Excessive coals

[fortheloveoffire]

I have had a JA Roby for a couple months now. I am burning either Tamarack, pine, birch or poplar in it. I have no problems getting the stove lit and a good fire going but there is a glitch. I commonly get a huge coal bed, as in half the firebox full of glowing orange coals. What is happening and how can I get around this?

 

[Jags]

Not all that uncommon if you are running the stove hard. My best suggestion is upon coaling stage of the last load, open up the primary air full (more oxygen) and maybe toss a couple of small splits on top to keep an active fire going. You may even have to repeat the small splits part a couple of times. One positive of doing it this way is that you can keep the stove temp up while burning down the coal load. The negative - babysitting the stove more than usual.

 

[fortheloveoffire]

Not all that uncommon if you are running the stove hard. My best suggestion is upon coaling stage of the last load, open up the primary air full (more oxygen) and maybe toss a couple of small splits on top to keep an active fire going. You may even have to repeat the small splits part a couple of times. One positive of doing it this way is that you can keep the stove temp up while burning down the coal load. The negative - babysitting the stove more than usual.

Thanks for the advise, seems like the thing to do. Yes it is getting run hard, temperatures have been running -15 to -40 here lately! What really puzzles me is that it happens with all types of wood to the same degree. As the temps go from warm to cold I burn poplar, pine, birch and tamarack on the coldest days.

 

[Doc C]

Thanks for the advise, seems like the thing to do. Yes it is getting run hard, temperatures have been running -15 to -40 here lately! What really puzzles me is that it happens with all types of wood to the same degree. As the temps go from warm to cold I burn poplar, pine, birch and tamarack on the coldest days.

Typically the cure is what @Jags suggests with opening the air up at the end of the burn. The second thing is trying to burn it down with some pine or white fir or any other hot and fast wood. A lot of times we want more heat then the coals are putting out so we keep adding wood. If you can get by with less heat for awhile sometimes you can wait for the coals to get smaller with the flood of air you introduce but that can take a couple hours.

And sometimes you just do the best you can until it warms up a little.

 

[Happy Stacker]

I recently posted about the same problem. During the recent cold snap in Ontario I was burning hard and ending up with a massive amount of coals. Opening the air fully at the coaling stage and adding a single split does help to reduce the coals to ash quicker..