Caloric Coal/Gas Cookstove...First Fire Since 1939...Maybe

Thanks Paul....I backed of the damper and the MPD and there is no more smoke...it is all going up the chimney.

So how does one keep a nice slow all night burn going?...keep the damper just a little open and the MPD open just a bit as well?

Neal

Yes, most of the slowing control is done by closing the primary. Think of that "draft" knob like a gas pedal hooked to the carburetor throttle plate.

Anytime you need to open the fire box, always open the MPD first, then close down the primary. When your done opening the fire box, set the primary then close the MPD to whatever angle you find works best. Always MPD first and MPD last.

Looking at your picture of the glowing fire bed, it looks like the coal level is way down. You can build up the depth of the coal bed by adding layers and waiting five to ten minutes for that layer to catch light before adding another layer. Do that right to the top of the fire box refractory cement lining. That depth will not only add more fuel to burn through the night, it will help slow air and flue gas flow through the coal bed. That ,along with choking it down with the primary closed to almost a sliver, and the MPD closed, or only open a few degrees, should have it idling along through the night.

In the morning, if the fire hasn't died over night, open the mpd fully, then the primary about half way. Give it about five minutes to let the fire increase. Then add another layer of coal. Wait a few minutes for that to catch, then you can shake the grates to clear the night ashes. Short, choppy strokes. Only shake them until you just start to see small burning embers drop into the ash pan. Don't shake more then that or your removing a layer of ash to protect the grates. Then you'll risk over heating and warping the grates.

Check every few hours until the stove teaches you when and how much it will need to be reloaded.

Congratulations on getting it going !

Don't be afraid to cook on it. That's what it was built for. Hope to see you contributing to the Cookin' With Coal thread soon.

Paul

So, did it burn through the night ?

Paul

Yes, It did burn through the night. There was still a strong glow this morning but more concentrated in one area than the whole firebox. I let it die out since it is getting a bit warmer and I have plans going into the weekend. Last night was a trial run.

I will keep you guys posted.

Thanks

That's a good start. Now, it's just a matter of small details to help fine tune technique.

Thanks for letting me know.

Paul

Ok, so I have done well keeping it lit through the night. I load it up with coal until I can no longer see the fire, I then just barely keep the draft open, and have the MPD damped down to about 15% open or so. At first I was only concerned with keeping it lit until I left for work, then I was letting it die out because the warmth of the sun was keeping my house warm. Now it is getting colder and I will need to keep it burning while I am away at work all day....up to 13 hours away from home. Do I basically do the same thing?....from what I read....Open up the MPD, then open up the damper, add a little coal to get her going, then do a shake down until there are hot coals falling into the ash pan...then stop shaking and fill her up....How far from the top of the stove should I fill to?

Thanks

Neal

Neal,

I don't know how close your firebox is to the top plates, so we'll go by the stove makers height of the firebox lining. With my range the top edge of the firebox lining is about 2-1/2 inches below the top plates. At night, when I damper down the stove, I fill mine right up to the plates.

If your going to damper the range down to run it slow, you can fill it right up to the top edge of the firebox lining, and then mound the coal higher in the center. Running it slowly it won't get hot enough to damage the top plates with the coal bed that close to the plates.

After many hours, as the coal bed burns from the bottom up and it gets hotter near the top, the pile drops in height because the lower coals are burning away to ash, which has less volume than when they were unburned coal. So, the bed automatically drops and there's no worry about over heating the plates.

However, if your running the stove hotter to cook on, or get more heat out of the stove, don't get the coal bed above the firebox lining.

Sometime when your home to keep an eye on it, try this. Once the stove is shaken, fully loaded, and burning well in the lower part of the bed, with the primary damper almost closed, try closing the MPD fully and see if it will still draw enough to maintain the fire at a steady rate. If it does, that should give you an extra hour, or two more burn time than running it with the MPD at 15% open.

With a 6 inch deep 7x15 firebox, fully loaded with nut coal (about 25 pounds), my range will do 12 hours and easily have enough fire left to still be able to light a batch of fresh coal.

Wanting to do work on it one day, I let the range run until it burned out on it's own. After 15 hours it still had enough burning coal to get it relit and I gave up, dumped ash over the entire firebed and shut off the primary air completely to smother it so that I could get to work on it.

