Can't Get Warm???

I would appreciate anyone who has a few minutes to please try and reply with any answers you may have. I bought my stove used- Alaska rear vent and installed a alaska power venter ( SWG) . I have it running as we speak and have for about 3 days now. My problem is the basement- ( I have a 1500 sq ft ranch, bedrooms are above the basement area where I have the stove.) I removed a basement window and framed it in , chalked, added masonry board on both sides and insulated it, that is where my power venter goes through - aprox 6ft from the basement floor. The rear vent alaska has about 1 ft of pipe out the back, then a .45 and then my baro ( I had the baro 4 ft above this or 2 sections but after reading this forum for 2 days I noticed that I was allowing to much heat to get to close to the power vent and porbably go out the wall) . The model I have has a single knob fan switch that I think controls all the fans on the stove ( 3 I think- one blows over the top from the hopper , one cools the carpet motor and I think one pulls air into the stove on the bottom?) It also has a metal rod with a "lobe" and a nut- I have read about setiings, numbers, and fractions of inches as far as the setting but on my stove it seems the faster I put coal to the carpet it will eventually start to drop some red hot coals of the front and into the pan, if I got to slow I get about a 1 in burn and about 4-5 inches of ash on the end.

After reading all the great help and tips from the many pros here I set my baro at .04 and I have the flame about 10-15 inhes and about 3 or 4 in of hot coals on the carpet and it seems I am getting about a 3/4 full ash pan once a day ( I am using Blachauck sp? coal in 40 lbs bags) and the ashes seem to crumble and are a redish white with no unburnt coal in ashes. I am using about 25-30 lbs a day, yesterday not as much since it was around 50.

It is currently 80 degrees on the side of my basement the stove is located and about 70 on the other side- my basement is seperated in half by a masonry block wall that has a 36 in door way that has no door. I think my problem is getting the right convection throughout the house and upstairs. I also have oil/hot air furnace with duct work running through the center of the house. Sorry if I am going on to long but I wanted to try and give as much info in order to help anyone help me fugure out howw to get the heat upstairs- currently about 62 degrees and I cant get it any warmer- I have even left the door to the basement open and still cant get enough heat upstairs.

As I said I bought it used BUT it was in really good shape, I just cleaned everything, repainted it and have done all the install work myself. I have the coal stove on the opposite side of my house as my oil burner- that is why I power vented it because I have no chimney and the cost and waiting to have one put in was to much.

I want to thank you all for making this a great forum and hope to hear from someone before my wife tells me this "coal" idea was another one of my crazy save money approaches that failed. THANKS- Andy, by the way I live in central Pa and it is about 30 degrees now. Thanks again

Sounds like you got it burning pretty good, some convert it and run the combustion fan (the one under teh stoker) to run plugged direct in to an outlet instead of the rheostat. most stokers run this way, it burns betters and doens' rely on the feed speed.

If you don't have it vented upstairs, a lot will be lost in the basement, your walls will be cold and radiate cold air. Do some searching on here about cold air return and air circulation.

You need some way to get the hot air upstairs, do you have stairs, or something close? Otherwise, you need some vents above the stove or hooked into your furance ductwork.

Get a box fan or something to help move the air from around the stove or up the stairway

I have tried several "fixes" on my own but cant seem to get any to work. I 1st installed a small fan in the door way to pull hot air to the other side of the basement, next I did put a box fan (on the floor, that may be the problem) .

Do you think I should put in floor vents like my hot air furnace floor vents above the side with the coal stove to allow hot air to rise? How can I get the cold air to fall from upstairs (by putting in more floor vents? ) and where should I locate them? Can to many vent screw up the convection or air flow? Sorry to ask so many questions but I have no clue other than trial and error and I think the wife will not like 100 holes in the floor by the time I get this figured out.

THANKS AGAIN!
Andy

Insulate your basement walls, and the floor joist ends and end plates. You can lose an amazing amount of heat to an uninsulated basement. You don't want to waste your heat heating the walls and surrounding ground.

Take some time and read some of the threads on the 'Venting, Chimneys etc' forum. There are several very good topics on distributing heat. Here is an informative one with another link in it to a second thread: Moving Heat

The basics are that you need to create a circulation loop, if you pull cold air from the distant parts of the house and duct it to the distribution fan of the stove, hot air will migrate to the distant parts of the house.

Greg L

If your basement is 80*, then your stove is running fine. You just need to get the air to move.

I went through similar pains with my stoker. Greg is absolutely right on both insulation and creating a loop. One of the things that I did, and others have as well, with fantastic results is to capture the convection air from the stoker and run it directly upstairs (see photo below). It's ugly, but it works great. I run mine into the living room and let the heat travel through the rest of the house. Take a look at this thread: It's Ugly, but It Works About halfway down, QBall has a great pic showing two runs off the stove. I got the idea from him originally.

