First Burn

Nope still hold'n out on the 1st burn, There was snow up in the High Peaks last night, (Adirondaks), Cold here in Glens falls Ny 54 as I type this gonna be big frost, but it is a bit on the windy side tonight, I usually try to hold off as long as possible on the 1st light, But, Possibly this year I'll need to fire up a bit earlier than the last 3. My neighbors Got the wood stoves lit, I can smell m..
tell ya all one thing the leaves are absoutly beautiful this year, Been awhile since they looked so colorful,

Yanche wrote:What's new for me this year is a new brick clay lined two story chimney and a new stovepipe install that has the stove pipe pitched up all the way to the chimney thimble.

Were you using a metal chimney before that?

Ok, I got the lighting of my stoker down. Just one dumb rooky question. I lit my koker tonight, but after lighting about how long should it take to get up to a full burn with a full grate of coal

mark.

First first burn on our Keystoker Koker (installed in June).
I wanted to hold out 'til later but
1) we're due for a frost tonight
2) being a rookie, I wanted to climb the learning curve before it's snowing horizontally outside.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Currently 44 deg and falling outside and 74 deg inside. Hot heat coming out of the registers and wife is smiling at me.
Coal is good! Me happy.
-Len

coalkirk wrote:

Yanche wrote:What's new for me this year is a new brick clay lined two story chimney and a new stovepipe install that has the stove pipe pitched up all the way to the chimney thimble.

Were you using a metal chimney before that?

No, I had a single flue clay lined block chimney, that I shared seasonally with the oil burner. Only one boiler flue connected at a time. Now I have a two flue clay lined brick chimney. One for each boiler. By next season I'll have in plumbed in a primary-secondary piping arrangement with automatic switchover.

btrowe1 wrote:Nope still hold'n out on the 1st burn, There was snow up in the High Peaks last night, (Adirondaks), Cold here in Glens falls Ny 54 as I type this gonna be big frost, but it is a bit on the windy side tonight, I usually try to hold off as long as possible on the 1st light, But, Possibly this year I'll need to fire up a bit earlier than the last 3. My neighbors Got the wood stoves lit, I can smell m..
tell ya all one thing the leaves are absoutly beautiful this year, Been awhile since they looked so colorful,

The temp here is 35 and I am still waiting to have a guy put my meatal chimney up. I am getting anxious to have my first burn. Hopefully I can get it up in a week or so and then need to have it inspected .

Sweet!

Got her put together & running last night after work. Was in the low 40's when I got home & 37* after I got it lit. Coils working out great so far! Got up this morning to see a 195* boiler -- WITH NO OIL & LOW FIRE!!

Here is a link to a new post I started on the results of the new water coils:
First Fire in MARK III With New Coils - THEY WORK!!

That's nice smitty, free hot water

Got down to about 40 last night so I thought a nice test burn was finally in order..Next thing ya know I've got crammed to the top of the firebricks..Long story short it got up to 64 today and there was no slow that baby down. We had every window and door open all day..It's night time again and that wonderful stove is still going strong

Think it's going to stay cool enough for me to stop my 1/3 full experiment & go ahead & fill the TLC up. The short fill experiment worked fine for me in that I was able to keep the fire going but yet shut down & clean out easily with a short fill.
Weather report says it's going to pretty much stay cool enough that I'll probably want to have a fire going, so I'm going to fill up the TLC tonight & go back to may "once a day" shake downs. (also see if the manometer readings change with a full stove & normal burns.

Edit: Couldn't wait! ....I just filled the stove up all the way. Cranking out much more heat & now I'm not on the verge of losing the fire all the time. (manometer still just hit .07 at it's highest reading with a mag. "stick on" stove thermo reading of 340* & outside air temp of 48*)

If the draft stays at -.07 you're OK. Lets see what happens when the cold weather arrives, the draft may go up.

Wood'nCoal wrote:If the draft stays at -.07 you're OK. Lets see what happens when the cold weather arrives, the draft may go up.

That draft was with the ash door wide open & the fire roaring along with a higher stove temp . It's now throttled back to a stove temp of 150*, outside air temp sill 48* & a draft of .03 on the manometer.

Unless the draft goes too high you might not need the baro. The test will be a cold and windy day when you have the stove going full bore. Harman says -.06 to -.10 is OK, I think anything over -.06 is too high. Mine is set for -.05 on the Mark one. You should see the baro on a cold and windy winter day with my vacuum cleaner chimney, it does the Watusi.

Please describe your chimney, I can't remember.

We lit a wood fire to burn off the newly painted Hitzer today. Temped to throw in some coal and let'r burn.. Things looked good but I noticed one cracked firebrick which I'll soon get replaced. Just a few weeks and she'll be running.

35.8* outside......69* inside with a stove temp (mag. stick on) of 200*...BUT....It's going up to around 70^ for the next few days. (determined to keep the stove going due to cooler night time temps, but I may have to use the "window-stats" more during the day)