The care and feeding of a Warm Morning stove

I'd like to see the owners manual too.
I have a little Warm Morning in the kitchen and love it.
I'm not sure what model, but it's old.
Tom

Here is a link to a thread with a couple pdf's about warm morning stoves.
Warm Morning Information and New Hitzer 82UL

interesting stuff
i got my warm morning for free......we use it in the shop when it gets bitterly cold out and i need it above 65 in the shop for painting.
now where would i get bituminous coal around here lol

Thanks to Rockwood for the link to the Warm Morning stove pdf's. We have read all the info there, and have this Warm Morning 460 stove performing quite well. I am quite impressed with the performance of this stove. No more smell except when I first load it, and then only briefly. Sure do like the way it burns through the 4 corners of the firebrick. The air damper on the ash door is touchy, 1/32 of an inch movement changes the stove temp by 10 degrees. But it does provide constant heat. Thanks to this forum, and the people here, I now feel quite comfortable and safe using this stove.

I have used a warm morning coal stove for 50 years where we lived power would go off for 3 weeks at a time. the opening is for air to flow threw the stove and the easiest stove to keep like a furnace you build fire with small sticks and paper then add a few pieces of larger wood let get burning good then add coal small amounts being a woman I would put the coal in plastic bags when you shop for food you get plenty and tie them just add them you have no coal dust flying and I always lay a stick of wood in the middle to let it create a hold to let air circulate threw the coal I used a 5 gallon bucket full when it was below zero and it would keep the house warm all night then another 5 gallon bucket full for the day you adjust the amount of heat by the vent on the bottom door the door you put the coal in and the damper in the stove pipe you will figure the best to keep it the temperature you enjoy I only had to empty ashes once every other day and my home stayed warm I had 8 rooms and 2 baths people couldn't under stand how it stayed a even temperature but you adjust the vents and it is a steady heat some people use less coal at a time but I didn't like having to put it in all the time so if it was in the 40's the stove lasted 3 or 4 days without touching it my stove was stolen out of storage when I moved and would love to get another one my husband was a coal miner so coal for me is very cheap and I can heat the house with well below zero temperatures for a hundred dollars a year cool huh electric is about $350 a month so makes since to buy one back. remember you must use all the vents to regulate the stove not just one or two it takes all three and you adjust them to suit your own amount of heat you need.

anyone seen one of these?

Hi Guys, First let me say thanks to all of you for all of the great info.

Based on all of my reading from this site, I just purchased a Warm Morning 521 from craigslist for $100 and I am preparing for the upcoming heating season. It's in pretty good shape; it had a broken corner on the feed lid, but I patched it up with sheet metal and stove cement to the best of my ability and cemented all of the joints. The fire brick look to be in great shape and so do the grates. The fella I purchased it from had inherited it, and wasn't sure if or when it was ever used.

I am putting the stove in my basement and planning on fabricating a 2X2 sheet metal jacket around it, forcing cold air in from the 1st floor into the bottom of the jacket with an inline duct fan, and then ducting from the top of the jacket into a duct which is directly overhead in our living room. I am planning on disconnecting our oil furnace and running the WM into our 25' interior chimney with a new 7" Flex King liner w/ pour-in insulation (our unlined chimney has some very crumbly 100 year old mortar, so I thought it wise.) I have 5 ton of Thompson Bros egg Ohio bit coming towards the end of the month.

My question is, from your experience do you think this stove can easily and reliably heat a partially insulated 1,100 sf Capecod? I am hoping so, since I have to disconnect the oil furnace from the chimney to hook it up. I am probably going to build a seperate masonry chimney for it next year. I have a small ~50,000 BTU woodstove on the first floor which can just barely do the job if I keep it cranking full tilt. Just tired of the mess and the fact that the oil heat still has to take over when I can't be there to feed it every 2 hours. My heeting demand for the past 3 years was 2 cords of seasoned wood and ~400 gallon of oil. Any comments or advice on my plan will be greatly appreciated.

