Someone help, stove keeps going out!!!

Ok i have a Hitzer 50-93 in my basement. Originally I had it venting into my chimeny without a barometric damper. The flu temp 12 inches from the stove was between 400 and 600 degrees. I dont know much about stoves but the way i figured it was I was loosing a lot of heat out the chimeny. So I installed a barometric damper. Well seems to take much longer to get the stove up to temp to produce heat. And every morning the coals are either out or almost out and nearly imposible to get going again. the weird thing is that when we go to sleep its burning so good. The coals are bright orange and the temp in the basement is between 80 and 90 degrees. Other weird thing is that the flu temp is still between 400 and 600 degrees. Someone please explain to me what the benefits of the damper is, how it works and if I need it? My chimeny is around 15 feet tall, one stove store told me not to use the damper because its only needed for taller chimenys, another stove store told me to use it and i will use less coal and get more heat??? Right now im just turned off with it, it seems like its more work then its worth. Thinkin to sell it and either find a fully automatic coal stove if there is such a thing or go to pellets.

Thanks
Steve

Steve--

I suffered similar problems my over the past 3 years. I removed the barometric dampner. I was told the dampner was used to prevent down draft on windy days/nights. The dampner is designed to swing open and allow the wind to blow into the building rather than the stove. IS THIS TRUE? My flue is 32' high so I figured it was nearly impossible for wind to make it that fall down the flue and cause any problems with the stove operation. I also believed I was losing draft thru the dampner thus causing my coal fire to die overnight.

What is the diameter of your flue? I was using 8" x 32' high. In previous seasons , the fire would die overnight. This season I installed a 6" ss liner and the results are great. I believed my flue was cooling off near the peak slowing the draft of fresh air to the fire.

Sounds to me as if your draft may be too extreme, allowing the available coal to burn itself out before you wake in the morning. I used small logs for 3 seasons to assist the coal fire. With the new liner installed, I can burn coal non-stop without the aid of wood. Try backing off on the draft 25% once you really get a good hot coal fire burning.

the barometric dampner is desgined to open when it's windy out so that u don't have a super draft going thru the stove and burning all your coal in a very short time.I have one installed on my stoker which is connected to a 40 foot ss liner.I've been watching it and it does open more when it's windy out and it also opens more has the liner and flue heats up.The idea is esp during windy days it will open to take room air up the flue to compensate for the additional draft.

SOUNDS TO ME LIKE YOU ARE BURNING YOUR STOVE TO HOT
OR YOU ARE NOT BANKING YOUR COAL DEEP ENOUGH
WHEN I LOAD UP MY STOVE FOR THE NITE I HAVE 9" TO 10" OF COAL
AND I GET NO LESS THEN 12 HRS OF BURN TIME
CHECK OUT THE PICKS BELOW JUST CLICK ON THE LINK
AND GO TO COAL PICS THATS MY STOVE SET FOR THE NITE AND 12 HRS LATER. AND I ALWAYS MAKE SURE I HAVE BLUE FLAME BEFORE I DAMPER IT DOWN FOR THE NITE




http://community.webshots.com/user/willijo847

Thanks for everyones replies,

Some more details: Im not burning through the coal, the coal is actually going out. When Its running during the day and before bed I have a nice blue flame burning real nice. I bought one of those magnetic thermometers that sticks on the flu, and I have the stove set to burn in the burn zone which is from 300 to 600 degrees, anything over 600 then the meter shows that its in the over burn zone and i never go into that zone. My problem is when I wake in the morning either the stove is totally out or I have fallen below the burn zone which is 0 to 300 degrees and once its in that zone its very hard and time consuming to get it back int the burn zone. I have a 6 " flu connected to a 8"X8" masonry chimeny that is 15 feet high. Before I installed the barometric damper I never had this problem!! Is this just a matter of having to get the damper set properly or should I just remove it altogether? I dont have a draft guage and most likely I havent set the weight on the gate properly.

Thanks
Steve

OR YOU ARE NOT BANKING YOUR COAL DEEP ENOUGH
WHEN I LOAD UP MY STOVE FOR THE NITE I HAVE 9" TO 10" OF COAL
AND I GET NO LESS THEN 12 HRS OF BURN TIME


I wish that was my problem, however that cant be it becuase my stove is a gravity fed top loading hopper. So first I get a nice bed going then I fill her up all the way from a top loading door. Its really a great design. As the coal burns and the ash falls through the grates then more coalslowly falls down. Also during the day im getting 12 hours of burn time on one load, and before the damper I was waking up shaking it down and topping of the hopper with coal. Id really like to get this damper properly dialed in but if not im just going to remove it all together.

