Finally Installed Manometer!

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ridgeracing
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Post by ridgeracing » Thu. Dec. 12, 2013 9:03 pm

Until last weekend I have been very happy with my stove and its performance. Never had a glitch all last season. I have always had a strong draft and kept MPD 90% closed all last year. Well last weekend I went away for 3 days so I turned dial down to #2 witch gives it a 240deg. stove temp. I wanted to see how it would last unattended for that amount of time at a low temp.
I asked my father to stop by on the 2nd day and look at it but to leave it alone if everything was OK. He stopped by and everything was OK. I came home on the 3rd day and stove is burning OK but carbon monoxide detector is going off for who knows how long!
After opening house out to ventilate and open flue I realize what I did wrong. By me turning my average temp of 450deg down to 240deg my flue cooled down and my draft decreased. I have done this for a day at low temps but never more than 24hrs. I believe if I would have opened up draft stove would have been fine.
So I finally broke down and installed a Dwyer Mark 11 yesterday! Wish I would have done it earlier, now I can moniter my draft better during varing temps. With stove running at 450deg. I have .05 draft at fully closed MPD, If I open it it goes to .10! I feel much better having it now :roll: :roll:


 
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Post by ridgeracing » Thu. Dec. 12, 2013 9:06 pm

By the way, stove only used 60lbs. in 3 days unattended! Great stove :D
Poor operater ;)

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Post by ridgeracing » Thu. Dec. 12, 2013 9:22 pm

Poor at attaching photos, sorry

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dec13 #3.jpg
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stove dec13 #2.jpg
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stove dec13 #1.jpg
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Post by lsayre » Thu. Dec. 12, 2013 9:53 pm

Nice looking stove! Would a barometric damper have proved a bit safer in this situation?

 
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Post by ridgeracing » Thu. Dec. 12, 2013 10:00 pm

I do understand it may be better in that way, but with the draft I get I believe I would loose alot of heat.
With guage I can make sure it has enough draft before I leave it alone at a lower temp for a long time.
Plus since I have a bi-metal thermostat I don't have to worry about it overtemping stove

 
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Post by blrman07 » Fri. Dec. 13, 2013 5:16 am

lsayre wrote:Nice looking stove! Would a barometric damper have proved a bit safer in this situation?
It appears his problem was a decrease in draft when the chimney cooled down. A baro is designed to open when the draft is excessive. IMHO a baro would have done nothing because as the chimney cooled and the draft dropped the baro would go closed as there was not an excessive draft for it to attempt to regulate. A baro won't increase draft through the bed, it will lower draft through the bed if the draft is high enough to allow it to open.

Disclaimer.....I am not advocating the use of or the lack of use thereof of MPD's and/or Baro's. Each installation is different. Mileage may vary.

I have both on my coal fired Bucket a Day and an MPD only on my Leisure Line Econo 1 rice burning stoker. So, I am classifying myself as an equal opportunity user. :D

Rev. Larry

 
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Post by Sunny Boy » Fri. Dec. 13, 2013 6:58 am

blrman07 wrote:
lsayre wrote:Nice looking stove! Would a barometric damper have proved a bit safer in this situation?
It appears his problem was a decrease in draft when the chimney cooled down. A baro is designed to open when the draft is excessive. IMHO a baro would have done nothing because as the chimney cooled and the draft dropped the baro would go closed as there was not an excessive draft for it to attempt to regulate. A baro won't increase draft through the bed, it will lower draft through the bed if the draft is high enough to allow it to open.

Disclaimer.....I am not advocating the use of or the lack of use thereof of MPD's and/or Baro's. Each installation is different. Mileage may vary.

I have both on my coal fired Bucket a Day and an MPD only on my Leisure Line Econo 1 rice burning stoker. So, I am classifying myself as an equal opportunity user. :D

Rev. Larry
Correct in this instance. And if the baro is not air tight (which ones ever are?), all it would do is leak in more cooler air to cool down the draft that much sooner.

Paul


 
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Post by Lightning » Fri. Dec. 13, 2013 7:06 am

Installation looks good partner! I also agree with the others about the barometric damper.

