Anybody familiar with Newmac combination furnace?

I have a newmac combination furnace. The "coal burning tips" section is all of half a printed page. I got a great fire started lasted 36 hours. Seems to be dying. I read in another post to just leave it be with the ash door open, I am doing just that. However can someone shed some light on how to properly maintain a fire in this or similar furnaces? Specifically, should the manual damper be open, closed or partially opened. The unit has a blower that is controlled by a thermostat?

Do you have a photo of the furnace?? a photo of the firebox and grates would help.

In general, if the fire appears to be dying, it probably has an accumulation of ash on the grate. Does your furnace have shaker grates?? Have you agressively shaken the grate untill you see some hot coals fire into the ashpan?? If your firebrick are arranged like a 'V' with the grate at the bottom, the 'V' becomes a funnel, concentrating the ash on the grate, so you need to do a lot of shaking to get the ash through the grate and into the ashpan.

I'll try a google search for your furnace.

Greg L

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No pictures. Furnace has grates five flat ones, I shook until embers fell and a faint orange glow was visible. I was afraid I would shake it too much.

Fire box is cast iron

No firebrick?

No, cast iron plates

To get the fire 'revved up' you need the manual damper open. Make sure you have plenty of coal in the firebox, you need a deep bed of coal covering the entire firebox. The coal will burn from the bottom up, but you need to keep the coal bed deep, the coal will burn to ash at the bottom and fall into the ashpan. You need to keep adding coal to keep the coal bed deep.

Don't let any air in above the fire, all air must come in from below, up through the coal bed.

Hopefully the above will help you keep the fire going.

Greg L.

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Should I try to shake it again?

If you have fresh coal on the fire, the manual damper open, the loading door closed, the ash door open, you should have the fire getting hotter, If you have a piece of 1/4" or 3/16" steel rod, bend an 'L' on one end and use this to poke up from below through the gaps in the grates. This will open up the air passageways.

You may have waited too long to add fresh fuel and have only glowing embers remaining, and they don't hold enough heat to relight fresh coal.. You may have to start over again with a fresh fire. If the heat output of the fire is too low, you won't get much draft from the chimney, and this makes recovering the fire even more difficult..

Do you have much of a fire or heat in the furnace ?? Is the chimney flue pipe hot? or just luke warm.?

Sorry, I can't think of anything else right now.

greg L.

Just a thought. If your in a part of the country right now that is warmer than usual like it is here in south central Pa. (52 right) your fire might be a bit on the weak side as mine is. coal likes it cold outside I have found. Others I'm sure will chime in but I'm having a hard time even keeping a fire and thought about letting it go out. Welcome to the forum, sorry about my manners.

If you are helping, it's good manners !!

Good point about the outside temps.. I forgot about that.

Greg L.

Fire was fairly hot when I started today, good thick bed of coals when I added new this evening. It was warm today, close to 60. I will try poking