Anyone here push coals away from the air intake when their coal bed gets too large? Last night I had a big coal bed so I pushed it to the rear of the stove and load 4 big spits of really dry oak for an overnight burn. This didn't work how I thought it might. Load took of and flue tem went from 250 to 550 in about 5 minutes, I shut the air down to half at 3 minutes and 400 degrees. Flue flew to 500 degrees in a couple more minutes and I shut it down all the way and this in turn caused secondaries to erupt. Scared the jeepers out of me. Would you say I just had to many coals? Wood too dry? Should I shut down air immediately with such a big load on the large coal bed. I know I will just have to expirement some more but this one had me nervous, the stove did respond to the change in air settings so I did feel good about that but I thought it was going to get away from me. I am on of those that think the flue is going to melt down if I hit 600 on the magnetic thermometer. It will take a while until I throw that much Oak on there again. The bad part is, this is my wood supply for the winter and it may be too dry. (2.5 years and this year was really dry and hot).
Pushing coals to rear of firebox
- Thread starter lillyrat
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on such a large coal bed, in particular before an over night load, I will rake the coal towards the fron of the stove and open the air up. This not only throws out the best heat from the coal but it also burns them down enough that when I load, I simply rake the bed back out across the bottem and lay the splits over top. of course with nice dry wood, try a smaller split scross them in the front, this too will help burn them down.
Good luck, I wouldnt worry about the wood. Should only help you.
Good luck, I wouldnt worry about the wood. Should only help you.
lillyrat said:
It simply amazes me how many folks tend to think possibly their wood is too dry. Don't worry; it won't happen.
On the coals, we rake them to the front before loading the stove.
To burn down the coals, don't wait until you need more wood before trying to get rid of the coals. Just before the wood has burned to the coaling stage, open that draft full and let it cook. Some even add a small split or even some kindling to help burn the coals down. But the key is to open the draft full and they will burn down. If you make that habit each cycle you won't have a problem. Well maybe you will still have some problem if your wood is not dry enough. Burn wood before it is ready to burn and you will end up with way too many coals. Still, you can burn them down if done right.
btw, lillyrat you have not been on the forum too long yet so may not be aware of our situation. Most folks on this forum are well aware we regularly burn wood that has been cut, split and stacked for 6-7 years. When you get wood that has seasoned that long you will then know what it is like to burn good seasoned wood. Never have we for a minute thought our wood was too dry.
Here is some 7 year old wood that is being burned this year:
Thanks for the input, first I have heard of people burning wood 6-7 years old, guess this is not an issue for me. Must be from just loading on too much of a coal bed.
My guess would be, that on a typical reload, coals to the front, and air intake at the front, the wood ignites at the front of the stove and the load burns front to back. A somewhat controlled slower off gassing and burn. Now by pushing allot of coals to the back, not only did the front take off (where the air is) but the back also, basically the whole load off gassing and burning like mad.
I spread the coals evenly around the bottom of the stove so I have a flat surface to load the wood onto.
Your just making the same newbi mistakes a lot of us have when we started, when I get down to the end of the burn I roil the remaining wood and coals and pull to the front and turn the tstat up, that way they burn down pretty good, then I reload, as someone else mentioned you can also put a small split on top, I do that sometimess too, pine is good for that as it burns hot and you can get a lot of good heat with the pine and remaining coals. If you do this you wont get the big coal buil up thats a pain in the arse.
lillyrat said:
Nope, it won't melt down at that external temp. Don't hang there. But I hit 1100* on the probe more than I should.
I'm like Nate . . . I tend to spread out the coals evenly.
To get rid of excessive coals . . . don't load as early . . . open up the air and burn down the coals a bit . . . open up the air and toss a single split on it (softwood splits work particularly well.)
To get rid of excessive coals . . . don't load as early . . . open up the air and burn down the coals a bit . . . open up the air and toss a single split on it (softwood splits work particularly well.)
For my overnight fire last night, I loaded the box 3/4 full and had air open full for about 30 seconds till the load took off, then cut the air back to 1/2 and watched the flue take a nice slow pace up to 450-500 before I shut it down. This worked so much better than leaving at full air till it hit 400 and then dialing down.
lillyrat said:
You can rest assured that in the 5 years I've been on this forum, there has never been reported a meltdown of the flue. Normally you would bank the coals to the rear of the stove with the air control on low if you want to idle the stove. If I am burning for heat, I would move the coals to the front center, put on a single 2-4" split on top and open up the air to burn down the coals. Then, when a modest amount of coal is left I move them to N/S, center, and add new splits to fill the stove. I usually don't watch the temps, but instead watch the logs. When they are fully engaged in fire, I close down the air until the flames get lazy. Depending on the wood that could be part or all the way closed. If at this step it is only part way, I close it down all the way as soon as I can, usually a few minutes later with softwood, but it could be 15 minutes later if hardwood.
Question, are the temps reported with a probe of surface thermometer?
magnetic. It would drive me crazy to not have the flue thermometer, knowing that there is a boundary to stay within (<550) for flue temps. I would have trouble owning an insert and not being able to monitor flue temps. I would be the type of person that would drill through the chimney to install a probe in the liner.
Backwoods Savage said:
Now it"s 6 - 7 yrs B Savage Glad I retired this yr. Be a full time job getting there. Well I had better shut computer off put up the coffee get my saw and go to work, thanks to this new stove I won't get bored.
Cpt.
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