 
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Post by coalcracker » Fri. Dec. 13, 2013 8:06 am

ridgeracing wrote:Until last weekend I have been very happy with my stove and its performance. Never had a glitch all last season. I have always had a strong draft and kept MPD 90% closed all last year. Well last weekend I went away for 3 days so I turned dial down to #2 witch gives it a 240deg. stove temp. I wanted to see how it would last unattended for that amount of time at a low temp.
I asked my father to stop by on the 2nd day and look at it but to leave it alone if everything was OK. He stopped by and everything was OK. I came home on the 3rd day and stove is burning OK but carbon monoxide detector is going off for who knows how long!
After opening house out to ventilate and open flue I realize what I did wrong. By me turning my average temp of 450deg down to 240deg my flue cooled down and my draft decreased. I have done this for a day at low temps but never more than 24hrs. I believe if I would have opened up draft stove would have been fine.
So I finally broke down and installed a Dwyer Mark 11 yesterday! Wish I would have done it earlier, now I can moniter my draft better during varing temps. With stove running at 450deg. I have .05 draft at fully closed MPD, If I open it it goes to .10! I feel much better having it now :roll: :roll:
Interesting post- that's why Harman states not to use a MPD. Is that an airtight stove design with door gaskets ?

if it's an airtight design, without a MPD, you could have turned your stove down to 240, with the stovepipe and flue still wide open, there would be no CO fumes in the house, the remaining draft would have been strong enough to keep the fire going with no back fumes

I run my stove all year on very little air intake, without an MPD or baro, for this reason. That and it's what the manual warns and states, not to use an MPD.

the result is being able to idle the stove down to a very low heat setting, without any blowback into the room. The usual total area this stove runs at is .300 square inches of intake draft opening, i.e. 1/2 turn open on the draft knob, that is smaller than a dime opening. To illustrate just how little draft that is, here's a picture. The square marker blot is approx. .300 square inch. During the warm daytime in March or early April, I dial it down to even less than that, to 3/8 turn open, i.e. 25% less than 1/2 turn normal setting, and it will still maintain adequate draft.

this is what's possible with an airtight stove and no MPD or baro. More draft remains to control the stove with the main draft inlet on the ash door.

realize anything you put in the flow path of the stovepipe and flue pipe, will have detrimental effects to draft, and reduce it. It's basic gas flow and airflow physics. I built a lot of V8 engines and had many cylinder heads flowed on a flow bench, to see the effects of porting, and port shaping. One thing comes out loud and clear. The straighter the port, the more air it flows.

bending passages around or constricting them down, with small valves, or putting flap valves in the way, drastically cuts back the flow. A flow bench is a machine that pushes or pulls air through a cylinder head of an engine, and uses a manometer to give flow readings, in cubic feet per minute. Going from say a 2 inch intake valve, to a 2.25 inch intake valve in the heads, would yield great gains.

you could connect a flow bench to a coal stove, and get a reading, then close the MPD and that reading would go WAY DOWN due to the restriction. Basically that's what you're measuring with the manometer but you're using the chimney draft to get a reading, instead of a machine pulling the airflow through on a flow bench. Using an MPD may retain some heat but at the same time, it restricts the draft and limits how far you can close your draft before it dies, then the draft is no longer strong enough to pull the smoke out.

It would be interesting to see how far the draft falls off on a manometer, when it has to snake around all those bent passages in the a vintage baseburner. I believe this is why some of those old baseheaters won't burn wood well and smoke into the room, with those passages opened. All those bends and curves kill the draft. It creates the same low-draft effect you had with your stove, getting CO backfeed. With wood smoke it's even more sensitive, because wood smoke is heavier with lots of particulates, and needs a good draft to pull it up the chimnney.

without a damper, I can turn my stove down to the point it would simply go out, and CO would not come into the room. Keep the MPD wide open, and idle the stove down, you should be able to take it down to 240 degrees and not get CO in the house- if it's an airtight stove in good condition with good seals and pipe connections.

In over 10 years with my new stove, it never set a CO detector off once. Without an MPD, I never needed a manometer either, because the draft was always very good. The only problem I ever had with CO, was with my old stove, and old chimney, the chimney cap stanchions rotted out, and it fell down and partially blocked the outlet once.

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Last edited by coalcracker on Fri. Dec. 13, 2013 9:02 am, edited 2 times in total.

 
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Post by coalcracker » Fri. Dec. 13, 2013 8:12 am

"By the way, stove only used 60lbs. in 3 days unattended! Great stove
Poor operater"

that is one nice looking, efficient, modern stove.

you may not realize it, that's a shot across the bow of the antique vintage baseburner fraternity- your stove only burned 60 pounds of coal, in 3 days. This just goes to show how efficient these airtight new stoves really are.

