Lowest Warm Weather Stove Temps?

traderfjp · By: **traderfjp** On: Tue Jan 08, 2008 1:54 pm

When I set my Channing on idle it will run for days and the sides are barely hot. Gotta love it.

Devil505 · By: **Devil505** On: Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:55 pm

Devil5052 wrote:How low a temp can you keep your stove going when the weather is 60* during the day? (I can get my TLC-2000 down to about 180 on a magnetic stove-pipe thermo)

Strike that...Got it down to about 150* & running fine

dutch · By: **dutch** On: Tue Jan 08, 2008 5:53 pm

at lunch, i checked and my stack temp with my magnetic thermometer was 135.
that's about as low as I'd like to see it, and hopefully it's still going when i get home
tonight,,

i'm sure by morning, we'll be cranking them up again...

EasyRay · By: **EasyRay** On: Tue Jan 08, 2008 6:54 pm

Devil5052 wrote:
Devil5052 wrote:How low a temp can you keep your stove going when the weather is 60* during the day? (I can get my TLC-2000 down to about 180 on a magnetic stove-pipe thermo)

Strike that...Got it down to about 150* & running fine

I run my stove at the second notch right in the middle of the handle and that gives me 120° on my stack.

titleist1 · By: **titleist1** On: Tue Jan 08, 2008 6:57 pm

LsFarm wrote:
How about some more hand feed responses?

Greg L

I guess I am not as much of a die-hard coal user as most on here. (although for the first ten years I lived here I only had the Mark III for heat, the oil burner that was here did not work) With my hand fed Mark III, I just let ours die out and let the LP furnace keep it above 65* during warm spells. I put a little effort (very little actually) into budgeting the LP usage (hot water, dryer, cooktop, furnace) so that I am ready for a tank fill up in the summer when prices are lowest. That means I check the level in late March and decide how much more I will use the furnace for heat than normal so I can use up enough LP to get a 500 gal delivery later in the summer. I own my own tank so I am able to shop suppliers for LP prices, paid $1.69/gal this summer. If I pushed the coal and wood burning I could maybe get through to the second summer before having to get the LP delivery, but with my luck I would run low in February and have to get it filled at max price to keep us in hot water / cooking & dryer usage.

gambler · By: **gambler** On: Tue Jan 08, 2008 7:38 pm

Did a recheck when I came home today as the LL stoker stove has been idling all day (64* here today). The temp inside the flue pipe just above the stove is 126* and still pulling -.025 draft. I was concerned that it would be hot in the house but it is at 72. I really like this coal stove over the corn stove that I had been running. I would have had to turn the corn stove off today as it had a minimum output of 12,000 btu's.

acesover · By: **acesover** On: Tue Jan 08, 2008 7:51 pm

I split some wood, going to have a wood fire tonight.
acesover

av8r · By: **av8r** On: Tue Jan 08, 2008 8:14 pm

gambler wrote:Did a recheck when I came home today as the LL stoker stove has been idling all day (64* here today). The temp inside the flue pipe just above the stove is 126* and still pulling -.025 draft. I was concerned that it would be hot in the house but it is at 72. I really like this coal stove over the corn stove that I had been running. I would have had to turn the corn stove off today as it had a minimum output of 12,000 btu's.

I had turned my min rate down to 4 last night. Stove was about 135 degrees on the front above the door (seems to be the hottest part of the stove pretty much anytime) this morning. Came home and it was still burning, but man...that fire was almost invisible. I hand stoked it twice to kick it up a bit as it looked like it would go out. House was 72.

Wood'nCoal · By: **Wood'nCoal** On: Tue Jan 08, 2008 10:12 pm

Let the stove go out last night. Emptied and restarted it tonight, 45 outside right now.

TCOAL · By: **TCOAL** On: Wed Jan 09, 2008 8:14 am

DVC-500, set room temp. at 60. Stove temp is at 125. Burning small fire at rear of stove.

jersey · By: **jersey** On: Wed Jan 09, 2008 9:06 am

22"above the heat exchanger the mag reads >100f 60 outside. 8-)

Devil505 · By: **Devil505** On: Thu Jan 10, 2008 3:04 pm

LsFarm wrote:I read the above posts, and had to laugh, all the stoker guys reported with low temps and idling fires. And the one hand load guy : who reported his fire had gone out twice. [I'm not laughing about that].

The point is the physics of chimney draft. The air in the chimney needs to be warmer than the outside air to get natural draft. The hand load stoves if they don't have a combustion blower to force air through the coal bed, are dependant on the chimney draft to pull air through the coal bed.

So you are in a catch-22. If you cut the heat back enough to keep the house from overheating, then there is not enough heat in the chimney flue to create enough draft to keep the minimized fire burning. So most hand feed stoves need to be run warm during warm weather, sometimes warmer than during cold weather, just to keep enough heat in the chimney.

The stoker folks have a fan pushing air through the fire bed, and this assures combustion. The fan also keeps the air moving up the chimney, this is how a stoker boiler can run year round to provide domestic hot water.

How about some more hand feed responses?

Greg L

I guess that was my point in this thread. Obviously (to maintain draft) the chimney temp has to be higher than the outside air temp....But how much higher to maintain enough draft for us hand-fired guys? (I don't think anyone would attempt to keep their hand-fired stove going at a stove temp of 70*...ever.....Let alone on a day when the outside air temp is 60*-70*. It would appear that some members can keep their stove going at pretty low temps though. (say 150* or so)

VigIIPeaBurner · By: **VigIIPeaBurner** On: Fri Jan 11, 2008 1:06 pm

My Vigilant II (hand fired) has a vented internal damper that I'll keep open on warm days and the themostatic air inlet. I build the fire to one side and pile it high up to the internal side vent in the morning. This works for me as the fire bed is larger in the cooler mornings, slows as it climbs thru the pile in the warmer afternoons. I feed more pea in the evening to build it back up and then spread the bead to fully cover the grates for the colder nights. House is an insulated 3,100 sq ft. which on sunny days will climb into the mid 70's. I don't recall the stovetop and stack temps. It took me a few years to get this down, but it works well for me here in NW NJ.

Cyber36 · By: **Cyber36** On: Mon Jan 14, 2008 12:58 pm

2nd time firing coal yesterday - Outside temp;(avg)38, stack temp;125, Themostat;72 Started burn full capacity yesterday @ 4:30PM, ran up, shookdown, loaded 1/2 capacity(only room)@ 4:30 this AM. NOW, if she'll only be going when I get home @ 3:30 PM, I be REALLY happy

medtech · By: **medtech** On: Fri Sep 26, 2008 8:24 pm

Right now it is 60 outside. I have my Harman Mark II fully loaded and the damper is 1 turn open. It's running at 170 stack temp, 3 on the manometer. I don't dare go any lower. I want to see how long it will run at this low temp.

Lowest Warm Weather Stove Temps?

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