Ash Pan Door Vents & Feeding Air

[S&S_BRH]

Our cookstove has door vents (baffle?)on the firebox, of course, but it also has a vent on the ash pan.

one of our heat stoves, a morsø 1410 was built with a *permanently closed* vent on the bottom of the stove, at the ash pan. only the top vent can be adjusted.

then there is our defender... it's only baffle is on the bottom of the stove, or at least that's where the actuator lever is.

I just learned that it is bad to feed air from the ash pan, and that doing so can damage your stove.

before I knew this, I have fired our cookstove by feeding air through the ash pan door. I don't think I damaged anything, but I will inspect closely tomorrow.

why is this a problem? I assume it is a heat issue. perhaps it burns to hot and warps or cracks the grate/brick/stone/cast?

as for the morsø, I saw a video on the 1410 about a year ago. in the video, it was referred to as a multi-fuel stove. it is identical to our morsø, but the bottom air intake is operational on his. I believe he burned wood and coal (separately of course) in the stove. he said that coal fires take air from below, wood fires feed from the top.
our Morsø 1410 is clear in the operation literature that it is ONLY for wood. I assume there was either a decided switch at the factory/corporate level of their direction on multi-fuel use, or they may make two 1410 versions, one wood and one multi...

I'm still very new to this.

 

[RockyMtnGriz]

The Clayton wood furnace I used to have had a main draft above the bottom of the firebox and an ashpan draft control. It was wood or coal. The instructions I found for it cautioned never to close the ashpan draft below the thickness of about a dime as the stove counted on cooling air from the ashpan to protect the grates. The furnace I had actually had cast in stops on the ashpan knob about the thickness of a dime to prevent it from closing all the way - which must have been a later year improvement to eliminate the uninformed factor.

Not saying what is best or not for your particular stove, just that it might not be as simple as "never feed air from below the fire".

 

[Eman85]

Don't know about your stove. Generally opening air below the fire creates a blast furnace that can overheat the stove and cause flames to go up and ignite any creosote in the chimney.

 

[joop]

my dovre 400 says to open vent on ash door with cold starts so who knows.

 

[joop]

follow manufacturers recommendations i guess.

 

[begreen]

Most likely the cook stove is a wood/coal model, especially if it has riddler or shaker grates. These usually are thick castings to take the high heat of coal. I seem to recall that the Morso multifuel stoves have a different grate system than the wood only ones. The Vogelzang Defender air control feeds air up to the air wash across the top of the door glass.