Cold Air Return. Do I Need It?

I agree, you might see it spike above .06 during wind gusts, but thats ok.

Any updates, Larry?

Nothing right now, Don.
Be heading down in a short to check.
After loading this morning, left secondary air open for about 1/2 hour and put the bottom at 5 full turns to see if I could get some heat.
It was around 300 then.
I did close the ash door while poking and loading with no smoke.
Thanks for that.

larryfoster wrote:Nothing right now, Don.
Be heading down in a short to check.
After loading this morning, left secondary air open for about 1/2 hour and put the bottom at 5 full turns to see if I could get some heat.
It was around 300 then.
I did close the ash door while poking and loading with no smoke.Thanks for that.

That's good news.

Here's an update.
About 5 hours since tended last
Furnace was about 150.
Just put 5 shovels on (30#?) Just a guess
Opened the spinner another turn (now 6) to see if I can get more heat.

The house is comfortable but on the lower end
Mano is .06

15 outside and dropping

larryfoster wrote:Here's an update.
About 5 hours since tended last
Furnace was about 150.
Just put 5 shovels on (30#?) Just a guess
Opened the spinner another turn (now 6) to see if I can get more heat.

The house is comfortable but on the lower end
Mano is .06

15 outside and dropping

Are you leaving hot coals exposed in the front or back when you load?

Right now, I'm piling in the middle

That's pretty much what I'm doing.

My procedure:

I empty ashes from last shakedown.
I shake the ashes, then close ash door.
I poke the fire, and run my poker down both sides and the front and back to get more ash down to the grates.
I get one shovel full of coal, and sprinkle some just inside the firebox, then throw the rest onto a pile in the middle.
I get a second shovel full, throw about 3/4's of it in the middle, then toss the rest to the back.
I check for full glow in ashpan, if necessary I shake a little more.

The front and back light immediately, creating heat to heat the house. The center is for a longer burn time.

In about 1.5 to 2 hours, I go down and do it again in this cold weather.

And after my shakedown, (and before loading) my hot coals are just below the 'top' of the firebricks. You get more heat from a full firebox of hot coals.

Must remove snow from driveway now, I'll check in later. We got about 9 inches here so far.

Thanks for the detailed procedure.
Here's what I (mostly) do

Ash pan is always empty. Empty immediately after shakedown.
Shake the grates, empty the pan. Sometimes twice if not a lot of coals in the ashes.
Using the poker, break up any crust.
Then get under all the coals starting at each front corner and work to the back.
Then the middle.
Try to get way back mixed up and try to pull the stuff from the back to the middle and level out.
I start adding coal to the middle.
I haven't tried sprinkling any to the front or back.
Put coal in the middle 2/3 to the top of the bricks.

Typically, when I'm done leveling out, the coals are around the bottom of the bricks.
Sometimes when I start the bottom is burned out and hollow.
This last time, it was full

Thank God for propane!

Rant warning!

I think I'm coming to the conclusion that my furnace is a toy that is fun to play with when temps are 15 or above but will never heat my house below that.
Or I'm just too stupid.

It's not really that much fun either.

Someone did mention way up above that coal may not be for everybody.
They might be right

Although I have fire/coals overnight, my propane furnace runs almost continuously starting a few hours after I bank.
With the propane thermostat set fairly low. Around 66

After about 2-1/2 hours and a half dozen trips to fiddle with it, my house is still cold.
More primary air, less primary air, not much difference.

I thought I was clever this morning by opening the primary air spinner wide open figuring that would get a hot fire burning.
After 40 minutes it was at 250.
Open the ash door for 20 minutes and it got to 400.

I never dreamed being cold would be an issue with this furnace. If anything, I thought I would have a problem of being too hot and having to open windows or doors.

One good thing is that temps are going up so the furnace should be able to handle it.

I can find no correlation between the heat in the furnace and how warm my house is

I guess, over the summer, re configure so I can get a return and see what that does.

Sorry to hear that, Larry. Was hoping the furnace would have done better.

It was 66 in my house at 6 am this morning. Outside was - 6.
I went to bed at 10pm as I wasn't feeling well. My wife was still up, and took care of the fire til she went to sleep. Don't know what time that was.

