Clayton / Hot Blast Mods and Tending for Anthracite

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franco b
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Post by franco b » Fri. Oct. 17, 2014 8:51 pm

Muddy Jeep wrote:I guess I'm hesitant that a while (whether it be 1 hr or 6 hrs) after I close the door more volatile gases would end up building up and then won't have any secondary air to burn in and cause a puffback or explosion..... Is this possible or is it that once the coal ignites after reloading it doesn't need any more secondary air until the next reload?
New coal on a hot bed of burning coal can release a copious amount of gas, hence the need for some secondary air. The more evenly the air is diffused through the gas, the better, which is the reason for special arrangements such as Lightning has built. Too much air or air at too high a velocity can also keep it from burning and not puffing as it exits the stove into the chimney, but it is potential heat that is wasted that way.

An established fire normally needs no secondary air if that fire is somewhat brisk. If however the air is restricted carbon monoxide will form in and over the mature coal bed. The deeper the bed and the more air restricted the more will occur. It is also a burnable gas but does not have the volume of that original gas on loading, so little danger of puff or explosion. It's good to burn it though since it represents the final stage of burning your coal, but just lacks a little more air. For that reason it is good to have a little over fire air all the time. Blue flame over a mature bed is that gas burning.


 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Fri. Oct. 17, 2014 9:38 pm

Muddy Jeep wrote:Once I reload the coal after a shake down I have to wait for it to ignite. I believe this is where you are leave the load door open 1/8" to allow some air in over the fire for the ignition. Could I just open up the load door vent instead of leaving the door cracked until the coal ignites?
Yes. It should be enough secondary air. The reason I crack the door an 1/8 inch is because I sealed the load door vents (before I installed the window). The main reason I leave the load door cracked is to keep the volatile gases diluted while the fresh coal starts to burn. The perfect storm is when the right mixture of volatile gases and oxygen fill the fire box and the whole chimney system, then it flashes and all that pressure and energy needs to go somewhere.

Good job with fiberglass mods.. It made a world of difference for me. :)

 
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Post by Muddy Jeep » Sat. Oct. 18, 2014 8:01 am

Thanks for the replies Lightning and Franco. If a little over the fire air is needed to burn off carbon monoxide, I'm now wondering if I should leave the load door damper slightly cracked all of the time to allow some air in or if I should remove a smidgen of fiberglass. I won't know most days if I have a brisk fire or not since I'll be at work. I guess I'm going to have to play around some with this to learn how it burns. My wife is nervous/skeptical about burning coal, but I told her to trust me, and she is. However, her main concern is that nothing bad will happen while I'm at work and she's here with the kids. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous since I have never done this, but I'm not nearly as concerned as her. I have really learned a lot in the past few months regarding burning coal and am anxious to start. This was one area I wasn't sure about though. I can't wait to see the cost savings over burning oil and keeping the house warmer than 62!

 
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Post by Photog200 » Sat. Oct. 18, 2014 11:13 am

Muddy Jeep wrote:Thanks for the replies Lightning and Franco. If a little over the fire air is needed to burn off carbon monoxide, I'm now wondering if I should leave the load door damper slightly cracked all of the time to allow some air in or if I should remove a smidgen of fiberglass. I won't know most days if I have a brisk fire or not since I'll be at work. I guess I'm going to have to play around some with this to learn how it burns. My wife is nervous/skeptical about burning coal, but I told her to trust me, and she is. However, her main concern is that nothing bad will happen while I'm at work and she's here with the kids. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous since I have never done this, but I'm not nearly as concerned as her. I have really learned a lot in the past few months regarding burning coal and am anxious to start. This was one area I wasn't sure about though. I can't wait to see the cost savings over burning oil and keeping the house warmer than 62!
I remember the first fire I had in a coal stove. I kept procrastinating for hours and my hands were shaking. Now I see that burning coal is much safer than burning wood! You will get use to it in no time and your wife will as well. It just takes a little patience getting to know the fires and when to shake.