I'm headed back to Kuwait currently for work, I'll be happy to know that my $ is going to local guys instead of to the rich Sheiks over there. You should see the obscene amount of money they have from our oil dollars.

sounds good wiley, however, with any hand-fired stove you might have some dust and with the heating jacket around the stove ducting into the home, you might create a dust nuisance in the home. Thompson bros. has some good coal for hand-firing, however as it's high vol you will have a learning curve with the stove (less underfire air and more over fire air to reduce soot) and you don't want to fire this coal too hot with underfire air anyway because it will clinker.

Thank you Berlin.

I am thinking of only placing the jacket around the barrel and part of the top of the stove leaving the loading lid, ash pan, and flue open to try to avoid the dust. I have also re-cemented all the joints with stove cement where the cast top and ash pan connect to the steel barrel of the stove, so I am hoping those two things would keep the dust to a minimum. I would like to have put the stove in our living area where I currently have our woodstove, but the wife's convinced that I'll make a mess of the place. My other option is I can pull all of the forced air vents off to the first floor and just let the heat naturally rise up from the basement and the cold air return in the same manner. The basement is an old block un-insulated foundation and cement floor so I am guessing it would soak up a fair bit of heat. I was thinking with the jacket that I could try to funnel the air up instead of wasting the heat to the basement, but if you think it wise, I may try the other route first. I could always add the jacket later.

As for the Thompson Bros coal, I am waiting for a trucking price from Valier's delivery guy. I am only about 20 miles from Thompson Bros at $120 a ton + delivery, and about 80 miles from Valier at $90 a ton + delivery. In your opinion, if the trucking cost isn't too prohibitve say $200 difference total, would you reccomend their coal over Thompson Bros for my first attempt at hand firing? With Valier's being about $30 a ton cheaper it helps with offsetting the shipping. I could go with Kentucky from T. Bros, but at $215 a ton it's the same as I can get anthracite for in bulk down here.

Thanks again for the help. I'm just trying to make sure I get off on the right foot. The wife's pretty skeptical of the whole plan I think she'll change her mind if I get it set up right with your guy's advice, and we don't spend near a couple of grand to freeze all winter with oil.

I would really insist to your wife that the stove goes in the living room; with the stove in the basement, you'll have a lot of wasted heat and much more frequent tending to keep up with the heat load.

As far a Thompson bros. vs. Valier, well, I know quite a few people that like both, and they're both good in different ways.

Thompson bros. the good:
-Denser coal
-slightly cleaner burn
-less ash (most of the time, but not always, what he's mining now is around 8%, but that's subject to change depending on where he is in the seam)

the bad
-high sulfur (more pungent smell initially)
-high sulfur means higher tendency to clinker if fired excessively hot
-higher price


Valier coal is higher ash (around 12% right now) is a bit lower sulfur (valier is pink/tan ash vs. thomspson bros burgundy ash). Valier coal is one of the easiest coals to burn, but the burn times are a little shorter than thomson bros. Valier allso has a tendency to backpuff (as all coals do) that is slightly more pronounced than thompson bros. Valier "lump" or "oversize" is MUCH smaller than thompson bros lump, it's about the size of thompson bros nut.

having said all this, I would go with thompson bros if they're close, i think you'll be happy with it, just remember 7 or 8" flue all the way right from the stove collar, NO baro, and seal/screw all stove-pipe joints between the stove and the chimney - if you have a backpuff there will be no mess. Be sure to get the BIGGEST sizes of coal that will fit in your stove. Thompson bros egg or lump with a preferance for lump if they will fit.

BTW, you should try some KY lump before you buy, it doesn't matter that the price is the same as anthracite, you're getting arguably better coal. much more heat, much less ash and much greater ease of use than other bituminous or anthracite.

I guess I'll stick with Thompson Bros based on what you are saying. Maybe I'll head over with the trailer and bring back a bit of Kentucky and their egg or lump too, which ever I think will fit though the lid and try each.

