Stove won't shut off?

75 max sounds pretty high but i have a different stove.Anything past 43 I'll be loosing burning coal of the grate.. My FR really never goes past 50 when calling for heat. I have mine set at 71 degrees and my HLF at 1. My house stays at 68 to 72 depending on which room.

The max on my Harman Magnum with Coal-Trol is 94 min is 3. I imagine the Keystoker will take a bit more "playing" based on the fixed and evidently very high locked in manual feed rate. I would think that they tried to make the set up easier by eliminating one of the variables, I prefer to be able to adjust the mechanical feed rate... but then I love science projects.

Depends on the stoves..My max is @ 48, HLF=2, but also I have 2 burners kicking out heat and there is probalby 1-2" of ash when cranking and it gets pretty hot and satisfies the temp pretty quicky. I normally just leave mine on Temp. Hold and maintains very well.

WNY wrote:Depends on the stoves..My max is @ 48, HLF=2, but also I have 2 burners kicking out heat and there is probalby 1-2" of ash when cranking and it gets pretty hot and satisfies the temp pretty quicky. I normally just leave mine on Temp. Hold and maintains very well.

I really wanted the Hyfire but i think it would have been a overkill sitting in my kitchen. I couldn't imagine two burners going it must put out some serious heat

smith10210 wrote:

WNY wrote:Depends on the stoves..My max is @ 48, HLF=2, but also I have 2 burners kicking out heat and there is probalby 1-2" of ash when cranking and it gets pretty hot and satisfies the temp pretty quicky. I normally just leave mine on Temp. Hold and maintains very well.

I really wanted the Hyfire but i think it would have been a overkill sitting in my kitchen. I couldn't imagine two burners going it must put out some serious heat

I almost got a Hyfire but luckily the dealer had a Pocono in stock too. The only reason I had for the Hyfire was redundancy, just in case there was a motor problem. But the Pocono fits better, has plenty of heat and Hopper space. Luckily I realized that for $500 more for the hyfire, I could burn some oil for a few days if I had to wait for a motor.

My Max is set to 60, go figure. I keep my N and D at 70. I sometimes click it up to 71 for TV watching, and 69 for bed time. I am using the fan on my oil fired furnace to distribute the heat. It is the same temp everywhere, when the doors inside the house are open.

I tried the keystoker 90K last winter and it couln't keep up heating the whole house (old Victorian, tall ceilings, etc.). However, I did replace 23 windows, door seals, etc...throughout the house. The upstairs is about 4-5 degrees cooler, but much better than last winter.

The Hyfire works really well and I don't have to push it hard to get the heat upstairs with the 8" duct and the 2 built in blowers on the stove and the Coaltrol I added....

Mike E, on a Keystoker we recommend MAX of 99 as a starting point. The stoker mechanics and motor selection are such that MAX should be able to be set at its highest setting without over firing. Changing MAX to 75 to help control overshoot was a good idea. However, I'm not clear if you're still having issues with not being able to hold a steady temperature throughout a full day. Please give us a call at 315-299-3589 tomorrow (Jan 2nd) and we'll be able to help you out.

Thought I'd post a new one here to mention what I did to fix the issue...

I ended up talking to Neil from Coal-Trol, who gave me some ideas. Among them, we decided to try moving the thermostat to a different location, more central to the room, and out from 'behind' the air blast. With that move alone, the temps have come within' 3 degrees of each other, fluctuating from 74-77 now. I also move my Max down a lot, from the 85 I was running to 55. Min was at 8 the whole time. Now, after a couple days of just watching, I've seen the FR go up to settle in at a high 60's-ish area.. so, I bumped the Max to 58 and I'll see if that gets even closer to my set temp of 75 or not.

As an added bonus, I'm burning a LOT less coal. Sweet.

Another idea Neil had was that I had, in effect, a chimney effect with my central stairwell (open, all the way through three floors). He thought maybe the warm air would like to go up the big empty hole in the stairs, but was getting stuck by the cold air that was try to return to the basement. Thus, an air traffic jam! He thinks a few well places floor vents in the perimeter would help. I went out and installed one today for a test, here near my desk, and I'll report back later to mention if that makes any difference here in my immediate area. Anyone else have thoughts on this?

Mike

Mike E wrote:
Thought I'd post a new one here to mention what I did to fix the issue...
I ended up talking to Neil from Coal-Trol, who gave me some ideas.
Mike

Thanks Mike it is always good to see how a product is working across as broad a range of situations and as many users as possible, it definitely sounds like your happy with everything

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Thanks Mike it is always good to see how a product is working across as broad a range of situations and as many users as possible, it definitely sounds like your happy with everything[/quote]

Yep. Actually, I couldn't be happier with this thing now. The coal-trol has been keeping things idling well now even though it's been touching the 60's in the afternoon here.. my coal consumption has gone down a *lot* since I got the MIN/MAX fine tuned, and it's just a wonderful device.

Mike

For those with Coaltrols I was wondering if the overshott occurs when you keep the thermostat set at one temp all day or is it from going from 70 to 75 say?

IMO, Overshoot can result from not having the max and min fire (or stroke on those stoves with adjustable stroke) set right as well some other issues like location of Tstat. In my experience the overshoot occurs as a result of a large difference in temp from the set point. So if you open a door and let the house cool down 4 or 5 degrees overshoot might occur. As I said proper set up will all but eliminate this.

I like to leave my Tstat at one temp and find that I have no overshoot unless I'm lighting the stove and the house is more than 10* below the set point.

Hope this helps to answer your question Frank, I'm sure others will chime in as well and provide some additional information.

traderfjp wrote:For those with Coaltrols I was wondering if the overshott occurs when you keep the thermostat set at one temp all day or is it from going from 70 to 75 say?

My first few days with the CT I had it set with a 3 degree setback at night. Each morning, the room temp would overshoot 2-3 degrees. Since I have removed the setback, the room stays within 1 degree of set point. The logical explanation is that with solid fuel, you need to take the swing and reaction time out of the equation. You do that by keeping the burn as consistant as possible. Therein lies the beauty of the CT... it's automagic!

I set my coal-trol to set back 2 degrees every weekday while nobody is home and it starts to ramp up the 2 degrees at 4:30. I rarely see an overshoot unless the outside temps are on the warmer side. If I try to setback 3 degrees I get an overshoot by 2 degrees just about every time.

gambler wrote:I set my coal-trol to set back 2 degrees every weekday while nobody is home and it starts to ramp up the 2 degrees at 4:30. I rarely see an overshoot unless the outside temps are on the warmer side. If I try to setback 3 degrees I get an overshoot by 2 degrees just about every time.

I wonder (and would love to know) how much coal is saved by setting it back 2 degrees for 8 hours? Any feel for that?