Coal furnace doesn't make a lot of heat
 

Any furnace people here?
I would really appreciate any suggestions or advice

I just got my new coal furnace running a couple weeks ago and I get very little heat from it.

It's oversized for my house and should sweat me out
I'm burning bituminous coal and have ,what looks like, a good hot fire.

But, if I touch the pipes coming from the furnace to the ductwork, they're not very warm.
Frequently I can lay my hand on the flue and it's not very hot at all.

Right now I have the lower air intake wide open and there's one on the door wide open trying to get a hotter fire.
I have the damper closed only as much as I can to keep the smoke from coming out the door. It's between 2/3 and 3/4 open.
I also have a barometric damper that was recommended.

I empty the ash pan 3 or 4 times a day and shake the grates.
I always emptied since firing up put only shook the grates a little bit.

I talked to the manufacturer today and they tell me my problem is no cold air return.

That may be a problem but not sure that explains why I don't have heat.

I suppose it could be bad coal.

Any suggestions, please?

A cold air return makes it much easier for the heated air to flow through the ductwork, without it, your heated air has nowhere to go to.

Thanks, Oh Boy.

That makes sense but doesn't explain (to me) why the pipes aren't warm.
I touch them right where they come out of the furnace.
Or the flue pipe

Anthracite is the preferred coal for heating. Locally folks often burn bituminous. I don't know of any that are using a setup like your. Most are using an outdoor boiler.

The lack of a cold air return makes sense. If the furnace is in the basement, is there an inside door to the basement you can leave open to see if that makes a difference? You can use a candle to check for air flow.

Thanks, Darren.

I'm in western Pa and near the bituminous mines.
That's all we have around here.
My dad was a coal miner and I grew up with a coal furnace.

I do leave the basement door open.
My reasoning is that cold air is heavier and will flow back down the stairwell.

Is this a stoker furnace or what kind is it? Sounds like a draft problem with the firebox. Should be able to get the furnace hot even if it is not delivering the heat to the living space due to circulation problem with cold air return.

Running two dampers seems a bit odd, how often does the barometric damper open, all the time or only during wind gusts, you may be defeating the draw of your chimney too much.

No, k9, this is a hand fired furnace

The barometric isn't open all the time and doesn't seem to open very wide.
I may not have it set right either.
Manufacturer recommends the two dampers if burning coal

I would set the weight on the barometric damper so it stays shut, open the other damper so the the flue is completely open and run as much air in under the shaker grate as I could get to see if the furnace heats up, coal wants air flow from below the fire, close off air above the fire as this tends to defeat draw up through the coal bed.

I have the bottom draft open the whole way.
Should I open the bottom door too?

We had a "Warm Mornig" coal stove when i was a kid, and the mornings were not warm.... anyway we would open the bottom cleanout door to get the coal bed burning hot and a good draft going. I use to sit on the floor in front of that door and put the poker in the coal bed and get it glowing red hot. Anyway once the fire was going hotter then the hubs of hades we would closed the door and use the draft door to control the fire. There was also a draft control above the fire to help control the draft, it would send air up the chimney without going through the firebed. Good luck with it.... I hate being cold.

I still have one of those Warm Morning stoves in my basement.
The bricks are bad or I'd find a use for it.

I'm heading to the basement right after I post this and try your suggestions.
Thank you

I froze today with a gas furnace and coal furnace both running.
Trying to use the propane hardly at all to save money

BTW,If I close the barometric, why do I need it?

thank you for your patient help.
I'll report back

The wind makes your chimney draw differently, the weight adjusts how much it opens, on a still day with everything running well it should be closed, when the wind comes up and may increase the draw the damper will open and let air in to defeat the "over draft" this keeps the fire from running away in your appliance. Without the barometric damper a long gust of wind could cause the fire to become too hot. you can get firebrick at some places and put that old warmmorning to work. Rural King has them in our area. Our local power plant up the road says they "burn dirt" the coal is so bad, just get it lit and put the draft to it.

I looked for brick for my Warm Morning.
Mine has some cut up on the side a good bit
Didn't look like any standard brick that I can get at Tractor Supply.
I'd have to get another chimney to use it.
I took the flue that it was hooked into for this furnace.

BTW, in addition to the damper adjustments, I shook the grates a few more times, opened the bottom door for 5 minutes or so and that kicked the fire up.

After 5 minutes I closed the bottom door and will check again in a few

Get a good hot coal bed going and then start adjusting your dampers and draft adjustments, they are a learning curve. Once you get the furnace hot then you can see how the house warms up. In the old days the coal furnaces were gravity feed, they had a large grate in the floor just above the furnace and the hot air would rise into the living space, and often they would just open the basement door to let cooler air return.

Do be careful with it, i can remember seeing the stovepipe on more then one occasion glowing red...

We didn't get our first coal furnace until I was 4 or 5.
Before then we had the Warm Morning stove and a few gas space heaters with the open flame and ceramic things in them.

Dad put ductwork in and we had a blower.
I always felt our house was the right temperature twice each cycle.
Otherwise it was too hot or too cold.

I'm not yet worried about red hot flue pipes.

I've wondered if this may have been part of my problem.
When I first started the coal fire, I would only give the grates a few shakes.
Maybe the ashes had built up and were choking the air intake.
I'm shaking longer and more aggressively now trying to clear any build up that may be there.

I can only add a couple shovels full at a time or else the chamber will be too full.
That's the basis for that thought.