I'm glad you mentioned the No Baro. Makes sense since it would most likely puff back through there. I plan on running 7" from the stove with one elbow and up a new 7" Flex King liner which should arrive in the morning (biggest liner I could fit). The old chimney is unlined and I'm sure has a gap or two in the mortar joints. Would you put in a manual damper since there won't be a baro, or isn't it really need to burn bit in a hand fired?

Well, some people like a baro for hand fired bit and swear by it. I don't because of the problems it can cause. If you throw a T in your stovepipe then you can always try a baro at a later date if you have excessive draft, just cap the open end of the T now. 7" is alright but not ideal. Unless your chimney was in absolutely horrible shape, a liner with coal really isn't necessary or good. a few small spots of air infiltration through a crappy mortar joint aren't going to cause a safety issue in a coal-burning chimney - the stack is under negative pressure so nothing will exit. NO MPD with bit coal, it's just a soot catcher. Yes, definately try a few buckets of KY lump to see how it works for you, if you don't think it's much better than the ohio, then it's not worth it to spend the extra money, if, however, it performs really nicely in your appliance you can make the determination whether it's worth the additional $$. good luck with your project.

Thanks for all of the advice. I'll let you know how it goes. Still in the planning stages, since I'm stuck in Kuwait for 2 weeks and then onto south africa shortly there after. Hopefully I'll be back in time to have everything ready before the weather turns.
Oh, one reason I decided on the liner is so I can burn wood and for insurance purposes. I have about 4 cords to go through, so I thought I would feed it on the weekends or when we only needed a bit of supplemental heat. I'm guessing a nice hot seasoned wood fire with a bunch of secondary air might help blow the old soot out from time to time. We have an Englander nc13 in our dining room, but I'm tired of the mess. That is where I considered putting the WM, but with a 6" 316 manufactured chimney, me learning to burn bit, the wifes complaints, and the need for a bigger hearth pad I decided to try it in the basement first. I plan on enclosing front porch next summer, so I may build a new masonry chimney there and move it into the living area then, if a can master this bit burnin'.

Wiley, I also have a 521 and my biggest problem with dust is when shaking down the ashes. I have a mpd installed but mainly use it for overfires when I add a large amount or coal and the volitiles get ahead of me and she starts getting pretty warm and red you can throttle it back a bit by closing damper down. I would consider adding a magic heat reclaimer , it really blows some heat that would otherwise be lost up chimney if you have room for it.

Hi Willis, thanks for the advice. I would probably have to mount a reclaimer on the horizontal since my flue connection and basement ceiling is quite low. I think I read a post that they could be mounted in that manner if need be, may have even been from you. As for the manual pipe damper and reclaimer, any issues with soot? Seems like a good place for it to accumulate heavily.

How's your 521 for burnin' Eastern OH bit? Are you able to get some nice long burns out of it with good heat? I'm planning on a load of Thompson Bros egg or lump, but if I get time I am going to go pick up a small load of Kentucky to try first per Berlin's reccomendations. Also what's your set-up, if you don't mind me asking, basement or living area, and are you able to heat your whole house with it?

Hope I didn't overwhelm you with questions, just trying to make sure I have a good plan in place. Also I found an old brochure with the 521 listed which I can post if you are interested. I don't think the previous brochure that was posted had our model on there. It doesn't say much other than the 521 is the newest version of the original warm morning. I got it from my Grandmother who has a 523 with the original sales reciept, brochure, and instructions from 1981. They haven't used theirs in years, as they are getting well up in age. I may borrow her shaker handle if it fits my grate, since they don't have any plans to use their stove anytime soon. I would have really liked to have bought her 523 from her, but I think she likes the idea of having it just incase it's ever needed for duty, so I couldn't bring myself to ask. I can remember getting warm in front of it after playing in the snow as a kid and it throwing some serious heat, and a before bedtime trip to the basement to tend the fire with my grandfather every night when I stayed over. If I remember correctly, they burned wood days and coal nights with their 523.