Crane 404 - Our First Coal Burner

I would probably opt for a duct fan instead of using the stove blower (they are cheap), but if you do wish to use the blower and don't need the attaching plate...i would just screw the attaching plate back on the stove for safe keeping. If your not using a blower on the stove you do not need to worry about blocking that rear square opening the blower mounts to.

We set the Crane 404 in our living room, minus every piece we could take off of it to make it lighter so my son & I could carry it. I am looking at replacing the broken center piece of glass & wondering why are gaskets & the strap used to hold the glass in place ,could I just silicone the glass to the door instead ?.. or does the glass need to float on this stove ? Seems that if the silicone would work it would eliminate the breakage problem & the screws & the screw hole thread problem . With silicone I was thinking a thick bead to set the glass on which would allow the glass to wiggle if it wanted to & yet stay in place. We want to get it hooked up & ready but probably not fire up for another 2 weeks if forecast stays as it is.

I don't like the idea, the stink, the insecurity of the glass flopping over at 2 am when it fails, etc... I'm not sure what the breakage problem is ( silicon won't help that unless your strictly speaking about braking glass upon install and that's never done twice after you learned your lesson the first time). (I've listed some tips for this in previous crane threads) ... Please only lightly snug all screws evenly, do not tighten one all the way then next one all the way, etc.... Again, your just holing the ceramic glass in place (NOT squeezing it down).... If your placing to pressure on the glass even if you don't brake it upon install, you will inevitably cause the brake when you slam the door inadvertently.

I've heard of furnace cement used on some applications of glass/mica/ etc. but even with that their is always a bracket as well.

Thanks much ,dcrane. I did read some on the glass install on one thread,does gasket get put on the metal brackets too or does the metal go directly against the glass ? I know that the gasket goes on the door all around the glass,just wasn't sure on the brackets.

Picked up 1 pallet,= 1 ton of nut coal today for the 404,we won't be firing it yet as the EFM 520 coal boiler can handle the chilly days on its own.When the cold sets in we will be happy to have the radiant heat from the 404 in our concrete slab living room.

Yes, the brackets will contact the glass gasket in various points of contact.

Glad to see someone is ready for the season ...because it surly am not LOL I wanted to do so many things and simply couldn't (one of which was have some 404 fire pots made (I need one and I know at least 4 others who need one) .... ARGGG theirs always next season I guess.

I wouldn't say that we are totally ready yet.We need to hook up the pipe to the Crane, need to find a place to buy 1 glass to replace the broken 1,the local ace hardware does not cut ceramic glass.

Well , we once again have a WARM room in our house,the 404 is lit,the variable speed fan is at a little less than 1/2 speed,stove top has settled to 350*,nice 75* in here.We put paper,cardboard & some wood in about 5:30 p/m,lit it with the both doors open, when the flames came thru good,we closed the load door left the ash door open ,it sounded like a blow torch,opened the load door & added a bit of coal,added more paper,more coal & closed the load door periodically to get it running wild ,add more coal....25-30 minutes from cold stove to 500* on top of stove. Set the baro for .05 but the 35 mph wind gusts have the Magnehelic pointing at.10 at times. It is ferociously windy here & is to get worse yet tomorrow with the wind around 45 mph.No pics yet,we will try to post them tomorrow. Now our heat exchanger will not run as much & will take less heat from the EFM in the truck box.

Rob, as soon as I saw your post I turned the fan off but forgot to check the time,i just turned it back on. This room is 23' long,i am sitting 20' from the stove,without the fan running this end has cooled off quite a bit. We will do further experiments with & without the fan but for now the fan seems to be getting the air across the room better & as I type this I am starting to get warmer. The amazing thing is that the stove top temp was & still is at 320*. We pushed hard to get this stove fired today as we knew it would be a "feel cold" weekend in our house with this ferocious wind. Even with the hot air from the exchanger maintaining 75* it just feels so much warmer with this stove going in this room. It wasn't as hard getting the fire going as I thought it might be,but this chimney is REALLY pulling at least today with the wind & with the ash door open it got the fire going like a torch turned up .

I always found also that there was never a need to turn the blower fan up to high... I found it best to maintain a low/slow/steady/quite blow across the room... Results are better this way as your not cooling the combustion chamber or heat exchanger dramatically.

Yes... When initiating your fire with wood... That blow torch roar like a freight train is a beautiful thing!

Thanks,dcrane. I dreaded starting this stove as I have read posts of those who had so much trouble starting their hand fired stoves (all makes) I did not want to have a long drawn out ordeal with lighting it,so when I found that the draft was so strong with the ash door open,i started to add coal as soon as we had decent flames. We never got to add any sizable pieces of wood just some 2x4 nubbins,fist size,so we pretty much went from paper to coal.I am amazed that with the stove top at 300-350* I can easily keep my hand on the stack,no mpd,just the baro & it is working overtime with the crazy winds we are experiencing here. The winds were bad last evening but have gone beyond that this morning,some gusts are actually frightening with the house creaking. Supposed to be 43 mph gusts,i think we have surpassed that, BUT with all that we have a very warm,cozy room here with this stove going.This is what we have been missing for the last 8 yrs when we sold our Schrader wood stove after installing the OWB. Coal is so neat to work with,such even temp output all nite,stove top temp only dropped 10* overnite with the setting I had.

I've been hanging around the stove this a/m to learn more,tinker with it ,& observe it. IR gun temp in the center of the stove top at present is 550*,stack is 130* @ 24" above the baro.It sure is easy burning coal instead of wood,wish we had done it many yrs ago but the past is done & behind us.Air temp in this room is @ 80*with 2-3 mph wind gusts from leaky windows ,outside it is 40* with 40+ mph winds,so nice to have one room that is our warm up area.Pics show the draft we are pulling today,it is extremely windy !! Don't look too closely at the natural patina of the surrounding area,this has been a very busy season for my wife & I with setting up the EFM520 in the truck box & then this stove in our house so she did not get to do a special clean up first b4 I took these pics.

Looking good. Only disappointment is I thought the cats would be toasting themselves.

Thanks,franco, Yep,the cats have surprised us so far,they are still keeping their distance. There are several in the room but about 12-15' away. I guess the lack of a stove in this spot for the last 8 yrs. makes it hard for them to accept this new addition. We are still less than 24 hrs with fire in the stove so I figure they should come around sometime this week.