I awoke at 2 am to my outside dog barking, and making other strange sounds. Grabbed the pistol and the flashlight, only to find that somehow, his chain had frozen to the ground. Got it loose so he could get to his house. My house was warm at that time, wife said fire was ok.
I think my wife said she rechecked the fire at 3am.

I hope I don't come across as "blaming" anyone here.

I have gotten a ton of patient advice and suggestions.
I'm thinking that the draft was a problem that needed fixed which we have done.

Noticed the mano has crept up slightly to .08.
Don't know if that's significant or means anything at all.

With the spinner wide open and the ash door closed, I did get a little smoke out the load door this morning when loading.

Is all my heat going up the chimney?

Overnight I did reduce the primary to 3 turns to see about slowing the burn.
The house was quite comfortable last night when I did that.
This morning, even with coals, the firebox temp was @ 100

It's hard to keep a bituminous coal fire going, and providing heat for extended periods.

I generally cover the fire and go to bed at midnight. My wife works the fire at 3 am, then I'm back up at 6 am in this cold weather. When the outside temps are above 20, we can eliminate the 3 am routine.

Larry all of you symptoms, (minus the soot from bituminous coal), are mentioned in this video @ 5:10... a remedy is available.

michaelanthony wrote:Larry all of you symptoms, (minus the soot from bituminous coal), are mentioned in this video @ 5:10... a remedy is available.

Wow, those guys work fast!

larryfoster wrote:I thought I was clever this morning by opening the primary air spinner wide open figuring that would get a hot fire burning.
After 40 minutes it was at 250.

Had the coal congealed into a big crusty mass?
It needs to be broken up so air can get up thru it.

larryfoster wrote:Is all my heat going up the chimney?

I don't think so. Are you keeping the interior of the fire box clean? I brush mine at EVERY tending, even though I use anthracite. Any fly ash or soot build up is like wrapping the fire box with insulation and results in poor heat transfer. It doesn't take much brushing. I spend a total of about a full 60 seconds and do a complete scrub of the inside.

larryfoster wrote:With the spinner wide open and the ash door closed, I did get a little smoke out the load door this morning when loading.

Can you shut the convection blowers off while you have the load door open?

larryfoster wrote:I think I'm coming to the conclusion that my furnace is a toy that is fun to play with when temps are 15 or above but will never heat my house below that.
Or I'm just too stupid.

Yer a smart man for trying to cut your heating bill. I think your discontent is a result of several factors and not being sure how to respond to different conditions. I also think you are just having some growing pains with this particular bit coal. I get the impression that it isn't consistently sized. If at one loading you use all fist sized chunks and then at another loading you just toss in whatever you scoop up, the two outcomes and how you should respond to them will be totally different. I went thru this when I burned bit coal. I couldn't believe how differently the fire behaved with small vs big pieces.

If trying to increase heat output the next morning (provided enough fuel in the fire box) you need to bust up the crispy mass and poke/slice from under the grates to get a good path of combustion air up thru the fuel.

SWPaDon wrote:It's hard to keep a bituminous coal fire going, and providing heat for extended periods.

I found this to be the case too, It's just the nature of the "two phase" burn cycle. First phase - volatile burn off then second phase - combustion of the coke. Both phases require different primary and secondary air settings for best results.

larryfoster wrote:This morning, even with coals, the firebox temp was @ 100

You are measuring this above the load door? I'd be willing to bet there is a layer of soot covering the inside of the firebox there. I know that particular place is hard to reach with a brush. When I clean that spot, I see much higher readings at the same air setting.

larryfoster wrote:Sometimes when I start the bottom is burned out and hollow.
This last time, it was full

Here's another example of the different conditions that you will encounter that I brought up earlier.

larryfoster wrote:I can find no correlation between the heat in the furnace and how warm my house is

There is a correlation but the reason it seems skewed is because of the two phase burn cycle. Sometimes the bottom half of the fire box is hot, sometimes the top side is hot, sometimes they are both hot at the same time. Stick a meat thermometer thru your warm air supply just above the furnace so you can "see" how warm the air is going to the house. Then you will get a feel for what is going on in the fire box.

larryfoster wrote:It's not really that much fun either.

I have felt your pain with the bit coal, it can be bewildering at times and figuring out why is where the fun is..