A high quality new unit such as this, is every bit as efficient as the old baseburners or oak stoves, and then some, and stronger steel construction as well. They are brand new and don't need a $5000 restoration. Anyone that bashes these new, high-quality airtight stoves, simply never tried one. For utilitarian heating, they simply can't be beat for the price.

 
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Post by Rob R. » Fri. Dec. 13, 2013 9:54 am

Nice stove, and good call on the CO detectors and manometer.

Now, for all the chatter about MPD vs baro...I think we can all agree that each chimney behaves differently, and what works great in one house might not work in another. For new installs, in addition to discussing on which type of damper is best, perhaps we should focus on proper chimney construction and design. Obviously a lot of us are trying to make the best out of what is existing, but for the folks that are doing a clean-slate install (my opinion) it is worth the effort to run the chimney up through the home and past the roofline.

I have two chimneys in my home. One was built with the house in 1910, and goes straight up through the home and through the peak of the roof. It drafts strong and consistently, even in July. The chimney was built to service a big coal stove, and I'm sure the men that built it knew a thing or two about coal stoves...this was in 1910. The other chimney was built in the late 70's up along the side of the house. It also goes over the roofline, and the flue tiles are the same size as the older chimney. The mason insulated the tiles with vermiculite, and did a nice job on the crown. This chimney has very little draft in warm weather, and has actually reversed a few times when it wasn't in use. When the west wind roars on a day like today, the draft in this chimney is so strong that it PEGS the baro wide open. When I used to run a hand-fed on this chimney, the performance was not predicable. I don't care how airtight the stove is, if it has a fixed orifice for combustion air and you vary the draft from -0.2 to -0.15" of WC, it is going to act a lot differently at each extreme. There are different ways to deal with this, but none are foolproof...and that is why they make draft gauges/manometers and CO detectors.

Edit: One more point...some chimneys require more heat to maintain draft than others. A CO detector will alert you if you are home, but it won't do much for your pets if you aren't there to help. Be careful turning the stove down real low, especially in mild weather. Hopefully you will be able to see what minimum flue temperature you need to maintain proper draft.

 
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Post by coalcracker » Fri. Dec. 13, 2013 6:51 pm

that's a good point about pets...if they are left home in a CO condition, it's curtains for the pet....

 
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Post by Lightning » Fri. Dec. 13, 2013 7:16 pm

ridgeracing wrote:Well last weekend I went away for 3 days so I turned dial down to #2 witch gives it a 240deg. stove temp. I wanted to see how it would last unattended for that amount of time at a low temp.
I asked my father to stop by on the 2nd day and look at it but to leave it alone if everything was OK. He stopped by and everything was OK. I came home on the 3rd day and stove is burning OK but carbon monoxide detector is going off for who knows how long!
Do you have an exterior chimney? It would help to get a report of the daily lows and highs for those days. An exterior chimney is heavily influenced by what the temperature was 12 hours ago. For example, if we have a cold night and then during the day, it warms up 25 degrees, my chimney will draft poorly. The top half of the chimney is still cold from the night before, it takes time for the blocks to adjust to ambient temperature.

Also, by the third day its likely your fire was hungry and was starting to cool down and also likely that primary air was starting to find ways around any healthy burning coal due to ashing. This combination of circumstances is what I believe caused your draft failure, not so much the MPD.. It's even possible the MPD helped the fire last as long as it did by slowing the burn when the bimetallic opened.. :)
Last edited by Lightning on Fri. Dec. 13, 2013 8:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

 
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Post by Keepaeyeonit » Fri. Dec. 13, 2013 8:16 pm

Having dealt with 3 draft losses I can tell you first hand its all in the chimney now mind you baro's and mpd's don't help low draft situations at all but make them worse.I don't care who's or what kind of stove you have, if the chimney doesn't draft it doesn't draft.I like having a manometer permanently installed so I can (Keep a eye on it ;) ) its a good tool to have(a must in my opinion but sure some will disagree).I still have cold feet with CO in the house so when we leave the dog goes outside I would not want to deal with loosing a family member from that at all.Keepaeyeonit

 
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Post by Lightning » Fri. Dec. 13, 2013 8:47 pm

Also I would like to add that giving excessive secondary air to the fire helps my chimney draft. On warm days in the spring and fall I'm able to maintain draft with a very low heat output.

The excessive secondary air doesn't aid much with combustion but instead is just heated and goes up the chimney maintaining draft. Works for me every time 8-)


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