How Tightly can the Stove be Packed?

[Gridlock]

Heh - another advantage of not having an ash pan - I'm never tempted to jump-start the fire by opening it

I used to do that on occasion with my old stove - it's rather like drugs as it sure does work well and is a hard habit to kick since even when it isn't really necessary it sure is nice seeing the fire BLAZE away in just a few seconds isn't it?

Now I just put the air up to 3 or 4 if I need that extra kick when starting from less than a fist full of coals and set a timer to remind me to move it back below 2 in a reasonable time period.

But it sure is a nice drug, eh? What is the difference between using the ash pan to jump start the fire vs. "putting the air up to 3 or 4"? Either method provides a lot of air to get the fire going, and in both cases it needs to be monitored to prevent it from burning itself out fast.

 

[Slow1]

Heh - another advantage of not having an ash pan - I'm never tempted to jump-start the fire by opening it

I used to do that on occasion with my old stove - it's rather like drugs as it sure does work well and is a hard habit to kick since even when it isn't really necessary it sure is nice seeing the fire BLAZE away in just a few seconds isn't it?

Now I just put the air up to 3 or 4 if I need that extra kick when starting from less than a fist full of coals and set a timer to remind me to move it back below 2 in a reasonable time period.

But it sure is a nice drug, eh? What is the difference between using the ash pan to jump start the fire vs. "putting the air up to 3 or 4"? Either method provides a lot of air to get the fire going, and in both cases it needs to be monitored to prevent it from burning itself out fast.

Opening the ash pan runs the air up through the coals and as I understand it basically creates a flow that can generate much higher temperatures right there around the coals than it is possible through other means. It is the way a forge is designed - hold the coals up on a grate and force the air to flow right onto the carbon rich coals to super-heat them. The damage you risk is to the actual surface holding those coals. The stove simply isn't designed to be run this way (unlike a forge that has the grate built to handle such stresses).

When I turn up my air I am operating the stove the way it was designed (and in fact exactly as guided by the manual) and thus am not subjecting any part to undue stress and/or wear. Mind you it isn't nearly as exciting as opening up an ash pan, but in the end it gets the fire going well enough - flames withing a minute, 5 minutes later I can generally back down to 2 or so and then close engage cat within 15 minutes of that (flue temp at 500 is my guide for this now). This is a slow start with barely any coals. If I have a nice bed of coals I have flames before I finish loading (air at 2) and thus just skip to the 10-15 minute delay.

 

[Gridlock]

Heh - another advantage of not having an ash pan - I'm never tempted to jump-start the fire by opening it

I used to do that on occasion with my old stove - it's rather like drugs as it sure does work well and is a hard habit to kick since even when it isn't really necessary it sure is nice seeing the fire BLAZE away in just a few seconds isn't it?

Now I just put the air up to 3 or 4 if I need that extra kick when starting from less than a fist full of coals and set a timer to remind me to move it back below 2 in a reasonable time period.

But it sure is a nice drug, eh? What is the difference between using the ash pan to jump start the fire vs. "putting the air up to 3 or 4"? Either method provides a lot of air to get the fire going, and in both cases it needs to be monitored to prevent it from burning itself out fast.

Opening the ash pan runs the air up through the coals and as I understand it basically creates a flow that can generate much higher temperatures right there around the coals than it is possible through other means. It is the way a forge is designed - hold the coals up on a grate and force the air to flow right onto the carbon rich coals to super-heat them. The damage you risk is to the actual surface holding those coals. The stove simply isn't designed to be run this way (unlike a forge that has the grate built to handle such stresses).

When I turn up my air I am operating the stove the way it was designed (and in fact exactly as guided by the manual) and thus am not subjecting any part to undue stress and/or wear. Mind you it isn't nearly as exciting as opening up an ash pan, but in the end it gets the fire going well enough - flames withing a minute, 5 minutes later I can generally back down to 2 or so and then close engage cat within 15 minutes of that (flue temp at 500 is my guide for this now). This is a slow start with barely any coals. If I have a nice bed of coals I have flames before I finish loading (air at 2) and thus just skip to the 10-15 minute delay.

Interesting, I see your point. My gut feeling is that it might be Ok to do sparingly just to get things started, since there isn't much heat on the grate anyway when the stove is cold or if it just has a few coals on it, as long as I don't let it get out of control. I won't do this anymore if someone can convince me that I should never do it, but it certainly helps a lot to get it going.

 

[jharkin]

I think you have you answer already but I'll just add another first hand report...