Steve

those marking on those thermostats are for wood. 300 to 600 is so that u have min creosate buildup.When i ran a handfired coal stove i just used a manual dampner in the flue.open it when fueling and left it open maybe for another 15 to 20 min then closed the dampner fully.Was able to maintain a flue temp of around 200 to 250..Is the dampner opening up at all???If it's not put the weight closer to the flap

lime4x4 wrote:those marking on those thermostats are for wood. 300 to 600 is so that u have min creosate buildup.When i ran a handfired coal stove i just used a manual dampner in the flue.open it when fueling and left it open maybe for another 15 to 20 min then closed the dampner fully.Was able to maintain a flue temp of around 200 to 250..Is the dampner opening up at all???If it's not put the weight closer to the flap

lime4X4,

So then what should my flu temp be? What is the reason for opening the manual flu when fueling and leaving it open for 20 min? Yes the damper was opening up, but how much should it open? My feeling is that my coal is going out becuase since i added the damper im not getting enough draft to pull air through the coal.

Thanks
Steve

u open the manual dampner when fueling to allow the gases to escape faster when opening the door and when adding coal to vent the gases and to create a higher draft flow to get the new coal started.It's alot of trial and error with barometric dampners.I'm no expert here but i would say try and keep your flue temp around 200 to maintain draft anything higher then that your just wasting heat up the chimney in my opinion.But each and every stove and chimney is different.It's alot of trial an error till u find the sweet spot. but if your maintaining that high of a flue temp i'd have to guess that it's drafting to much for coal.how much it should open is anyone guess..Mine will sometimes go fully closed and i've seen it fully open esp at night when the temp drops and drafts better

lime4x4 wrote:u open the manual dampner when fueling to allow the gases to escape faster when opening the door

If you don't you can cause a "small explosion" for lack of a better word. The gases will ignite. Just ask my brotther....

It's not anything that will cause damage or is extremely dangerous, except for maybe your eyebrows.

lime4x4 wrote:u open the manual dampner when fueling to allow the gases to escape faster when opening the door and when adding coal to vent the gases and to create a higher draft flow to get the new coal started.It's alot of trial and error with barometric dampners.I'm no expert here but i would say try and keep your flue temp around 200 to maintain draft anything higher then that your just wasting heat up the chimney in my opinion.But each and every stove and chimney is different.It's alot of trial an error till u find the sweet spot. but if your maintaining that high of a flue temp i'd have to guess that it's drafting to much for coal.how much it should open is anyone guess..Mine will sometimes go fully closed and i've seen it fully open esp at night when the temp drops and drafts better

Ok, so maybe i should get rid of this damperand get a manual damper to make my life easier? Also I just dont see how my flue will ever be around 200 and produce heat. My stove doesnt start pumpin out nice heat until that guage says 400!! Does anyone else on this forum have the Hitzer 50-93 that could give me some more specifics?

Steve

Steve,
I have a Hitzer 50-93 and have had a similar problem, I would go to work in the a.m. with a nice fire in the stove, and return about 11 hours later with the stove almost cold. ( I work a 10 hour tour) What I found was that the magnet on the damper on the thermostatic control in the back, had caught on the light metal baffle and closed off all the air underneath the coal grate. The magnet was so strong that if the thermostat attempted to raise the baffle, the chain would slip off the connector, leaving the only combustion air coming from the shaker opening. You may want to check that as part of the equation. Also if it is almost out with just a few coals glowing, try adding some kindling to start heating it up and get it going again. I have, however, had a few occasions where I had to unload all the unburnt coal, clean the stove and restart. My next stop with the magnet problem will be to call Hitzer and see if adjusting the magnet will eliminate the "lockdown" problem Good luck
Bob

Well I went to my nearest Hitzer dealer and explained the problem i was having. He said exactly the same thing as many of you said, I needed a manual damper to cut down my draft. I installed it fired her up went to bed last night, and when I woke my stove was still burning so i was very happy!!!
Right now I have the damper set at about half open shes burning at around 200 degrees and very slowly. I havent had to add any coal, just a shake down, which is unbelievable becuase, before the damper it was burning through coal just as fast as my fiance burns money!!! The only thing now is that the basement will not go over 74 degrees where before it was between 80 and 90, so im gonna try and adjust the damper a bit so that i get some more heat.

Steve