Yes could be, you need air up through the coals to get them to burn hot a good draft will help with that.

I don't want to let it burn out if I don't have to right now.
Polar vortex.

I'll just keep shaking to see if I can work it out

Thanks, again, for all your help

Don't know if this will help you any or not, but this is what we do. We use this stove so the following info is from it's use http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/stor...ace-1900-sq-ft. We burn "Big Vein" bituminous coal from Cumberland, Md. The draft that is in the bottom door of the stove we keep full open. There is another damper in the stove pipe that goes to the chimney - that one is used to control the air flow (we don't have the barometric damper)
We keep the house between 72-74* DH fixes the fire around 4:30am before he leaves for work and I tend to it through out the day (every 3-4 hours depending on how cold it is).
When starting the fire up the first time we start with wood kindling. Then add pieces of slab wood. The coal is then added to the top of the slab. The slabs help with the air flow otherwise the coal tends to smother itself sometimes. Each time I fix the fire I run the poker around in the firebox and stir everything up good. Open the pipe damper to full. Empty the ash pan, then shake the grates really good, leave the bottom door open. Lay a couple pieces of slab wood in and let them get burning good. Add a shovel of coal, let it burn a few moments, then add a second shovel of coal. Give that a few minutes until everything is burning to my desire, shut the bottom door and damper the stove pipe. When I shake the grates I watch for the red glow from the coal to reflect in the ash pan, then I know that the ash isn't blocking air flow.
Hopefully there is some bit of info in this "book" I'm posting that will help you.

Wooly Bear, that is my brand and I got mine at TS, too.
I have the next size, I think it's 2500 sq.ft.

It's more than I need but I got mine on clearance in the spring and had a 10% coupon.
The one you have would have been quite adequate.


That is great info and I appreciate it.

I hadn't been adding wood very often.
Do you think that makes a difference?

When ir passes through burning coal it gets real period, you sir have a draft problem. Without seeing it i would suspect the barometric draft setting. :thumb:

I almost always add the wood before I add the coal. It just seems to help the air flow and the coal to burn better. Plus if we have a mix of wood - round limb sections and slab I'll build a "table" - two rounds with a slab on top then add the coal to the top of the "table". DH will sometimes just add a scoop of coal to the firebox and it will smother down the fire - it will make like a crust that you have to poke at, stir and break apart to get the air flow. A scoop of coal is a regular size, handle-less pointed end shovel (the kind you dig a hole with).
Also whenever you think about it order a backup grate. At some point down the road that thing will warp and then its darn near impossible to shake correctly. Then you'll get mad at it, trying to shake it, get a little too violent with it and off snaps the piece that the shaker handle attaches to (ask me how I know this).

That is possible, doingitmyself.
I had no idea what I was doing and adjusted it so the weight was light(?) Closest to the flapper.
It seems to be doing a lot better following the above suggestions.

Thanks for the tip on the grate.
I don't have a lot of wood because I started too late and it was too wet.
The trees had been down for several years but not cut up.

I'll try your suggestions in the morning

Just an update.
I think we solved the major part of the problem.
Thanks, all of you.

I woke at 3AM and couldn't go back to sleep.
Went down and fired the furnace. And shook the grates.
Threw a couple more shovels on.

When I got back up, I went back down and noticed the coal was concave in the fire box.
That is what I think I was looking for because it told me I had a build up of ashes in the bottom blocking the air.

All of the other things mentioned may have been contributing to the problem, too.

Thanks, again, for all of your generous help

Good I thought for a minuet you was going to need to change your user name to Larryfrosty :sing:

You wouldn't have been far wrong, Jim.
Yesterday my fingers and toes were a bit frosty

I used a little warm morning coal stove for 2 winters and it was only about 13 inches square and 3 feet tall. (outside measurements) my house is 1100-1200 sf. I was always warm in the morning. It was beautiful till coal went up here.
I would get a wood fire going, then add a little coal, then when that was glowing, add a little more till it was glowing, then fill it with about 15 or 20 pounds. I would leave the bottom draft open to get it glowing, then close it down for the night. The one in the door, forget about, that pulls in air above the coal and the coal would go out. Although I installed a damper, that was for safety only. I left that wide open. I set the barometric damper per directions I found online. but basically so the weight just barely keeps it shut. a good gust of wind would open it so as not to pull more than what is needed through the stove. That made it easier to control and keep fire overnight. In the morning, I learned to shake aggressively to clear out ash. That ash sure stops airflow.
I could boil water on that stove and was also able to touch the stove pipe above the barometric damper. The stove held the heat instead of sending it up the flue.
Now, a wood stove is different, you need a hot flue so as not to collect creosote.
There was a forum in Northeast Pa that I had belonged to that taught me a LOT about using my coal burner. I can't remember the name now, as I have used wood for the last 4 years.

here is the forum

http://nepacrossroads.com/forum-74.html

TRy closing the upper damper on the door to burn coal hot you want the air to come up through the coal from bottom.Hope this helps

When we heated at night with soft coal, a ''poker'' was a needed tool to break up the clinkers that form over the grate. Some times when the ashes wont shake down this is the problem. When you would poke the poker thru the clinker you could see the flame in the hole get higher with the air flow!

Stan, thanks for the link.
I'll check it out.

Wanda, the poker is my friend.
I have a really old one and use it religiously.
I seem to get a crust on top of my fire and use it to break that up.
Carefully so I don't do any damage