Hearthstone Mansfield question

Do you use the ash pan to clean ashes? If not, and the grate is closed, opening the door won't do much. I scoop - hate the ash pan. With just coals, I doubt you'd do any damage to the stove, but it's a practice to avoid IMO + once you open the grate (assuming you scoop) good luck getting it closed again - the openings will be clogged with coals. I'll suggest another approach. I assume you are trying to get faster load times due to the cold temps outside. I do the same during these cold snaps - usually trying to load four times/day. Once your fresh load is at the end of the secondary burn (flames) and you have the mass of coals, open the primary air wide open. This will allow you to burn the coals down within 2-3 hours and you'll be ready for the next load (I'll also rake the coals forward once or twice during that time). Also, be sure to remove a fair amount of ash - if you have a very deep ash bed, it is very difficult to burn down the coals - shoot for no more than an inch of ash or so when you are trying to burn coals for faster reloading. Is your wood dry? Less dry wood will coal worse than dry wood and will be more difficult to burn down. Lastly, you can also take a split of softwood (pine works great) and place on the raked coal bed (with primary wide open) - this will aid in burning down the coals. With more moderate temps, I love the way my Manny holds coals for such a long time - when it's bitter cold, not so much! Cheers!

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NH_Wood said:

With just coals, I doubt you'd do any damage to the stove,

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I don't know about that. OP wants to burn the coals down. As you said, opening the door with the grate shut may not do too much. But crack that gate a bit and you turn those coals into a blacksmith forge in 30 seconds! That is certain to do some damage if done regularly.

So... you have a coal bed sitting atop 3 weeks of ashes...? I would move the coals to the side, and shovel some ash. Keeping some ash in the bottom of the stove is a good thing according to conventional wisdom, but I shovel some nearly every day. When we hit a warm spell like we will have for the next 3 days, I let them burn down completely, let the stove cool, and shovel most of the ash out.

When I want to burn down coals, I just pull them to the middle and open the air full. I don't think using the ash pan door to burn them down would be a good idea.

I have a Jotul F 600 woodstove and I use the ash pan for emptying ashes every few days to keep them from building up too high in the stove. With this recent cold snap I burned more wood than usual and was reloading the stove quicker than usual in order to get more heat out of it. The other morning I thought I had better empty some ashes since I hadn't done so in a few days. I had about a two inch coal bed at 8 a.m. left over from a reload at 3 a.m. I opened the ash door to pull out the ash pan so I could dump it but before I could even get the pan out of the door the air flowing into the stove through the grate caused the coals to go ballistic! I could see the air shooting up through the coals, but thought it would take me but a few seconds to get the pan out and close the door, but before I could do that I started hearing a low rumbling sound like a jet getting ready to take off! I quickly slid the ash pan back in place and shut the door. I just left my primary wide open for another hour or so before shoveling the remaining coals away from the grate and then did my ash removal. So, in answer to your question, if try emptying your ashes using the ash pan when you have that thick a coal bed be ready for some excitement!

That's the reason I buy eco bricks, I rake my coals into a pile towards the front and throw and eco brick on top, I use two if its cold and I still need some decent heat. It also works with pine if you have any seasoned.

Don't open the ash door to burn down coals,,, a forge is what that would be.

When I need to clean my ashes, of course the ash pan is full and chances are pretty good theres a couple of inches of ash to block the air to the coals so no forge action. Just a few days ago, I poked around before remembering to take the ashes out, when I pulled the pan I got a small forge action going so I cracked opened the door to stop the draft and the forge action died instantly.

So that said, could it be that cracking his door would help?

This was talked about in another thread. Someone suggested opening the door first then open the ash pan door. I have tried it and it works. You get more air from the front door being open.

sorry miss read. I thought you were cleaning the ash pan.