First Coal Fire in Energy King 480EK

Hi Folks
My first ever coal fire in anything actually.
My coal supplier uses several hand fired stoves to eat his home and business and gave me some pointers.
Got a hot kindling fire going and dumped in about 10 lbs and waited about 10 minutes and added another 10 lbs. waited a while and added another 10. Let this catch good and added another 10 about every 10 minutes till I had added 120 lbs all together. This gave me about 3/4 of fire bricks covered. Its now 10:20 and I started this at 5 pm. Have been knocking the draft back a little at a time till I now have it under control.(almost) A while back the whole bed was on fire burning short tipped blue flame accross the entire bed.(all coal appears to be ignited) Its still a little too much burn as my auto damper is off but fan keeps coming on to cool plenum.
I have a "auto draft" barometric draft control installed after a manual damper next the stove . I have shut it about 50% or about at a 45 degree angle.
My large manual acorn nut round style 3" draft control in the ash pit door (next to the 2 x 2" tube on the auto thermostat controlled draft has been shut to only 1 turn open about a 1/16 ' CRACK WITH A LITTLE AIR ALWAYS COMING IN FROM 2 ' THERMO DRAFT (BUTTERFLY HAS CORNERS CUT OF SO IT ALWAYS HAS A LITTLE AIR) (sorry about the caps)
My biggest worry was fire going out but I guess it will make it till morning ok. Will add another 20 to 40 pounds to bring it up.
Manufacaturer says it holds 190 lbs. in my model I now believe it!
Think I will go cut back ash pit door draft a half turn more ...(only be open a 1/2 turn then) as blower keeps coming on but not near as frequent.
By the way this is a hot air furnace.
Want the coal becuse I believe it will be able to give me more heat control than the wood which gets way too hot when its over 25 outside as now.
Glad to take any pointers anyone can give a newbie for better control. Still gun shy of closing off draft after adding coal....how long should you wait as a rule? Thanks TimV
Excuse my typos I am 2/3 s asleep.

Hi Tim,, welcome to the forum. It sounds like you are doing all right with your furnace. One thing to remember is that with coal everything takes time. A change in the draft setting may take a hour to show some change in the coal fire. So make changes in small increments and wait to see what happens.

Let us know how it is burning and heating your house after a few days.

Greg L

Hi Folks
Days 1,2 Great !!
Read some info on here and decided to try letting it go 24 hours without refilling and did not shake it down this AM either.... When I got home 5PM it was down to only covering about 1/3 of the bricks. I shook it down and added coal....seemed fine ...added more seemed ok also...then a little more....and then my fire darn near went out...think last batch of coal may have been quite wet. (Roof leaked pretty good at bin where I filled my pails at) .
Thought it was a lost cause for a while but after 2 hours of kindling wood in the ash pit tray and more on top of coal and door cracked open I finally got the coal started again .
Read on here not to half fill,but fill fire box full and use draft to control fire or it would "come back and bite you" Lesson learned! From now on will be filled to top with coal at all times!!!
That glowing bed of red coals sure is a pretty sight. I hope I don't see the dull black almost out look again.
Totaly happy with heat output on days 1 n 2 when it was 30 to 40 outside and my house was comfy 73 instead of 85 with the wood fire.
How long should you wait after filling with coal to close own main draft so as to not get a gas flashback ..been waiting 4 to 5 minutes....
PS I don't miss filling basement with woodsmoke when I open furnace door. Tim V

Saturday morning ,about 6 am,coal does not seem to giving off any heat ,very little at best.
I think all my lack of filling it yesterday etc caused me big problems.....
This morning I tossed about 8 qts of coal on top after shaking . saw very light blue flames coming off stop so I went up for coffee..about 5 minutes latter an earth shattering "boom" as ash pit door blew open...left cracked to try for extra draft...basement was full of floating ash dust..but like a miracle whole bed of coal was burning like a champ from the days before.
Guess I maybe need "shakedown" and "dont poke at top of coal bed info"
I am wondering is my coal size too fine "chesnut" and not allowing enough air up thru?
My 99% confidence has dropped to 80/85%... Guess lots to learn...not just light the kindleing and close the damper....
Now (7am) furnace still burning strong ,blower still going...ash build up must have been my problem.
Any suggestions?

Hi Tim, read this topic: Minor Explosion in Coal Stove

It should explain your 'explosion' and how to eliminate or reduce it.

You need to shake a healthy fire about every 12 hours, to get the ash off the grate and into the ashpan. Coal needs air to burn, and the ash will block the air after 12 hours or so. Most Hand-Load burners use a 12 hour schedule of shaking and loading.

Greg

Are you banking the fire after shaking and prior to loading fresh coal? If not, that is probably the cause. Some firebox designs really require this procedure as they are prone to puffbacks. I close my hand damper immediatly after loading and have had one puffback in about 15 years. I didn't leave enough live coal on the surface that time. Having a live fire on the surface will burn the gasses released from the fresh coal that is being heated but not yet caught on fire. If not, they will build in volume until they ignite (and they will). Got a big cloud of black puff around the stovepipe and nearly blew the cleanout door off the chimney bottom, sent pieces of the cement securing it flying all over. This was over a half hour after reloading.

Hi folks .
Been tending to it more often and am leaving a ring of red coals as best I can around the outside of the new coal . So far so good. I am putting less in at once and than adding the rest.Making pile deeper)Will take care not to smother burning coal when adding fresh.
I wish it was a little more seasonable tempratures(not that I am complaining) but would like to see if coal will handle the call for heat like the wood did when its very cold out.
Really like how I can throttle it down for the 35/40's temps we are having...bet we pay for these soon enough.
Going on 5 days now and I have put about 400 lbs. of coal in furnace including the initial fill up.
My typos may be a few less now. Had to install my new wireless keyboard and mouse...old stickey keys finally died.

Hello Folks
Been 7 days firing with coal now.
Must say its not what I thought it would be. So far its a lot better.
other than the little loading problem and the boom it caused no problems yet.
Thanks to Coaledsweat for the "banking tip" that seems to have stopped the poofing and backfires.
Now my problem is keeping the furnace supplied with enough coal while I am gone sometimes for 12 to 14 hour stretches when it cold outside. When I first stated it was in 30's. Now tonight it going to 10 or more below 0 if you believe our weatherman
With colder wether I am burning upwards of 100 lbs or more in 24 hours.
Trying to get my wife to add a couple shovels of coal at 3 pm just so it stays up but she wants np part of it after the "boom"
But on the positive side she is impressed with the lack of smoke smell from the woodfire and the dust is nothing at all compared to the wood. I like the longer burn per filling as opposed to the wood and also the cooler stack temps. Just cant seem to trust my stainless insulated Metalbestos 6 inch fabricated chimney like the old lined cement block ones. They are probably 5 times better than block but change comes slow to what my kids call an "oldman"....
I can see now that a bin is this weekends project.
But what to do with 10 or more full cords of dry firewood??? At $200 a cord for extra seasoned wood I should get a couple years of coal out of it