Firebox Modification - Isle Royale

[Snag]

First, I'd like to thank all of the members who have posted questions and answers. The wealth of knowledge shared on this forum is awesome and greatly appreciated. We are entering our second season of wood burning for our primary source of heat and with a little more experience and continued help from those on this forum hope to see even greater success this year.

Our Isle Royale wood stove has a large grate in the floor of the firebox that drops the ash into an ash pan accessible by a separate door under the stove. (The grate took up about 1/2 the floor of the fire box.) Last year we couldn't get an all night burn no matter what we tried. We were keeping the firebox and ash pan cleaned out daily but in looking at newer wood stoves and in reading posts here I realized that such a large ash grate may be counterproductive. This fall we decided to replace the grate with a steel plate and covered that with firebrick and have been rewarded with longer burns and a coal bed that keep the stove putting out heat a little longer. After about a weeks worth of morning, take the chill off fires burning mostly poplar, we have yet to clean out any ash but when we do, we plan on removing half at any one time.

This seems to be working for us right now. Do any of you foresee problems with this later on down the road when we start burning hardwood or start burning 24/7?

 

[LLigetfa]

...burning mostly poplar, we have yet to clean out any ash...
Do any of you foresee problems with this later on...

The only problem I foresee is airborne ash dust when cleaning, particularly the Poplar.

 

[Snag]

Thanks for the response. Good to know I was hoping I wasn't creating a bigger or more serious problem. Now if I could only find a cure for firewood envy.

 

[Jags]

I don't see any probs with your mod. The ash pan and grate above it aren't required for normal burns. By this I mean that all air intake happens above the grate.

Just as a side note: you will get longer burns if you leave an ash bed instead of a full clean out. I get 8+ hour burns with a pretty big pile of hot coals at the end, without even trying.

 

[firefighterjake]

One of the things I learned from last year's burning experience was to not completely clean out the ashes when I do my weekly cleaning . . . now I typically move some of the ash into the pan if there's a lot of build up . . . otherwise I leave the ash alone and just empty the ash pan. The Oslo seems to really heat up and retain the coals much, much better with an inch or so of ash in the base.