I live in Central PA, too (enjoying the snow?), and also have a ranch home. However, my bedrooms are on the opposite end of the house from the stove. Right now, it's 76* in the basement, 75* in the living room directly above it, and 73* in the far rooms. Before doing this, I would have had the basement at 78*, living room at 70*, and the far rooms at 67*.

Again, Greg is absolutely correct in saying that you need to get the cold air out of the upstairs as well.

thanks- I will try the route of putting some floor vents in and see about trying to duct some cold air to the stove. If I could get 65-70 upstairs on a 20-30 degree day I would be happy- the wife is not real thrilled with the 61-62 upstairs right now - but it is still 80 downstairs. I keep telling her if she turns the oil burner on I will have no way of telling if the heat from the coal stove in coming up. - maybe I can put a couch by the stove and send her down there??????????????????????

Thanks again- I see there is alot of trail and error and in a newer house that is well insulated I can see how this air flow thing can be a learning experience.

Thanks again-

streetglide wrote:....88...

Since you've got a centrail hot air trunk, perhaps you could use it to move more heat out of the back room of the basement. If it's close enough, you could construct something similar to a hot air jacket or just use the principles shown in this link:
http://www.leisurelinestoves.com/1904137.html
You could tie in your oil furnace blower into the plan to more evenly distribute the heat. Especially if there is a multi speed blower in the oil furnace with a low speed that could be used as needed or just left on. With the oil frunace blower, you can filter and humidify the air at the same time as move the coal heatThere are many members here using some twist of these concept to distribute trapped basement heat.

Sometimes trial and error is what you have to do without causing too much renovating of the house (cutting floor vents, etc...), Every home heating situation is different, I think we have all gone thru this one time or another. We were all newbies at one time and learn and share our experiences with others to help them out.

Hang in there, you will get it.

I did what horace did because I have the same problem as you.

I also have a ranch style home with 1200 ft downstairs and 1200 ft up stairs.

I am still toying with it but its keeping my upstairs at 70 right now and the stove is on low! It is 28 outside.
**Broken Image Link(s) Removed**

So many options with this concept.

Before I did this, it was 63 upstairs tops with the stove on low in the basement.

Thanks for the help and ideas!

Today I removed a duct from a floor vent above behind the stove that goes into my daughters room. I also removed one in the living room on the opposite end of the house- I used some card board to make a duct about 2 ft in length for each that funnels hot air from the stove into her rooom and cold air from the living room into the basement. I also closed the basment door tonight and turned off the box fan just to see what would happen. I also opend a vent in the side of my hot air duct running the lenght of the basement to see if that would allow heat to trvel through the ducts to all the rooms- I guess I will keep trying- cant quit now and I like a challenge. I have done all my own work for years and have found if you take your time you can learn (or teach yourself) how to do anything if you ask others enough questions.

One last question( ok maybe several) - If the "lobe is closer to the nut does that means it will burn hotter and use more coal? How close would be max (nut to lobe)? And how far apart is max that they should be apart for "low"? And what should my fan speed be at for "max" and "low" ? Last night I had it set up burning fairly well (3-4inch red coals and 10-15 inch flame) and I emptied the ashes yesterday around 10am- this morning at 8am my ash pan was over full and I had ashes pushing ashes on the end of the ramp- The ash pan seems small for this stove and I think the hooper only holds about 60lbs or maybe 80 max.

Thanks again! Andy

Andy,

You are now in the "dialing it in" phase. There is no set spacing from nut to lobe. A lot depends on the type of coal, fan speed, etc.

I believe that you have the triburner setup stove. In most cases, you will want to run the fan (rheostat)on max all of the time. This will give you max combustion fan to fully burn the coal. You then adjust the heat output using the cam lobe to regulate the amount of coal being fed on to the grate. You can modify your stove to regulate the feed rate with a rheostat but you need to then have the combustion fan on max. Search member Matthaus' posts to see his "patented" modification.

On my old Alaska Stoker II, the difference between idle fire and full blast is only 5 turns on the cam lobe.

The farther away from the nut the more coal you are feeding. Watch the plate move and it is easy to see.

Rick

^ I think you have that wrong.

the further away the lobe is from the acorn nut, the smaller the fire/less coal your feeding.

Moving it closer to the nut increases the fire and coal consumption.

I run mine on full blast for full burn and adjust heat needs with the lobe. Just one turn makes a difference for sure.

Before I did this and used the dial, my coal was not completely burnt.

