How to get more coals faster

[Gboutdoors]

What am I doing wrong? You need a good 3" bed of coals to light up the AB on my Harman TL300 and it takes me forever to get to that point on a cold start up. I am using pine to start then 20% or less moisture red oak but it all just burns up with little coals. Do I need to burn faster, slower? Once I have a good bed of coals it's easy to keep it going day and night but it takes me hours to get the start up coals.

 

[Ram 1500 with an axe...]

You will get a bed of coals faster buy using a lot of kindling and thinner sized splits, don't start off with regular size splits, split them into at least 4 pieces, fill the stove no more than 3/4, leaving air spaces between the splits, run the stove wide open, do another round of the thinner splits, you should have coaling in about an hour....

 

[Jon1270]

I don't have a stove like yours, and from skimming some old threads I see it's kind of an unusual setup. I kind of suspect there are other ways to get the AB working, i.e. you probably don't really need all those coals.

That said, if your fuel is turning to ash too quickly, you're probably allowing the fire too much air. Charcoal is the part of wood that doesn't vaporize before burning, and doesn't produce flame. The parts of wood that do vaporize are mobile, and they rise up to meet available oxygen and the combustion happens as flames above and around the solid wood that the combustible gasses, mists, etc. came from. But the parts of the wood that don't vaporize just sit there as solids, and those solids have to wait around for oxygen to come to them. If you hit the solids with a lot of air, they burn quickly. If you restrict the air, they burn slowly. So, if you want the coals to stick around a while, hit them with less air.

It looks like your stove has a removable ash pan. My stove doesn't, but I've read that they can leak air into the stove. That's one think to check if your stove is allowing in more air than you want it to.

 

[razerface]

Ain't it great? You won't have the coaling problems other stoves have. You can burn your coals down any time you please.

It does take a while to get coals that you need, but it sounds like you can burn good once you get them.

You can cheat a little. Start with small stuff to get some coals,,,then scrape those coals back in front of the opening so they pile up in the opening. You need to get the coals filling up the space in the opening, and even inside the opening. That way the coals superheat the air as it goes into the AB,,,which lights it. You can only speed it up,,,,can't skip the coal process,,so cold starts are always longer.

I do this to speed it up when I can't get to the stove on time for the next load an my coals have burnt down farther then perfect. Don't take the air away till after the AB is firing, and I burn my cold firings on high air as I can,, without overheating.

 

[tcassavaugh]

when I do a cold start on my little jotul, I run a couple of sticks of pine or poplar kindling on top of my supercedar starter, then a couple of small rounds/branches I have just for that purpose, and I light them off. within minutes I have a roaring fire I throw on a larger split or two and back it down after a few minutes to let it get going. its on cruise control and I don't touch it again for a couple of hours.
if you coals are burning up, you may have too much air getting to it or, you might not be feeding it fast enough.......might even be a combination of both.

 

[Paulywalnut]

You should read the posts from guys that have too many coals and how to get rid of them. It's just Crazy...or Insane.

 

[Dune]

Why I cut branches down to 1". Handfull of one inch oak sticks and you get coals pretty fast.

 

[Gboutdoors]

Thanks for all the responses. I just did a cold start about a hour and a half ago with smaller splits longer and then pushed the coals into the combustion chamber after 45 minutes loaded her up let it burn hot then kicked in the AB. Fastest I ever got it to fire off. Thanks again.

And yes I have been puzzled by all the complaints of to many coals. I just let them burn hot and there gone.