Altering My Coal Stove

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farmboy28
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Post by farmboy28 » Thu. Jul. 25, 2013 6:02 pm

howdy,
last fall I bought a keystoker 90 stoker stove used from a guy who had a 10 inch hole cut in the top of the stove to connect it to his duct work in his basement . I hooked it into my cold air return on my oil furnace in my basement with some 10 inch duct work. when the stove is running I turn the blower form the oil furnace to manual so it runs constant to try and keep hot air moving into the upstairs. the stove running on max will keep it around 60-65 upstairs by itself but we use propane to boost it to 68-70 as we have a young child. what I would like to do is line the 2 side walls with firebrick to try and force the heat to go up instead of out the sides. the way it is now I end up heating the basement to around 70 degrees . if someone has tried this let me know if it works and or is worth doing if no one has done it I may try adding a few bricks at a time and see what happens. I am not loosing alot of heat out the stack as I misted the stack pipe last year with a spray bottle of water and it didn't boil simply steamed off eventually.

Thanks
jason

 
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freetown fred
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Post by freetown fred » Thu. Jul. 25, 2013 6:32 pm

Jason, you just might not have enough stove for your house????? Buddy up the road has a 90 in a double wide & it barely keeps up.

 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Thu. Jul. 25, 2013 6:52 pm

I gotta agree with Fred. Appliances, especially one with a specific fuel like yours, is already designed to give you it's best efficiency. Putting fire bricks inside of it in an attempt to force the heat in a different direction will likely yield more BTUs up the chimney and less in the house. Seems like the bricks would ultimately insulate the lower portion of your furnace which would have a negative impact since it would be cutting down surface area for heat transfer. That's if I'm understanding your suggestion.


 
franco b
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Post by franco b » Thu. Jul. 25, 2013 8:14 pm

Agree with Lightning. You would be better off insulating the outside. Measure the stack temperature rather than guessing.

 
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dcrane
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Post by dcrane » Thu. Jul. 25, 2013 8:23 pm

wish I had some photo's of it to look at :( So their must be a double wall top on these units? (combustion chamber and then some kind of shroud around that to which he cut this 10" hole in the top to connect the duct work to???)
I don't think placing bricks along the side walls of the combustion chamber is going to do much but it certainly does not hurt or cost anything to give it a try ;) that top plate however has a lot more potential (maybe shroud the whole top with funnel shaped sheet metal, get a stack temp gauge instead of water and don't be afraid to try what you want). we love photos here so post em' if you can :up:

 
farmboy28
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Post by farmboy28 » Fri. Jul. 26, 2013 9:34 pm

a co-worker at work has the same stove except my exhaust comes from the back in the bottom right hand corner and his comes out the top I can put my hand on my stack and hold onto it it gets hot but not hot enough to get blisters... he says his gets to hot to touch so I feel my stove is more efficient than his because my stove is not pumping the heat out the chimney. I have put my hand inside the chimney when the stove is running and it feels like hot air from a furnace nothing extremely hot, with coal burning as hot as it does I would think it would be hotter, but I am ok with that. the stove does have a double wall in the back and also the top. I see some of the new models have double walls on the sides also. the guy at work calculated the hole in the front of the stove and it figures out to be a 4 inch hole. I spent some time on here last year reading about how people heat their whole house all winter with these and it doesn't seem like im getting the max out of mine. my house is about 2300 sq ft but im only heating the down stairs, the upstairs is an apartment that has a separate furnace. so what im trying to heat is about 1300 sq feet. even if I was getting 70k btu/hr out of the stove it is constant. I would have to see what my furnace is for BTU but the previous winter I heated the house with a small propane fireplace that was upstairs I would go threw 3- 20# tanks a week.and kept the house at about 68.

Thank you for your comments


 
franco b
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Post by franco b » Fri. Jul. 26, 2013 9:40 pm

How many pounds of coal per day have you been burning?

 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Fri. Jul. 26, 2013 9:57 pm

Check the inside of the combustion chamber for any build up of ash on the walls. Wire brush the whole interior down to the metal and continue this ritual at least twice a month. My uncle has a key stoker boiler and I was amazed by the build up inside where heat transfer is going on. Any build up will insulate heat from being transferred thru the fire box wall to the air that's being circulated to your living space. That furnace should be more than plenty for the area you are heating. Maybe you have too much air going thru the heat chamber carrying heat up and out the chimney. Make sure your ash bucket door is sealing tightly.

Also you need some instruments on that sucker. Thermometers on the flue pipe and a manometer. Sticking your hand in the flue pipe isn't telling any thing usable. You could be mixing a lot of cold air in at the ash bucket door or some other place to get the low flue gas temp.

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