Sorry, no pictures, wish I'd thought of that but I'll do my best to describe.
This morning when I was raking the coals/ash, I dug a bit deeper than I have in the last week or two and scraped up this big mass of char. Hard to describe but it wasn't glowing like the rest of the coals, and it took a bit of effort to scrape up from the bottom. Like it had almost melted on there. I pushed it off to the side and once I had some good coals separated from ash I put it near the air intake where the coals had made a nice hot bed. It made a dull glow after a few minutes which extinguished almost as soon as I pulled it away.
Once I removed, my next fire burned much hotter and got to a secondary burn a lot quicker than it had the last few days. Can anyone tell me about this build up and what it might be? It didn't have any wood-like structure discernable. More like if you had some dirt, sand or plastic or something. It was right above the grate for the ashpan which I don' empty anymore as the stove runs better that way. I have had a few logs steam a bit the last week.
I have one of the older model hearthstone mansfield stoves, burning mixed hardwood that is not the driest but not the worst.
This morning when I was raking the coals/ash, I dug a bit deeper than I have in the last week or two and scraped up this big mass of char. Hard to describe but it wasn't glowing like the rest of the coals, and it took a bit of effort to scrape up from the bottom. Like it had almost melted on there. I pushed it off to the side and once I had some good coals separated from ash I put it near the air intake where the coals had made a nice hot bed. It made a dull glow after a few minutes which extinguished almost as soon as I pulled it away.
Once I removed, my next fire burned much hotter and got to a secondary burn a lot quicker than it had the last few days. Can anyone tell me about this build up and what it might be? It didn't have any wood-like structure discernable. More like if you had some dirt, sand or plastic or something. It was right above the grate for the ashpan which I don' empty anymore as the stove runs better that way. I have had a few logs steam a bit the last week.
I have one of the older model hearthstone mansfield stoves, burning mixed hardwood that is not the driest but not the worst.