I'm getting alot of hot coal building up after a couple days and barely have room for much wood. I'm burning a good hot fire and crack the door and try to burn down the coals before I reload. How do I keep the coals from building up?
Hot coals
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Gotta burn longer before loading more wood in. That's about it. Stoves have a heating cycle. When it drops below 400 degrees that doesn't mean it's time to load it with more wood. It's and up and down heat cycle that you need to manage otherwise you end up with what you have and all coals with little fire. Just open up the air and burn down those coals.
open up your primary to burn it down. close the door you just cool the stove off quicker that way. at least you can get some heat out of the coals as they burn off. also put them all in a pile in front off your air inlet if possible, it will run a little hotter and burn quicker.
What ^ they said...unless you're burning locust. Those coals will last a very long time so only load 1 piece of locust mixed in with other wood at a time.
Coals building up in the stove indeed can be a problem. If someone is there, before the wood burns down to just coals you should notice the stove top temperature dropping some. That is the time to begin opening the draft. We usually open at least to half at this point. In just a short time you should be able to give it full open draft. I doubt though that opening the firebox door will help. Raking the coals to the front does though.
Also, if your wood is not dry enough that will cause the coals to build up even faster. If so, start to open the draft sooner. Sometimes adding some small stuff, even kindling, on the coals with full open draft will help burn up the coals.
Good luck.
Also, if your wood is not dry enough that will cause the coals to build up even faster. If so, start to open the draft sooner. Sometimes adding some small stuff, even kindling, on the coals with full open draft will help burn up the coals.
Good luck.
Backwoods Savage said:
Ditto to these comments - this is exactly how I burn the coals quicker. We open the draft when the stovetop temps start dropping (I miss the thermostat that was on my old VC Resolute). I have noticed a huge difference in burning dry wood - much less coal bed forms.
25 outside and windy. That's very cold for us. I gathered up some locust and started burning it yesterday, mixed with madrona. Nice hot long fire, but a lot of coals in the firebox this morning. After a week of 24/7 burning it looks like I am going to have to break out the shovel. There's about 1.5" of build up on the bottom. After one keeps reburning coals long enough, they turn to clinkers of fused ash. Then it's time for an ash dump.
I modified my zipper (doghouse) air intake so that I can supercharge the coals for a quick burn down but I don't really need to this year. The wood I'm burning now was processed before (FILO stack) the wood I burned last year so it's super dry.
All good replies . . .
In my case if I'm getting a lot of coals it generally means myself or my wife has been a little too vigorous in our reloading . . . we should have let the coals burn down a bit longer. This problem can be made greater depending on what type of wood species you are burning as some wood coals up and stays as coals for a long time.
However, when this happens, and it will happen . . . especially on those wicked cold days . . . just throw a small split or two on the coals and open up the air control and in an hour or so you should have signfiicantly fewer coals.
In my case if I'm getting a lot of coals it generally means myself or my wife has been a little too vigorous in our reloading . . . we should have let the coals burn down a bit longer. This problem can be made greater depending on what type of wood species you are burning as some wood coals up and stays as coals for a long time.
However, when this happens, and it will happen . . . especially on those wicked cold days . . . just throw a small split or two on the coals and open up the air control and in an hour or so you should have signfiicantly fewer coals.
I have noticed that with dense woods like birch that you will get alot of coals...
I have a metal pale and small shovel and have to clean them out...but I will try some of the stuff you guys said.
I have a metal pale and small shovel and have to clean them out...but I will try some of the stuff you guys said.
corey006 said:
HehHeh . . . around here we don't consider most of the birch trees to be all that dense. Yellow is OK . . . white birch however is pretty light stuff.
firefighterjake said:
Besides Tamarack, up here Birch is our densist...
I would be afraid to burn Tamarack in a wood stove.
savageactor7 said:
So true. Last night I was faced with this dilemma. The problem is not that there are too many coals. It's that they don't give off enough heat.
I had burned a few good sized splits of locust yesterday and by 10pm had a 3" deep bed of hot coals. They we're glowing hot, blue flames, but only keeping the stove top at 400. (This is when a coal stove with a tough grate system and bottom air feed would have been really handy.) Finally at 11pm, I shoveled out whatever ash I could sift out into the metal ash can. Put that can on the gravel path because I bet it will still be hot this evening. Then refilled the stove with alder for overnight. Locust will take some getting used to.
corey006 said:
I kind of figured that birch is one of the more dense woods up thataways . . . and truth be told I cut birch for firewood as I'm not a hardwood wood snob . . . if it's seasoned it goes into the woodstove.
I am curious . . . why would you not burn tamarack? I haven't burned any tamarack in my woodstove yet, but I would suspect that well seasoned tamarack (also known as hackmatack here or juniper in my neck of the woods) would burn like most other seasoned softwoods -- there would be some snapping, cracking and popping and I probably wouldn't load up my entire firebox with it, but it seems to me that you could still burn it.
Birch needs to be good and dry to not have coaling issues. There were many years when I burned nothing but Birch and I burned more Birch in my lifetime than any other wood. I am particular though and prefer Ash over Birch when I can get it.
The oldtimers around here would never burn Tamarack in a cookstove because it would burn out the grates but in a modern stove without grates, it is OK to burn.
The oldtimers around here would never burn Tamarack in a cookstove because it would burn out the grates but in a modern stove without grates, it is OK to burn.
Thanx for the tip about the birch.
I don't have alot of birch. Maybe 3 cords. It was cut and split and stacked out of the rain in April/May of this spring. I figured it would be dry enough(but I guess not) but now I am gonna pick through and burn mostly JackPine.
I don't have alot of birch. Maybe 3 cords. It was cut and split and stacked out of the rain in April/May of this spring. I figured it would be dry enough(but I guess not) but now I am gonna pick through and burn mostly JackPine.
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