Mark Lll Wont Stay Running. WTF

Bill, biggest new user mistake, adding too little coal on hot established fire. I had a MarkIII. I had the same problems. Get it really hot and add 40lbs maybe 50lbs. Grab Devel's egg timer and set it for 15mins. Come back when it rings and close your door and open your damper 2 or 3 full turns from closed. I don't think ash is your problem. All Harmans leave a fair amount of ash after a shakedown. I'll explain.

My best & hottest coal fire is the first one after a fresh start. Once my fire is more than 24hrs long, the total heat tapers off 5% to 10%. This is cause ash has taken the place of new coal. Not much you can do to remove 100% of the ash after a shakedown. In addition, I believe two short shakedowns just before or after a fresh load and 30 mins later is better than one hard shake. Other words, create hot fire with influx of new air, add coal, shake, close door, wait 30, shake again & top off.

Ok, I just shook it down and poked the bottom of grate and filled with coal, so far so good. Nice orange glow all through out the ash pan.... My wife said it had a steady temp of 300 all day.
My friend that lives down the road has a Mark ll and said don't add coal until tomorrow night around the same time, but shake in the morning before I go to work... He said he goes 24 hrs before he
fills his stove and mine should do the same.(he uses stove size coal though) DOES THIS SOUND RIGHT?

I have my fingers crossed that my stove will continue doing well.

Thanks, Billy

IMHO if you are there and can load/shake at 12 hr intervals, go
with that. If you try to make it 24 hrs, you could end up with a much
lower fire, and a long time to recover/shake/load each day. I can
pretty much shake/load and go in 5-10 mins morning, and again
in the evening. I empty my ash in the evening.
it sounds like your temps are holding better, and longer.
I tried a bagful of stove size, but didn't care for it and truthfully
didn't give it a fair trial run, but it's hard to break habit.
before you go for long burns, get the hang of what's happening there
and if you ever have to go longer you can try it then. I think my longest
was somewhere around 27 hrs, left for an overnite stay, and got delayed coming
home the next day, and I was able to open her up, and she took off nicely,
and I was able to shake/load without dumping and restarting, I was impressed!
but, it takes time.
how are the temps in the house holding up? we had 19 this am, and going there again
overnite I think..

BillyR1970 wrote:My wife said it had a steady temp of 300 all day.

If your wife is around during the day, have her sprinkle a few shovels of fresh coal across the top every 4-6 hrs. (not much, just maybe 2-3 shovels spread)
That way you'll have a fairly fresh coal bed when you get home & shake down. No coal stove that I know of will keep 300* temps for 24 hours without adding some coal.

BillyR1970 wrote:He said he goes 24 hrs before he
fills his stove and mine should do the same.(

That would be ok if you are just idleing your stove at a low temp. With the temperature in the 20's I would think you will be running your stove pretty hot maybe 1 1/2 to 2 turns on the draft knob and to wait 24 hr to reload will be to long. The fire will get low and it will be a bitch to bring it back or even go out.IMO

SOUNDS like great advice. I think I was going to try a 24hr burn time a little soon. I guess just because my friend gets 24hrs doesnt mean I need to try it...

I could have the wife put just a small amount in the stove at mid day.

It ran 300 degrees (pipe temp) at one full turn open all day and she had most of the windows open. Temps outside were around 40 day and 30 night. In house was around 80.
She open several windows and got the temp around 73
Much better then my wood stove, and it worked well but never lasted all night. (mornings were very chilly when we woke up)
This coal stove seems to really run circle around it
So far I feel much better about burning coal. What a difference in the amount
of constent heat... I will keep you all posted for the next several days, just in case things go haywire and I need more help.

