Harmon Stoker - Smoke out the back of the coal hopper

One other thought i had late last night was that if the coal has a lot of fines it may cause burn issues. Although that seems to cause the fire to not burn hot enough, not sure if that would cause exhaust to back up into the hopper.

Do you have moisture on the underside of the hopper lid when you see the smoke at the bottom of the hopper? I am guessing that you do since that is another symptom of exhaust heading out the hopper. I'm not coming up with anything else to check...maybe someone else has better ideas?

Without a manometer you are just guessing at your draft. You mention the baro is open. But without a draft gauge you don't know what effect it is having on your draft reading, other than reducing it. I would suggest you get a manometer or borrow a draft gauge from someone and actually set it properly. An improperly set baro could be robbing more draft than you want. As an experiment, cover it with foil and see if you problem goes away.

OK, I looked it over carefully and couldn't see anything I did wrong. Then I talked to local stove stores - none had draft meters - couldn't buy one. So, I checked the barometric and set it between 4&5, closed the flap on the combustion fan a bit and it is doing fine. The folks seemed to think the 58 degree temps and 50 mph wind gusts had a lot to do with it. Guess I'll have to go on-line to get one. Can anyone suggest one? Some are staggeringly expensive.

Put Dwyer Mark II into a search engine like google,

Ebay has several listed:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid= ... &_from=R40

Greg L

LsFarm wrote:Put Dwyer Mark II into a search engine like google,

Ebay has several listed:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid= ... &_from=R40

Greg L

Thanks Greg - do you use a Dwyer? I looked at them before, but the ones i saw only have plastic lines I wasn't sure how to hook it to the hot stove.

Transition to copper tubing before attaching to the vent pipe. There are many threads on installing manometers many with good photos. Do a search. Most of us use that manometer.

Grainger sells the Dwyer Mark II's. If you have a store near you it could save $ on shipping.