Randy

 
franco b
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Post by franco b » Sat. Oct. 18, 2014 11:30 am

Muddy Jeep wrote: If a little over the fire air is needed to burn off carbon monoxide, I'm now wondering if I should leave the load door damper slightly cracked all of the time to allow some air in or if I should remove a smidgen of fiberglass.
I would leave a load door damper slightly cracked rather than tamper with the primary air. There are stoves that do that however and deliberately leak a little primary air to go over the fire. Really your main concern is just to burn those initial gasses and with experience you will learn just how your stove behaves under differing conditions.

 
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Post by Lightning » Sat. Oct. 18, 2014 11:40 am

Muddy Jeep, before I removed my load door air inlet I noticed that even when they were completely closed there was still a 1/16 inch gap that secondary air could get thru. Look at the inside of your load door and see if that's the case for you also. The 1/16 gap is enough after most volatiles are burned off.

 
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Post by Muddy Jeep » Sun. Oct. 19, 2014 7:59 am

Lightning wrote:Muddy Jeep, before I removed my load door air inlet I noticed that even when they were completely closed there was still a 1/16 inch gap that secondary air could get thru. Look at the inside of your load door and see if that's the case for you also. The 1/16 gap is enough after most volatiles are burned off.
I did look at the inside of my load door damper and I do see a small gap. I'm glad to know that this might be enough. We'll see come next weekend hopefully. I'm trying to keep my schedule open for an entire weekend that way I can sit there and be around it at least for the first two days to try and see whats going on and to make sure its burning well.


 
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Post by hotblast1357 » Sun. Oct. 19, 2014 8:33 am

Your gonna love it muddy jeep, I burned 125 lbs last week, or 17.8 lbs per day for 7 days, a lot of people knock these stoves down but with the right set up and a little patience it'll work great, no worry like there was with wood.

 
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Post by Muddy Jeep » Sun. Oct. 19, 2014 4:17 pm

hotblast1357 wrote:Your gonna love it muddy jeep, I burned 125 lbs last week, or 17.8 lbs per day for 7 days, a lot of people knock these stoves down but with the right set up and a little patience it'll work great, no worry like there was with wood.
Glad to hear this! I did see and hear a lot of negative reviews on these stoves. However, I'm determined to make it work and I have seen good success on this site. I'm just attributing most of the negativity towards people without patience or they are ignorant about how to properly burn anthracite. Its hard to beat the price of these stoves compared to others that are built strictly to burn anthracite. I'm a little bummed as I was looking at next weekends weather and its gonna be in the mid 60's. I'm getting anxious to fire it up, but I suppose I should enjoy the warmer temps while I can. But then again the weather men are never very accurate so I'm sure this will change in a few days.

 
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Post by Muddy Jeep » Mon. Oct. 27, 2014 7:43 pm

Well last night was my first night with a coal fire in my hot blast......and I feel like I'm off to a good start! I had a small wood fire going and then my wife mentioned to me that it was going to get down to 34 deg. This was at about 7:30pm. So I said what the heck, I'm gonna go throw a bag in and see what happens. Turns out the kimmel nut coal that I have caught within 10 min and was burning great. Our house stayed 68 deg all night long until about 3 am when it started to drop slowly. I think I had the spinner damper closed to much, however I still had the dancing blues at 6:30 this morning when I left for work. When I checked on it periodically throughout the night, my stove temp was never above 180 and my flue temp hovered right around 100. I thought this seemed low, however the blower kept running and pumping warm air into the house. I didn't bother to reload this morning because it was going to get up to 70 deg today. I consider it a minor success because it went all night long which I thought was good for my first time. There is some coal still in the firebox, will this relight the next time I start a fire? Can I just start a small wood fire on top of this existing coal? Thanks to all you guys for answering the questions I had previously. Here are some pics from my fire.