On my encore catalytic, I do load it very tight for overnights. I have a seperate pile of odd ends and chunks, so when I load for the overnight I place all my splits in pushed up against one side and fill in the other side with chunks or a couple of splits stacked vertically. I've even put in some really thin pieces on top to fill it right up to within an inch of the griddle. Only warning is to keep it clear of the glass as best you can and make sure nothing can snag the bypass.

I do this load on a real good thick coal bed (seems to help keep a big slow load going) and I let it get HOT... ~ 650F before I close the bypass then slowly work the air down. With all dry wood I can close the air down almost completely, with a mix of 50/50 dry and marginal I have to leave the control just a hair beyond straight down (a bit over 1/8 open). I can load like this at 9pm and still have the griddle at 350 at 6am... and still enough coals to restart as late as 8am.

With so-so wood you will need to burn the first morning load really hot next day to clean the glass but so long as your cat is working good I have not found significant buildup in my chimney.



A few things I found work/don't work:
- Opening the ash pan is tricky. I will only do that to start a fire from cold. If there are any coals you get the thermonuclear blast furnace effect.

- Get the stove top as hot as you can stand (650) before closing the damper then lower air. The few times my catalyst has hit overfire temps (1800+) have been when I closed the damper too early and then left the air wide open trying to heat up the griddle.

- With so-so wood and the air closed down I only see a faint red glow in the front and the griddle temp can go as low as 350. I used to fear the fire would stall but its always managed to burn all night even this low. If I look at the catalyst probe I will often see temps of 1200-1500 even when the griddle is that cool. Ive learned to trust the cat to do its job. I wonder if stalling is more of a risk on non-cats....

- I used to worry that packed too tight a split would fall on the glass and break it. Ive found that even when this happens overnight the glass isnt damaged. You just get a worse than usual creosote stain that can take a couple days to burn off.


~ Jeremy

 

[Gridlock]

I think you have you answer already but I'll just add another first hand report...

On my encore catalytic, I do load it very tight for overnights. I have a seperate pile of odd ends and chunks, so when I load for the overnight I place all my splits in pushed up against one side and fill in the other side with chunks or a couple of splits stacked vertically. I've even put in some really thin pieces on top to fill it right up to within an inch of the griddle. Only warning is to keep it clear of the glass as best you can and make sure nothing can snag the bypass.

I do this load on a real good thick coal bed (seems to help keep a big slow load going) and I let it get HOT... ~ 650F before I close the bypass then slowly work the air down. With all dry wood I can close the air down almost completely, with a mix of 50/50 dry and marginal I have to leave the control just a hair beyond straight down (a bit over 1/8 open). I can load like this at 9pm and still have the griddle at 350 at 6am... and still enough coals to restart as late as 8am.

With so-so wood you will need to burn the first morning load really hot next day to clean the glass but so long as your cat is working good I have not found significant buildup in my chimney.



A few things I found work/don't work:
- Opening the ash pan is tricky. I will only do that to start a fire from cold. If there are any coals you get the thermonuclear blast furnace effect.

- Get the stove top as hot as you can stand (650) before closing the damper then lower air. The few times my catalyst has hit overfire temps (1800+) have been when I closed the damper too early and then left the air wide open trying to heat up the griddle.

- With so-so wood and the air closed down I only see a faint red glow in the front and the griddle temp can go as low as 350. I used to fear the fire would stall but its always managed to burn all night even this low. If I look at the catalyst probe I will often see temps of 1200-1500 even when the griddle is that cool. Ive learned to trust the cat to do its job. I wonder if stalling is more of a risk on non-cats....

- I used to worry that packed too tight a split would fall on the glass and break it. Ive found that even when this happens overnight the glass isnt damaged. You just get a worse than usual creosote stain that can take a couple days to burn off.


~ Jeremy

Hi Jeremy,

Thanks for all the information. Interestingly I have found that operating the stove in the same way you described, seems to work very well. I am also making sure to heat the stove to around 650 before closing the damper and engaging the CAT. I have witnessed the thermonuclear effect from opening up the ash pan with the stove hot, however this morning I had trouble getting the stove top temperature above around 600 and had to go to work, so opened the ash pan for just a couple of minutes to kick it up a bit until it reached 650. I was careful not to operate it this way if it started going thermonuclear on me. I find it amazing how well the stove works in such a slow burn mode; my old stove would have produced a lot of creosote without putting out much heat when trying to burn it this slowly. I'll be installing the stove pipe temp probe soon, so that may help further determining the optimum time to close the damper.