Whew! Almost lost my fire on the coldest night...

At someone's suggestion I'm using nut coal on the coldest nights. I've learned how to load the hopper in layers of nut/pea for overnight/day temps. Since it's 20 degrees day temp of late, I'm full on w/nut. It's a learning curve after 26 years of pea burning.

Nut DOES burn hotter than pea,but---I've found that a hod of nut contains less coal than a hod of pea. More space due to larger irregular size, so my hopper fill doesn't last quite as long, as evidenced by almost losing the fire by the time I got home.

My LW called me mid-afternoon to advise me of this, and offered to add coal. I really appreciated the offer, but I could see it getting buried in raw coal and going out. So, upon coming home at 5 I sprinkled some pea on the red hots, shook it and put the desk fan on high and aimed it at the open ash door. Barely a glow from below, now an hour later I've got a window full of lovely ladies! Whew, still on the first match...

How much coal does your hopper hold? How hot were you running the stove? I ran my stove at 530º all day with about 35 pounds of nut in the hopper. When I got home it was still going strong with the morning's coal still in the bed. Of course the top most layer was beginning to ash over but as soon as I shook the stove down the 35 pounds I put in the hopper dropped down and the stove took right off. I put another 35 pounds in for the morning. My stove doesn't feed the coal as the bed burns down. My stove holds 160 pounds of coal in the fire box as it is.

I shook down at 0640 this morning and I just did it at 1830 tonight, I did it 10 minutes early as I'm about to play Fallout: New Vegas and once I'm wandering around the Mojave I tend to forget my chores.

Wow. Lots of numbers there.

My Kodiak is pretty foolproof, hopper feeds well, I just don't think I had the hopper full last night. The hopper holds 70 lbs of pea, probably 50 nut, I never weighed the load of nut it as again I'm new to using nut.

Another week of this and hopefully back to more normal temps!

I think you just hit more on the problem--the hopper was not full--nut does burn slower then pea, it burns hotter due to sizing/ more bottom air coming through. Keep that hopper full. My 50-93 gets at minimum 12 hrs between tending--going through around 50 lbs per day with this artic stuff. And YES--change is always a challenge--you're doing just fine--got your under draft up a little the past couple nights??

Measuring below my MPD, my draft is between .01 and .02 if I understand the Dwyer properly. (zeroed and level) Calm it's .01, w/12+ gusts I see almost .02. I think this is low, but everything works great w/no surprises. (stove/mpd/baro going up the stack)

Even with the low readings it works predictably for me. I can also idle down at a 100 degree stack temp on days when it's 60 degrees and rainy. I hafta stare into the firebox to see red coals. It kinda defies all the entries I see here about fussier stoves.

I love my Kodiak!

Yeah that's real low. Even with my decrepit chimney I see .06 during gusts, and .04 running - but that's what I have the baro on the oil boiler set at (shared chimney). I block it with a plastic bag to speed up the loading process, and saw .10 for the first time today during a gust.

If your fire's burning good ... and your not constantly smelling rotten eggs, that port in the pipe for the mano might be plugged. It's happened to me before. Was wondering how the hell I could have .02" draft in 10° temps with 15 mph winds.

We got down to 9 last night and I'm re-kindling now with some nice seasoned oak to get my boiler back up and running.

I'm thinking of raising my water temp from 160* to 170* and tending more than the usual 10-12 hrs.

Any thought from the pros?

Jaeger

Jaeger wrote:We got down to 9 last night and I'm re-kindling now with some nice seasoned oak to get my boiler back up and running.

I'm thinking of raising my water temp from 160* to 170* and tending more than the usual 10-12 hrs.

Any thought from the pros?

Jaeger

You have a large boiler,
are you filling it up all the way with coal
is it under sized for your heat load
or is it just that much colder and using much more coal than usuall

I've noticed with my boiler,with the baseboard running much more than usuall the coal is glowing much more and using 10-15 lbs more in 24 hrs.
Your controls should be fine where they are and the draft will be compsentating more for the heat load
Put as much coal in before it falls out the door and look at it 8 hrs and see whats happening and adjust whats needed

Dennis,

I'm filling it, just been in the single digits the past few days and nights and I think it might have been too long between tending.

Keep it around 68 when were awake and drop to 64 at night (sleep better with cool air) We use programmable thermostats so temps drop to 64 when we're not home.

She's burning great again, and I've got it loaded to the gills.

Been using super hard nut coal the past few years and have gotten 12hr runs between fills heating 4000+/- sq ft.

I'm going to keep an eye on it every 8-10 for the next few days and see how we do.