Paul

Well it has been almost a month now of using the Caloric and I can honestly say that I have been quite pleased with my results thus far. I am really grateful of the help I have received here, as well as the other forum posts I have read through. I have learned that how to keep my fire burning at around 200 on a warm day, and I have learned to keep it steady at 400 on a cold day....although I am still tweaking here and there.

I came home last night from work and I had a nice HOT fire burning after 12 hrs. The Temp was at 400, the damper was shut, the MPD was fully closed, and I had a RED HOT bed of coal. I shook her down, and loaded her up and the HOT FIRE consumed that coal quickly. As the outside temps started to go up through the evening because of a warm front, the inside house temp was getting uncomfortable. I thought I lost control of the fire. But I remember a thread in the forum about Range Coal, and how some people add Pea or rice to keep the air flow down. So I added a bed of about 2 inches of RICE and I got the stack temp down to 200 again, and was able to keep it there through the night. In the morning the fire was still hummin away at 200 and I still had some unburned RICE. So I gave her a fresh shakedown and filled her to the brim with my mixed assortment of coal that resembles CHESTNUT....and some STOVE...and a little PEA.

So tonight it will be interesting to see what the temp is at when I get home.

Stay Tuned!

Congrats. Your quickly finding out what that range is capable of.

And your going to be cooking on it too, right ? Come on over to the Cookin' with Coal thread.

Cookin' With Coal

No sense wasting heat with a good range.

Paul

With Temps down to ZERO I thought I would share the method I have been using to keep my fire going through the day while I am at work.

When I wake up in the morning the first thing I do is open the MPD and then the draft to fully open. I then add a small layer of coal to the existing fire.

I then proceed to start getting ready for work, ..shower, shave, coffee, and start the truck up.

Once I get that done the fire is usually roaring. I then shake the grates until it seems like no more ash is falling....this usually means the ash and coal have formed a bridge in the burn chamber and so nothing else is falling...I then open up each lid one at a time and with a shovel I push down the ash and coal to fill the void. I then shake a little more until I have some hot coals falling and a little glow from the coals.

At this point I stop shaking. The coal I added previously is now enveloped into the hot coals, and so now I fill the burn chamber completely with a load of new coal...close the draft and the MPD...and head out to work.

When I come home about 12 hours later I have a HOT fire going with a stack temp of about 450.

If your getting 450 stack temp with the MPD and "draft" closed ( by "draft", I assume you mean the primary air damper that feeds air in below the grates ?), I suspect you've got an air leak, or leaks, in that range somewhere below grate level. Even with a strong drafting chimney system, that's a lot of your heat getting past a closed MPD and going up the chimney.

If I did the same with my range's dampers, after 12 hours of below zero outdoor temps (last night we hit 15F below zero), I'd have a stack temp in the low 100's.

With my primary air only having the two end slots open a sliver, and the MPD fully closed, last night I wanted the range to run hotter, so I left the check damper closed. This morning (ten hours later), the round covers over the fire box were in the upper 600's, but the stack temp was only in the 130's. And my chimney system has a strong draft.

Next time you have it set like that and the stack temps are that high, try using a piece of smoldering cotton string, or incense stick to closely pass it over the range's surfaces. Go all around the range at, and below, the level of the grates. See if there is an air leak that will pull the smoke in. Don't forget to check inside the oven to see if the firebox is pulling air from a leak there.

If you can get that stack temp down and still have the heat output, you'll save coal and/or it can burn a few hours longer.

I will say, you better at mornings. I'd be scared to shave before I've had coffee. Not sure it'd be my face I was shaving.

Paul

Because his stove does not have the pathway around the oven and it goes directly up the chimney, his stack temps will be higher than ours. Do you have a manometer installed so you know what your draft is pulling? It sounds to me like you may need to put in another mpd to slow the burn rate down.

Randy

Opps ! Forgot his range doesn't have "low gear" ! Yeah, that would sure make a difference in stack temp.

Thanks Randy.

If he's gonna be gone for long spells, might even consider installing a baro ?

Paul

Sunny Boy wrote:Opps ! Forgot his range doesn't have "low gear" ! Yeah, that would sure make a difference in stack temp.

Thanks Randy.

If he's gonna be gone for long spells, might even consider installing a baro ?

Paul

If you put in a baro, it has to be after the mpd, but that might help him out. Without a manometer reading to tell us what his chimney is drafting, hard to tell for sure. I would say it needs either a second mpd or a baro installed above the mpd from what we are reading now.

Randy