I recently purchased a VC Vigilant 1400 (Multifuel built in 1985). The stove is in great shape, and in many peoples opinion would be considered a 'parlor stove.' It's set up in my basement, with an 8" flu that dumps into an external, cement block chimney (lined with cap). Whenever I try to burn wood in the stove, it works great! Then when I try to run coal, it starts turning ugly. I will get a great bed of hot wood coals, make the slow transition over to nut sized anthracite, and then it will begin...my pipe temperature will fall, and fall, and fall...I can keep it at 300 deg. F for up to approximately 4 hours after the switch over, but then it will slowly keep dropping. So does the coal fire and so does the temperature. No matter how I have the stove set too! If I have the dampner wide open, thermostat wide open, and secondary air chamber door wide open as well. I have been following the operating procedure for the new Vigilant coal stove, as it is basically the same stove...with no good results. The only way I can get my coal to stay burning is by leaving the door cracked open and a fan blowing in it's general direction. I have also completely dismantled the internal guts of the stove and cleaned out all the ash, with no change. Is it the stove? Should I be looking for something different? A friend recently stated to me that his similar sized Russo stove has a much larger air inlet, and that could be my problem, lack of air?
HELP!
HELP!