-3 degrees quickly. Then, it will overshoot sometimes because it is trying to make up the temperature difference and the stove gets cranking.

I have that problem sometimes when the sun comes out and warms up the house, the Thermostat/stove basically goes into an Idle mode and when the house starts cooling down, it can take an hour or so for it to warm back up depending on how much temperature change there is.

for my solution is hit/press the Menu button for 10 Secs until the FEED appears, hit the ARROW key to put it on 10 mins. It will continually feed for 10 mins and get the stove feeding and warming up much faster, then it maintains a bit easier at the desired temperatures.

I connected a the suction side of a Panasonic FV-20NLF1 fan to the keystoker output flange I welded on the top of the stove. This pulls the air upstairs with the help of the 250 CFM convection fan Keystoker installed on the back. I hooked it up to the cool contacts on my thermostat upstairs trough a RIB Relay In A Box, on the normally closed contacts. When the upstairs calls for "Heat" on the cold contacts it opens the contacts which turns the fan on. When temp is met the contacts close allowing the room to cool. Reverse logic but with the Delta T of thermostat at .7 degrees the rooms stay pretty stable, which is perfect for slow coal. The Coal-trol maintains the basement temps, and when upstairs is calling for heat the basements gets less, and the Coal-Trol kicks in to catch up. The front convection vent is still open but when upstairs is running a majority of the heat is captured by the Panasonic blower. A Redneck furnace set up.