New house with a stove

I posted yesterday about the new house and my first coal stove. Well this is it. It is a Baker, Heat King the best I can tell from the Baker website. It has a manual damper and thermometer on the pipe. unlike the photo it vents out the back straight into the wall. Brick hearth and brick back wall. It has a blower with speed controls on the cord. I started a small wood fire in it last night and it really gave off the heat. I put a small amount of coal on it and let it burn while we were at the house. I wasn't comfortable leaving it overnight until we are in the house full time. I would really like the flue cleaned before I fire it up for the heating though. The owner of the house didn't know the last time it has been cleaned. It was his parents house and after they passed away he lived there part time but never used it. It seemed to have very good draft last with the small fire I had in it. Any tips will be greatly appreciated. I guess I just need to get used to how it works.

Welcome to the forums..

Looks like a nice stove, good luck with it.

Probably the best place to get feedback would be to post in the "Hand Fired Coal Stoves" forum...

KaptJaq

Looking at the specs on the stove it should do a good job for you. Just remember that when you burn coal fill to the top of the fire brick in stages. NO BARO if you are also going to burn wood at some point. How big is the house sq ft? Good luck with the new house and stove.

Baker is a very good modern hand hand fired stove. They are built like tanks. You should get allot of heat out of that. It holds about 100lb of coal I think and is rated for 3000sq ft. depending on location. I would peruse the hand fired threads and you'll find lots of info on how to run one.

picture a sailor whistling at a chick on shore!

....i I would not hesitate on having the flue cleaned
... then you can enjoy all that heat with a little piece of mind

Well, I've had the stove fired up for the last 4 days with no problems. I had a 15 hour span of not touching it and still had a good fire going. The house is staying at a nice 68 to 72 degrees. I don't even have the electric heat on in any rooms. I shake it and empty the ash pan once or twice a day. The only question is if I want a little more heat production at certain times how do I accomplish that. I had just been opening the draft a little more, and leaving the manual damper about 3/4 closed. The pipe temp runs about 200 to 300. it does drop below 200 when the draft is cut way back for the night. Am I doing this right?

Nittany Valley Son wrote:Well, I've had the stove fired up for the last 4 days with no problems. I had a 15 hour span of not touching it and still had a good fire going. The house is staying at a nice 68 to 72 degrees. I don't even have the electric heat on in any rooms. I shake it and empty the ash pan once or twice a day. The only question is if I want a little more heat production at certain times how do I accomplish that. I had just been opening the draft a little more, and leaving the manual damper about 3/4 closed. The pipe temp runs about 200 to 300. it does drop below 200 when the draft is cut way back for the night. Am I doing this right?

more heat-more air,less heat-less air

Nittany Valley Son wrote: I would really like the flue cleaned before I fire it up for the heating though.

If it was used for wood you have to be careful with that, the coal will dry the creosote out and it will eventually fall off potentially blocking the flue.

fastcat wrote:NO BARO if you are also going to burn wood at some point.

That's important point too, if you have a chimney fire you now have a huge issue on your hands because you have a wide open draft.

So more draft then? Do I need to do anything with the mpd or just keep it at the 3/4 setting i have it at now?

Nittany Valley Son wrote:So more draft then? Do I need to do anything with the mpd or just keep it at the 3/4 setting i have it at now?

not sure on the mpd,You need a manometer to know just how much draft you need

if your going to burn both wood and coal,I would leave the mpd in and install a tee with a baro.When burning wood unscrew the baro and use an end cap to close it off,then when using coal open the mpd and adjust the baro to your desired draft with a manometer.A properly adjusted baro will save heat going up the chimney

The only wood I will be burning is to start the stove. The coal seems to burning and heating wonderfully. It is a very constant heat unlike the wood burning days of my childhood.

I would get on a regular schedule of filling and shaking down the stove. If you search in the hard fired section you'll find everything you need to know but let's say you are filling and shaking twice a day at 7am amd 7 pm. About 15-30 min before touching it, open the MPD and open the primary vents on the ash pit door all the way. This gets the fire reved up a bit and helps lower the recovery time of adding fresh coal.
After this time period, do any poking of corners or center of pile etc.. then add your fresh coal, and then shake the stove till you get a nice glow from above into the ash pan. L

Leave the stove wide open as it was for another 15-30 min or till you know it's caught (blue flames)and rising temps then close your MPD all the way or at least 45° and set the primary dampers for the heat output you want. Rinse and repeat in 12 hrs.

Looks like your loading door has secondary dampers also and those are also opened for a while after loading fresh to help burn off the gasses. Again about 30 min or so till you see blue flames.

So yes, more air on the ash pit door primary dampers equals more heat. The MPD is open to Start/Shake/ Fill/ then closed down after the 30 min after filling and burning off the gasses. Hope that was helpful.

Sounds like you found out what the rest of us have found out: coal rules. Seriously, if more people really understood how nice a coal heated home is, more people would heat with coal. Glad you are happy with it in any case. And congratulations on the house and stove!

Nittany Valley Son wrote:The only wood I will be burning is to start the stove. The coal seems to burning and heating wonderfully. It is a very constant heat unlike the wood burning days of my childhood.

Thanks SteveZee. That is just about the procedure I do everyday. Sounds like I'm doing it right according to all you guys. This forum has been very helpful. You guys rock!