Hitzer 75 Coal Stove.

Glad you caught it mark.

Hmm, well I learned another lesson, this stove makes heat!!

I came home today and opened the front door and walked into a sauna. The Honeywell thermostat was at 80 degrees and the basement was 85 degrees.

I guess the dial on the draft box actually works!

I'm sorry that my poor dog had to endure 80 degree weather, he needed a cool bowl of water but even the tap water had been heated to shower temperature.

Now you know the "nuclear reactor" feeling that a big radiant stove can provide. The Hitzer has heated the entire thermal mass of your basement. Crank it up to #12 and you won't be able to get closer than 4' from the stove with bare feet.

The house is just way too warm, which I can't believe I'm complaining about!

The temp last night was 76 in the house and this morning I dialed down the stove to 6, anything lower may cause the fire to go out, is that correct?

As far as using PEA coal, I'm actually happy with it now since the stove has been running for two days now. I'm interested in calculating coal use which will stabilize as I learn to run the stove properly.

Calculate this EWF--I'm on 2 for the past 3 days & house is at 70--72--figure the differentiation of 2 compared to 6 couldn't help myself Mark

Fred, the Model 75 doesn't have the additional slider vent that your 50-93 has. Also, nothing says the chains are adjusted the same way, so one setting on one stove may not produce the same results on another. With that said, if the chimney draft is decent the stove should idle down pretty low.

OK, then I'll try again--I very rarely use my ash door slider at all--couple of -20 nights & my bi-metalic flap is only open a smidgeon, 1/8 inch the last 3 days PS--every new season, I get the stove warmed up & manually re-adjust my chain to work the flap properly--it takes a couple times but I know it's right & works the way it's meant to.

EarthWindandFire wrote:Well, I just learned another lesson which I've read about on here so many times before.

I was laying in bed watching Fox News when I heard a bang, I started down the basement stairs and I could feel the heat. The stove was hot and when I slowly opened the feed door, all I could see was the whole coal bed ablaze, bright orange with lots of blue flames. The temp gauge read 550 degrees and climbing.

So, what happened was, I had left the direct draft in the open position after loading the stove with coal for the night. The "bang" was the door on the draft box closing. Oops!!

Luckily I wasn't asleep yet or I would have experienced the China Syndrome first hand...

The thermostat on the stove did it's job...if you had left it alone it should have cooled and the spring would have opened the flapper again.

I will try and find some of my old posts on the 82 describing this, but basically if you put a bunch of fresh coal in the stove the temperature will drop, and the spring control will open the inlet flapper wide trying to get the temperature back up...in time the fire will recover, and overshoot the intended temperature. The flap will close, and sometimes you can get some really impressive puff-backs from the collection of coal gas in the stove body when the inlet flap re-opens. That is why I previously recommended you leave burning coal exposed in the right front corner of the stove, and leave the secondary air spinner open a few turns.

Edit:

hitzer 82 ul

freetown fred wrote:OK, then I'll try again--I very rarely use my ash door slider at all--couple of -20 nights & my bi-metalic flap is only open a smidgeon, 1/8 inch the last 3 days PS--every new season, I get the stove warmed up & manually re-adjust my chain to work the flap properly--it takes a couple times but I know it's right & works the way it's meant to.

For some reason I thought you set the "idle" with the slider and anything above that was with the dial...guess I am thinking of someone else. Regardless, I would just keep turning the dial down until the house is the right temperature...or the stove goes out.

Hi Rob,

I have been a very good student, that's why the stove has run so well even though I had absolutely NO experience. As for loading the stove, I did it exactly as you described, without a problem. Thanks for that!

The house is a comfortable 70 degrees on the first AND second floors. The stove is idling nicely on 6 with a draft of slightly under .02 which is fair for this weather and an idling stove using pea.

You are doing very well. That stove frustrates many people when they try and get it started b/c the grate area is so large...they forget that the entire grate must be covered with coal.

Careful when shaking the grates, if you go too far you will dump the fire.

Mark,, Now at least that niggling doubt about whether or not this stove was going to perform better than the other is solved! Sounds like a victory and a warmer house this winter.

When running in the milder temps it is harder for the draft to pull air through a thick coal bed, especially pea size. When the draft increased overnight with the temperature going down it increased the velocity of the air through the coal bed, caught more of the warm coal to combustion temp, released alot of the volatiles and BOOM. Don't set the thermostat so high, if it hasn't been calibrated by you, and you havent tested it, how do you know it functions properly, and that the high number won't provide enough air for meltdown? You don't take coal stoves up to such a high heat so fast, the metal expands and contracts and doing this rapidly and unevenly isnt considered good for the stove. A hitzer of that size will provide a bunch of heat for a long period of time. I use stove or nut, and in early season only tend once a day, then when it stays near the 30's I go to twice a day.

Well, we just got home from a Haunted Hay Ride and the stove was cool to the touch. Even the inside was cool enough to touch and now that I think about it, the stove has been becoming less responsive and less hot since Thursday.

Based on what I just wrote, you would think that the cause of the out-fire was because I didn't shake the ashes enough or not aggressively enough, but I read about not being aggressive enough when shaking the ashes and I have purposely done the opposite. I shake until all the fine ashes and large orange coals start falling into the pan, twice a day.

The draft has been good all week and even now the draft is 0.02 which is pretty good. I am trying to save the fire by opening up the ash door, removing the pan and using a window fan to stoke the fire. Once the core gets hot enough I will add fresh coal, but I'm willing to dump the fire if necessary and start fresh tomorrow night.

Any thoughts on what I did wrong?

Still useing that Pea are you?