big bed of coals, lots of air and blue flames

[botemout]

So, as I've posted about elsewhere, I tend, in my QF 5700, to wind up with lots of charcoal and coals after just a couple of hours of burning. When this happens, I'll crank open both air intakes and the results in heat output are impressive. Now, for instance, I've got about 6" of coals from 6-7 logs I put in about 3 hours ago. The stove pipe temperature is 300F and the stove top is about 550F (though falling). It can keep up like this for a couple of hours. There will be a thin layer of blue flames that hover around the coals, though very little 2nd stage burn from the top burners.

It seems though that I can heat things considerably by bunching up the coals in the back so that the air from the back air intact blows through them. At that point I have a wall of wispy blue flames and the 2nd stage is burning steadily.

A couple of questions:
- though the front of the stove is ~500F, I bet the back is much hotter; can I damage anything?
- does this method produce more heat or does it just burn what's there faster? Since I'm seeing the 2nd stage clearly engaged, I could see that more usable heat is being producted.

Anyway, big fun with burning wood ;-)

 

[botemout]

Here's a picture of the wall of coals.

 

[pen]

I don't see any way you can hurt anything w/ what you've got going there. I've purposefully built a bed like that before just to throw a few more splits on and time everything right for max heat output while I'm in the house and max "the stove is still warm" while I'm sleeping or at work.

pen

 

[Backwoods Savage]

You won't hurt a thing. Keep on doing it. The picture says it is not quite to the coaling stage yet though. Close, but not there. Therefore you are doing excellent as that is when you need to give it lots of air.

 

[r_d_gard]

You won't hurt a thing. Keep on doing it. The picture says it is not quite to the coaling stage yet though. Close, but not there. Therefore you are doing excellent as that is when you need to give it lots of air.

Backwoods,
Can you clue me in here, what do you mean that it's not coaling ? I see red coals, what's the difference between what I see and what you are talking about.

Ray

 

[botemout]

You won't hurt a thing. Keep on doing it. The picture says it is not quite to the coaling stage yet though. Close, but not there. Therefore you are doing excellent as that is when you need to give it lots of air.

Backwoods,
Can you clue me in here, what do you mean that it's not coaling ? I see red coals, what's the difference between what I see and what you are talking about.

Ray

I'm confused too; they definitely look like coals to me; perhaps they are still charcoal and not yet coals? (Just a guess).

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Sorry about that. To me it looks like the logs have not completely broken up yet. I do not consider it to be the coaling stage until there is no shape of any log left; everything has broken apart. When it gets to that stage is when I take a poker and rake through them good. At first I'll just level them out and after a bit I'll then start shoving them towards the front of the stove. When it gets to the point where I can pile them all in front, then I'll let them burn down just about 1/3 of the way before adding wood.

I hope this helps.

 

[Corey]

The ghostly blue flame is the CO + O2 -> CO2 reaction (more precisely 2CO + O2 -> 2CO2, but why pick nits) Looks like there is a bit of yellow flame from the plain old HC + O2 fire in the back as well. Anytime the secondaries are lit, you're burning 'fuel' (whether it's CO, Smoke, gaseous HC's) which would otherwise go up the flue - so that is more efficient. At some point the coals will burn down enough where they have plenty of oxygen and the blue flame will go away. At that point you'd be best to cut back some of the air - as you're just drawing excess up the flue which does waste some 'heat' not only by cooling the stove, but the make-up air needs to be heated as well.

 

[RonB]

Seems like 3 hrs is a little quick to open up the rear start up air to burn down coals. At this stage of temps you described I let it coast for a good long while. The trick is to have secondaries going with the least amount of additional air necessary. You have both air supplies open fully. I do this at the end of a burn (8,10 hrs) to burn down coals in prep for a new load of wood. You will find with your
Quad (other stoves) that the fuller the fire box is the easier it is to create the temp required for secondary burn.

Your question, "Does 500 degrees the front of the firebox top mean that it is too hot at the rear?" I have not noticed any damage to mine and this is the 3rd year. I see up to 650 degrees on the top front on occasion. 550-600 is the norm and target for me during the initial stages of the fire.

 

[fire fox]

I am new to this what is secondary burn mean

 

[LLigetfa]

Secondary burn is further combustion up in the cat or the burn tubes above.