I guess you're right Matt,

Was getting a little late last night. I may have been on my "second??" beverage.

Rick

UPDATE- I put 1/2 inch blue foam floor to ceiling on my block walls in the basement. my plan is to stud out the walls and also add fiber glass. I was doing good a few days ago and got the upstairs ( living floor,it is a ranch house) to 65 -the highest ever but it was only 30 outside. The last 2 days I have not been able to get above 60 but it has been 5-10 degrees outside. It is currenly almost 90 in the room with the stove but I cant get the heat to go up the vents into the bedrooms directly above- I currently have 4"X14" vents in the floor- should they be bigger? I also cut a "door" into my cold air return from my oil furnace in the basement and cold air is coming out of it. I have the basement door open all the time and I can feel some cold air coming down at the step level and heat above- my problem is I still cant seem to get the heat upstairs. I had thought of putting the stove upstairs but I don't want the house 90 degrees just to stay warm. After over a week I can say that I am burnt out of messing with this thing all day on my days off and every morning and night before and after work.The wife looks like and eskimo and my daughter thinks I am running a training camp for cold weather operations.

My floor plan is preety simple- a ranch home bulit in the late 60's, alot of insulation in the attic- I ever bought an attic door "tent" to insulate the fold down steps. 2 bedrooms directly above the stove room (the stove room is 1/3 of my basement). Then I have a 3rd bedroom and a bath on the other side of the 2 bedrooms, then the open living room and kitchen. The basement setps come up the center of the house and into the middle of the kitchen. I currently have the door off thee hinges in order to try and get as much heat as possible up the steps. I am using the cold air return from my oil burner to dump cold air into the bsaement and I have one 4"x10" vent in the floor of the living room for a cold air return as well. The opposite end of the house, (livingroom and kitchen) from the stove are the coldest all the time.

I installed a cooking thermometer that goes to 350degrees about 4ft up the stack and after the baro- it never reads much about 150, I bought a BBQ grill thermo that is meant to lay directly on the grill - I have that laying on the top of the stove( but the stove does have a second top to allow the fan to blow hot air- that never reads much over 125. I have all the blowers on high, my power vent runs all the time and I have about 4 inches of coal burning, about 1-2 inches of ash and I am using 40 lbs a day and emptying the ash pan at least once a day.

Thanks again for all your time and any IDEAS would be great! I am waiting to wake up one morning and see sled dogs and seals in my bedroom and snow falling!!!!!!!!!

-Andy

streetglide wrote:UPDATE...88...-Andy

Andy, you need to get the cold air that's trapped upstairs down into the stove room so that the heat trapped there is pushed upward. View it as a big circuit. My first house was a similar ranch house to yours but my stove was right near the stair well and the air really moved up and down by itself. Problem was no one could comfortably sit near the stairs Cold air has a higher density - weighs more- than warm air so it naturally wants to fall (by gravity). That's why you feel the air falling out of the "door" and down the steps and no warm air is going into the bedrooms thru the 4x14's. It will displace (push)the warmer less dense air upward. Take a look thru Venting, Plumbing, Chimneys, Controls, Coal Bins section that Greg L, aka LsFarm suggested. There's a lot of info there.

I haven't read that you have CO detectors installed. Before you do anything else, make certain that you have good working CO detectors on every level. Bedrooms especially since you have vents cut into them thru the floor into the basement.

Is the "door" that you cut into your cold air return duct/trunk in the 90 degree stove "room"? If so, try running the furnace blower. If it's not, run it anyway. Many room thermostats have a fan switch to manually turn on the furnace blower. Running the blower with the new "door" cut in it should do several things. Pull the 90 degree air into the cold air duct (tape a fiber filter over the "door") from the warmest part of the room, the ceiling under the living space floor, moving it into your living spaces. It will also create a small vacuum in the Alaska's room, or basement in general, and pull the cold air on the bedroom floors down thru the small 4x14 vents into the stove room. Warmer air will flow toward the bedrooms to replace the lost cold air. Natural processes are telling you cold wants to go down the 4x14s and steps. Running the furnace's blower will speed it up. You could ad fans below the the 4x14 pulling cold air down as well. It will be a slow continuous process, but you need to help move the cold air down into the room so the warm air can rise. As a next step, please take a look at the picture arcticcatmatt posted. You could push the heat off the stove into a room but at the same time be moving the cold air too. Could duct it to the "door" in your cold air trunk if you run the furnace blower. It's natural cycle that needs to be pushed due to your house configuration. Bigger holes will let gravity do the work but from your description of the cold living space, you can benefit from the push/pull of the furnace's blower to help the process along. The main cost with doing it this way is the electricity to run the furnace's blower but it will help thaw the Eskimos!