Hand Fire Coal Stove Question

take a dollar bill & close the door on it in several spots--if you can't pull it out your good--if you can, you need to replace the gasket

debel wrote:

franco b wrote:Have you checked the gaskets around the door for air tightness?

How would I do that?

With the stove running, you can take a stick of incense and run the smoke all around the door, see if it sucks the smoke in anywhere...

dj

dlj wrote:
With the stove running, you can take a stick of incense and run the smoke all around the door, see if it sucks the smoke in anywhere...

dj

Rolling up a paper towel and lighting it then blowing out the flame will also do the trick. I didn't have any incense around .

I think our gaskets are loose. In some places the bill gets stuck and in others I can pull it out. Is that something we would have served at the end of the season when we get the stove and chimney pipe cleaned?

Fire going since 6pm-ish Friday night. This is the longest continuous burn we have ever had!!!!

D, I can change my door gasket with the stove going--BUT, franco b is way more familiar with the GODIN & hopefully will chime in--YES, ya got air leakin around the door which will make the stove run HOT

As long as you can control the stove you can put it off until some warm days. If you are afraid to do it yourself, just lift the door off and take it to a stove shop. You might also be able to rotate the locking bolt for the door more to hold it tighter.

Tomorrow will be the big test. if we keep it going through tonight that is. Tomorrow we leave the house at 6:30am and I won't walk back in until 5:30pm.

You should, hopefully, be fine with that D.

Fire lasted the night. Ashed it and filled it up this morning around 6am. Am hoping to find it going when I get home 5:30pm-ish.

I really have to thank you all again, the last week has been the most success we have had with the coal stove since we got the house and started using it. I couldn't have figured any of this out without you.

Congrats, your on your way.

Now, that you know how to keep it running, when you have time, you can do a bit of experimenting with damper settings to see what affect they have. That will help you learn what works best with your stove and chimney system and what changes may be needed - if any- as the weather changes.

Paul

I am so frustrated. The fire lasted through the day. Got home was still burning. Added some coal, ashed it, added some more coal. Cooked dinner, checked on fire and there was a middle collapse. The fire is basically out now .

How do I restart it without having to wait of it to cool down completely and start fresh.

Might have had a thin spot in the coal bed, or a hole open up when it collapsed . That lets a lot of the incoming air bypass the deeper, burning parts of the coal bed. Coal likes a deep firebed, but it also likes a uniform thickness so the air is drawn to all parts,

When you next shake and load. I open the MPD and primary and give it a couple of minutes to get the firebed burning stronger and increase the draft. That gives some extra heat to compensate for the temp drop that adding fresh coal will do. Then I add a layer of coal and wait until it stops snapping and popping. Then I do whatever grate shake and poking it requires. Adding coal before shaking adds weight to the top of the firebed to help settle any bridging. Some stoves need a couple of pokes from the top to get the bed to settle.

To relight a near dead stove, I use Kimmel's nut. It lights almost as easily as wood.

If it's really dying quickly,.... or it's dead, but still too hot to empty, I've had luck using balled-up paper and twigs and kindling sized wood placed right on top of the dead firebed, to get the draft going good and strong.

When most of the wood is burning to hot embers, I start added small amounts of coal on top of the trigs. I hand pick only the bigger chunks of coal for that first layer, so that it can breath better.

You can also add some more twigs in with the coal to keep it hot until a good layer of coal is burning well enough to keep the draft strong. The wood burns to such a small amount of ash that it won't choke the fire. That ash will easily mix in and work it's way down through the fresh coal, or get pulled up the stack when the draft gets strong. Either way, I've used that method many times over the years and I've never had it choke the fire as I've heard some say it can.

Paul

I actually managed to save the fire on Tuesday night. it lost a bunch of heat but by adding coal slowly and leaving the ash door opened a bit to get good airflow it was good and warm again by around 10pm.

It is still gong this morning which makes it almost 6 full days of constant heat. Our house is is nice and warm. The upstairs bedrooms and bathroom are 70 degrees all day long and downstairs it is warmer.

Think I am doing a pretty good job of ashing it, don't know how long it would take to get ash bound if I wasn't getting enough ash out.

Yep, sounds good D--don't get caught up in analyzing things, just do what you've learned & it will get easier & more consistent:)

Good job. You are getting the feel of it.

You will have to take care of the door air leaks when the weather gets warmer in order to get lower heat output.