Stove Is Not Air Tight

my warm morning stove is not air tight it burns even if the air intake is closed tight . Well my question is will a manometer still work in my case don't want to waste money

Devon570, im no expert on this coal stove thing but a manometer to me is like a lazer temp probe ( fun toy ) but not necessary to heat the house. When you say your heater will still run closed up what does that mean? Is it ideling or is it blazing away?

A manometer will measure the draft in the chimney regardless of the make, quality or condition of the stove.. so yes the manometer will still work..

Now,, not being able to control the air to your coal fire is a problem, I'd check the door gaskets.. any joints tha may need furnace cement, and for cracks in the structure.. you should be able to shut off the fire by shuting off the air.

Greg L

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Well the stove is not blazing away but I can load it up and it burns ok 12hrs with the air damper closed I did shut down and look for cracks but none . The stove does not use any gasket at all I don't kow why this is her

I have burned several older coal stoves over the years none had door gaskets Warm Mornings, Monkey Wards two lid cook stove (Atlanta), a small American cast pot belly, and an old Sears kitcken range. They were all controlled with a manual damper that was adjusted to control the burn rate.

I grew up with heat from soild fuel burners (grandfather, uncles & aunts, father and the old farmer whose land ajoined ours). These stoves and furnaces burned wood and coal, on all of the kitchen ranges when the sun set you could catch a periodic glimsp of the fire under the plates. In centeral CT on my uncles farm my aunt would open a small door on the side of the kitchen range on the fire box side and grill meat over the fire using a tool similar to what is used to cook over an open fire today. The farmer for years kept the kitchen range going all year that kitchen was some hot in July, I was told they finally purchased a small propane stove for summer operations. As a kid I never heard any of them discussing fine draft control.

All of the older stoves did a great job without high tech instrumentation, I guess I can see a requirement for instrumentation on auger fed machines where electronic controls are utilized.

Old drafty houses, with strong drafting chimneys is what was normal back then. Tight houses wrapped in airtight paper, good windows, sealed sills and lots of bathroom exhaust fans and clothes dryers pulling a vacuum on the house is what is normal today..

Back then, if the smoke went up the chimney all was good.. Today, just getting a chimney to keep drawing can be a battle.. So an instrument is helpful to measure the actual draft in a chimney to take the guesswork out of defining draft..

Greg L

devon570
I have a similar stove that I took apart and resealed all the joints with furnace cement and it made a difference. It was not an easy job and luckily all the bolts came loose even though they were a bit rusty. If there are no cracks in the cast iron I would reseal everything and use it.

These kind of stoves were not designed to be air tight and it takes practice to run one efficiently.
I really like the one I have and everyone who sees it wants it.

Those old stoves were not designed to be airtight . don't sweat some minor air infiltration . They also like manual Dampers . Seen alot of these in my time

Thanks to you all I wont worry about it any more just as long has am getting 12hrs out of a load and it keep the house warm I am ok, thanks again .

lewis wrote:Those old stoves were not designed to be airtight . don't sweat some minor air infiltration . They also like manual Dampers . Seen alot of these in my time

My old Dutchwest "Federal" leaked air like a sieve (bolted together cast iron) & would burn fine with all the air inlets closed tight. It also would leak CO into the house & I would have to allow more air in when the draft was weak. Not a safe stove to run & it finally tried to kill us all!

I had a scary incident about 4 years ago with my old (bought used) Dutchwest Federal stove. I had just shaken the stove down & had a full charge of fresh coal loaded. I still had the ash door open & a roaring fire going( with the ash pan still about 1/2 way out )when I heard a sickening crunch. One of the shaker grates had broken & part had fallen into & jammed the ashpan in its 1/2 open position. (one end was still attached to the stove while the broken end had dropped down into the ash pan)
I couldn't push the pan back or pull it out & thus I had no way of closing the ash door! Panic time!! I tried to figure out how I could starve the stove from getting air but, with the stove temp climbing off the scale, I had my wife cal the fire dept who helped me unload the hot coal into a barrel out back. (while I was waiting for the FD to arrive..just about 10 minutes...I opened the top load door figuring that this would lessen the draft through the coals. I think it did slow it down bit)
If things were happening slower I would have shoveled sand onto the fire & into the ash door opening until it starved the fire of air...but I didn't think of that till later. (+ I had no sand available...I now keep a barrel of sand out back!)

Makes me really appreciate my Harman TLC which has incredible control & is air tight.

I have a similar stove that I took apart and resealed all the joints with furnace cement and it made a difference. It was not an easy job and luckily all the bolts came loose even though they were a bit rusty.

Another thing you can do is shut off the lights and carefully examine the stove joints, gaps, etc. where the glow of the fire can be seen and then seal them up later with furnace cement to help control the stove better. When there's not a fire going you can put a high wattage light bulb in the stove then look for light shining though gaps and seal them up.

If you're only burning coal, you could use a barometric damper to control draft. These dampers must NOT be used if you plan to burn wood. If you're unfamiliar with these just spend some time reading as there is a lot of info about them on this forum.

Regular pipe dampers, while taking time to learn how to use, will work well with this stove also.

You should also get a stove pipe thermometer so you will know how hot you're running the stove..