Attachments

Fire Pic 2.JPG

Shortly after loading

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Fire Pic 4.JPG

About 3 hours into burn

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Unburnt Coal.JPG

Unburnt Coal

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Post by Lightning » Wed. Oct. 29, 2014 8:10 am

Muddy Jeep wrote:When I checked on it periodically throughout the night, my stove temp was never above 180 and my flue temp hovered right around 100. I thought this seemed low, however the blower kept running and pumping warm air into the house.
What places are you measuring at? Can you post a pic of the thermometer locations? Just wondering too, are you using a barometric damper? Baros make for a nice steady heat output.
Muddy Jeep wrote:There is some coal still in the firebox, will this relight the next time I start a fire? Can I just start a small wood fire on top of this existing coal?
Shake it thoroughly at this point, then build a wood fire on top of it or use some lump charcoal. See link below for easily starting a coal fire.

Starting a Coal Fire in a Hand Fed

This weekend will give you a good opportunity to keep the coal fire going. That fuel bed will take 80 pounds of coal. After you get the first bag burning good, put on another to fill it to the top of the fire bricks. Use your primary combustion air controls (ash door spinner) to get the desired heat output.

 
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Post by Muddy Jeep » Wed. Oct. 29, 2014 10:18 pm

Lightning wrote:What places are you measuring at? Can you post a pic of the thermometer locations? Just wondering too, are you using a barometric damper? Baros make for a nice steady heat output.
Here is a picture of my setup. Yes I have a baro. I actually just set it up this evening to .04. The other night I just had it in about it middle setting.....Probably a bad idea but I kept a pretty good eye on it since it was my first coal fire. Even when my stove temp is at 400 deg, the thermometer on the stove pipe never goes about 125. Does this seem right or is the thermometer defective? I uploaded a picture of where I am taking a reading from for my manometer. Seems to be working well.
Lightning wrote:Shake it thoroughly at this point, then build a wood fire on top of it or use some lump charcoal. See link below for easily starting a coal fire.
I did this and cleared an area out of the center where I built a good wood fire and its burning well now. Had a slight nervous breakdown when I added the second bag of coal and it didn't catch for about 30 min.

Attachments

Coal Furnace 2.JPG
.JPG | 154.4KB | Coal Furnace 2.JPG
Manometer setup.JPG
.JPG | 160.7KB | Manometer setup.JPG

 
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Post by Lightning » Thu. Oct. 30, 2014 1:37 am

Muddy Jeep wrote:Even when my stove temp is at 400 deg, the thermometer on the stove pipe never goes about 125. Does this seem right or is the thermometer defective?
No, I don't think its defective. There are a lot of reasons for it to have a cool reading at that location. To start with, It's a long distance from the appliance. Having it on the side of the pipe (as opposed to the top side) , it's being fed by an updraft of cool air from underneath it. Also, since its after the baro, the baro is feeding the pipe room air which cool the gases. To put into perspective, My thermometer probe is insulated and on the top side of the pipe only 12 inches after the outlet of the appliance. At 400 deg over the load door, my pipe would read about 250-275. :)

 
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Post by rberq » Thu. Oct. 30, 2014 10:23 am

Muddy Jeep wrote:Even when my stove temp is at 400 deg, the thermometer on the stove pipe never goes about 125. Does this seem right or is the thermometer defective?
125 is a nice number because it means you are getting most of the heat into your house rather than up the chimney. As Lightning pointed out, you are measuring above the baro (which is fine) so there is some dilution and cooling of the flue gases with room air. If the surface thermometer says 125, actual flue gas temperature is about 180 to 200. As long as your manometer shows adequate draft, then you are fine.

My neighbor burns wood in a Hot Blast like yours, in his shop. When he gets those two big circulation blowers going EVERY part of the stove shows a pretty low temperature because the heat is being blown off into the room.

 
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Post by Muddy Jeep » Thu. Oct. 30, 2014 7:27 pm

rberq wrote:125 is a nice number because it means you are getting most of the heat into your house rather than up the chimney.
I agree. It has been a constant 77 deg in the house since I checked it at 5:00 this morning. Stove temp has been hovering right around 180-200 with the damper open 2-1/2 turns. Been burning non-stop for more than 24 hours now and have used about 40 lbs. I would try and dampen it down even a little more to keep the house a tad cooler, however I'm worried the fire might go out if I don't keep the stove temp up at least to this level. Plus if the blowers aren't running all of that heat is going up the chimney.


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