Unlined Chimney

 
Alfred
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Post by Alfred » Thu. Dec. 05, 2013 6:45 am

Rob R. wrote:Did you read "The Coal Burner's Almanac" yet?
No I haven't. Where can I get it?

Thanks!

 
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dcrane
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Post by dcrane » Thu. Dec. 05, 2013 7:10 am

Alfred wrote:
SMITTY wrote:I have an unlined chimney .. with 2 substantial jogs in it in 2 different directions ... with crumbling mortar that can be scooped out with a fingernail ... and I've been burning coal in it for 9 seasons now. Even burned wood in it several times last year, and this fall. I have 3 appliances that share the flue, 2 at a time.

If you have no wide open gaps in the chimney, your good to go. One way to test for gaps is to toss a small inner tube in a wood fire. Seriously - If you have leaks, you will know after that! ;) Rubber makes LOTS of thick, black smoke ... and it WILL come out of ANY little opening ... and it REEKS.

Just another one of my unorthodox suggestions. :D I'm the poster child for how NOT to do things around here.
Thanks, Smitty.

I'm not even sure how many flues I have. But one thing for sure is that my chimney top is falling apart. I have an oil burner and my recent Crane 44 purchase in the basement. I installed the 44 yesterday and have since burned coal. The oil burner and the Crane are tied together. The flue at that point jogs up at an angle, and is about 8"X18" in size and is unparged brick. The mortar is sound. I'm planning on getting a Crane 404 in the very near future for the fireplace opening above on the first floor. I removed the damper from the fireplace and looked up the flue with a good halogen light yesterday. The flue looks great. It looks like it has been completely parged with mortar. Though I'm still confused about the flue in the basement and where it resides overall in the chimney. I don't see any signs of that flue opening when looking up through the fireplace opening. I can see old ceramic thimbles where openings were once there, but no signs of the "jogged" flue opening. Maybe there is another flue running up the side of the main flue?? I'm going to have someone come over and take a look at it. The 44 seems to have ran pretty good though, I think. Although my draft was pretty low at .1. In any event your post seems to confirm my gut feeling that I wasn't doing anything too risky (even though I wasn't meeting code). For example with coal there is NO creosote, and with a CO detector, what could possibly go wrong. I now feel ok about all of this. Now its about learning how to use coal and the stove(s) properly so I can get good heat. I think I learned my first lesson this morning. I checked the 44 this morning after waking and noticed a nice bed of coals. I thought wow this great, all I have to do is shake and fill with new coal. WRONG! After filling the stove with coal to the top of the fire brick, the fire eventually went out. What I think I should have done is slowly added coal making sure that what I had added actually started burning. Anyway I'm looking forward to having a warmer house this winter and much lowered oil consumption.
The Crane 44 is essentially a solid welded pressure vessel of 1/4 steel... its about the safest stove I can think of if your flu pipe is new, sealed & secured with multiple screws at each joint. I guess I should not comment about code violations so I wont.

as far as your fire going out after load up in morning... it was most likely do to not enough shake down prior to load... new load then smothered any draft by compressing the existing coal bed (with ash under it) against the grate. TRY THIS... when you wake up go downstairs if you believe you have still a good bed of red coals than you can open the bottom door and give a good shake down until you see the glow of red coming from the bottom door opening (open MPD BTW so as to reduce any dust as much as possible) leave bottom door open and then load her up and give it a few minutes before closing bottom door), if you wake up and you don't think the coal bed is substantial enough... open bottom door, add a couple shovels full of coal ontop of red burning area (dont compact anything, don't shake yet!)... give that new coal 5 minutes or so with bottom door open and MPD open to get rolling.... once it rolling then give her a full shake down, maybe even a poker through the top to distrubute the new coals nice and stab or two to make sure the coal bed is "settled" nice against the grate (try not to "compact"...but rather stab into coal bed to "settle") this allows for better shake down. now that things are rolling nice, bottom door open load her UP!!! give it a minute more so as to burn off volatiles and so temp does not drop off to drastically.... then close her up, set it and forget it ;)

I will also mention that I have a 2000sq' house with a 404 in my first floor fireplace and my brand new ridiculously expensive Buderus Oil boiler with "smart" technology ($8,000.00), etc. is 100% OFF still and I intend to keep it that way! (worst purchase I ever made... saves NOTHING compared to my $200.00 404 ... my oil guy keeps calling me asking "just checking if your OK Mr. Crane...been awhile since we been their" toothy (thievin' bastards, I want my $8000.00 back! :mad3: )

 
Alfred
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Post by Alfred » Thu. Dec. 05, 2013 8:11 am

8 grand, wow! Almost as bad as hospital and emergency room bills. :|

When you say MPD do you mean a damper in the flue pipe? My setup is probably not optimized yet and I may have to make changes. For example the only damper I have is a single barometric for both the 44 and the oil burner - they're both using the same damper. Should I install a manual damper for the 44?

What do you recommend for sealing the flue pipe? I'm not using sealer only screws.

When the 44 is really cranking hot, what might the temperatures be at the surface of the stove top? Is there an optimum temperature for the stove and flue gases? So far I have found that the 44 runs hottest when the air vent is fully opened. My draft isn't that good but I am expecting that to change with colder outside temperatures.

 
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coalvet
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Post by coalvet » Thu. Dec. 05, 2013 8:26 am

Here is the link to the coal burners almanac.

Crane Manual Mod.44.pdf
Last edited by coalvet on Sat. Apr. 01, 2017 6:29 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Fixed link


 
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Rob R.
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Post by Rob R. » Thu. Dec. 05, 2013 8:36 am

Alfred, if you are running that 44 real hard, the fire might be burned down pretty low by morning. In that case you will need to do as dcrane described above and the give the fire a "snack" and a chance to wake up before you shake it down.

Manual pipe dampers are very inexpensive and simple to install, I would go ahead and put one in. You can seal the pipe up with furnace cement if you want, but I wouldn't bother on tight fitting connections.

When you are running the 44 at a steady temperature is the baro on the oil unit open?

 
Alfred
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Post by Alfred » Thu. Dec. 05, 2013 8:41 am

It's a great read - thank you.

 
Alfred
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Post by Alfred » Thu. Dec. 05, 2013 8:42 am

Rob R. wrote:Alfred, if you are running that 44 real hard, the fire might be burned down pretty low by morning. In that case you will need to do as dcrane described above and the give the fire a "snack" and a chance to wake up before you shake it down.

Manual pipe dampers are very inexpensive and simple to install, I would go ahead and put one in. You can seal the pipe up with furnace cement if you want, but I wouldn't bother on tight fitting connections.

When you are running the 44 at a steady temperature is the baro on the oil unit open?
No it's closed.

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