Thanks very much, Billy

Billy,
If the house is too warm, and outside temps are that high,try
giving your stove a 1/4 to 1/2 turn in, and see how it runs like that.
It takes a long time for that change to regulate, but if she's there during
the day she can watch that and see how it goes. I would think that
temps at 300 are a little high with this weather, and maybe now that you
are getting longer burns you can try to get the temps back down to
225-250. This would conserve some of the coal also, and help in
a nice fire even at 10-12 hrs to make it a quick shake and load.
the stove will stil put out a lot of heat in that temp range.
expect a turn on the vent to take 3o mins or longer to level off
to a new temp, and see how that goes. if it drops too far, or down
below 200, open it back up partially and watch and wait. with a good
load of coal, and good draft, and good airflow thru the coal (after a good
shake) you will be amazed at the control you have on the fire.
but it does sound like you are getting better every day, and it certainly
seems warm in the house!

BillyR1970 wrote:It ran 300 degrees (pipe temp) at one full turn open all day and she had most of the windows open. Temps outside were around 40 day and 30 night. In house was around 80

Billy, It sounds like your sending a lot of heat up the chimney at 300* (pipe temp) with the draft knob at one turn. Do you have a barometric damper installed? If so is that 300* before or after the baro? My stove is running around 450* in the stove and that gives me around 150* pipe temp.

captcaper wrote:So I made a poker from 3/8" round stock with a bend of about 3 1/2 in. or more with a long handle so my hand won't get the heat and Poke into the fire not to stir it. As long as the fire is going o.k. this doesn't hurt the burning. When I do this I see lot's of ash falling into the pan. It also clears the corners out nicely. Clears the front out as well

Thanks for the tip, captcaper. I have been poking from the bottom, but I tried your method this evening, and it cleared the corners and the front more effectively and much more easily. Now I just need to make a second poker because the one I have has too much bend to use properly from the top -- and it's too short, I could smell the welding gloves cooking a bit.

BillyR1970 wrote:better then my wood stove ... it worked well but never lasted all night

That's what amazed me so when I switched from wood to coal -- it lasted all night easily, and the house hadn't cooled down to 58 degrees by morning! It sounds like you are well on your way to mastering the beast, Billy. Once you get past this, be sure to take note of Razzler's questions about a baro damper -- that's a must, in the opinion of most on the forum who have hand-fired stoves.

I don't have a Baro damp installed. I thought that because I have good draft I wouldnt benefit much and my air knob would slow my draft down.

Bill, I think you'll see a big difference in your stove with the heat and burn time if you install a barometric damper. It controls your draft and doesn't send all the heat up the chimney. Do a search on barometric dampers there are many threads discussing them.

http://www.patriot-supply.com/products/showitem.cfm/1940

BillyR1970 wrote:I thought that because I have good draft I wouldnt benefit much

It is BECAUSE you have good draft that you need the barometric damper -- to reduce your draft to the level recommended for your stove. My Harman manual recommends between .06 and .10 which applies to your stove as well. Higher draft just sucks the hot gases up the chimney rather than transferring their heat to the stove and therefore to your house. I won't repeat all the reasons here -- as Razzler says, there are a number of threads on this forum that discuss it.

I'm still learning the fine art of shaking down my Mark II. It's a bit tricky but I'm sure with a bit of experience it'll be a no brainer. It finally got cold here the past few days (mid 30's for high, 20 right now) and the stove is managing to keep my big house at 71 but it is running at 350 stack temp. Thankfully it doesn't get a whole lot colder. We'll see if it's any easier shaking down when running the stove this hot.

On a side note, I left the stove running around 300 all day and came home to no fire. I was gone 13 hours and the fire was gone. It burnt almost all the coal, there were a few mid size pieces trapped in the ash but most was burnt. I guess 13 hours is too long running at 300 without a shake or reload. Time for a bigger stove or one with a hopper!

Edit: After reading a few more threads on shaking I think my problem might be solved with a little poke! I'll have to grab something to poke with and get rid of those pesky pockets of ash!

Medtech
I load the coal up in the box. I pileit right up if I'm going to be gone for a while. But a Mark III will give a longer burn as you wont' have to keep it running hot to get the same heat.