Too many coals???

[Smokeless]

Been burning 24/7, crazy cold snap here in CT...

Shoveled out some coals yesterday afternoon... Been burning all evening and overnight.

The coals are really starting to stack up, running out of room for wood or biobricks... They don't throw the same heat as when everything is burning.

If I shovel out live coals, it's like I'm dumping pure fire/smoke into my ash bucket. I know if I let them go they will eventually burn down, but I need to throw more heat with more wood.

Am I doing something wrong? Not enough air, etc? It's running nicely, 450-500 stovetop until I get coals and then it's down below 300 and the house temp starts dropping.

With this I2400 and it being in the 20's outside I got the house up to about 72 last night. Open ranch floor plan. Woulda thought I would be able to push 79 to 80 with this thing.

Trying to heat 100 percent wood. Furnace hasn’t kicked on yet. But winter hasn’t even started and I feel like I’m trying to hold off the dogs here…

Still learning...

 

[gyrfalcon]

I'm having the same problem with my little soapstone Tribute. I've been assuming that's because it just isn't large enough to heat my less than ideally insulated space, so letting it burn up the coals in the kind of "burn cycle" we're advised to follow lets the house temp drop too far for comfort. I can keep things warm enough if I keep feeding the fire to keep the stovetop temp at 400-plus, adding more wood before it drops to 300 or so. But then, like you, I've got this huge accumulation of live coals, to the point that the bottom of the small firebox fills up and it's dicey to add to it.

What's the square footage you're heating? Mine is only 1,300, but I'm happy with my chilly 2nd floor, just trying to keep my main big front room comfortable enough and I can blow enough heat into my office to keep my feet from freezing.

I've become reconciled to having to use my oil boiler as back-up overnight, since the little stove can't keep enough heat overnight to keep the first floor temperature from really plummeting-- which would be OK except that it takes the better part of the day to get it back up to comfortable. I clearly need a bigger stove.

Man, do I envy the folks who post here about their over-firing problems. I wish!

 

[glacialhills]

There is a way to reduce coaling during your burns and still be heating 24/7. When you get too many coals built up rake the coals to the front of the stove and then place a few softwood splits on them. burn till the splits are consumed and repeat till the coals are reduced to a manageable level. The softwood will produce no coals and in the process of them burning they eat up the coals. This way you keep getting high heat output and keep the coals under control. Just try to do this more often so as not to have a whole stove full of coals to have to reduce. The way I do it is use good hardwood for overnight burns and in the morning use some light wood on top of remaining coals to do a fast warm up burn. That eats up the coals produced from the day before then I resume burning "coaling wood till the next morning...understand?

 

[gyrfalcon]

There is a way to reduce coaling during your burns and still be heating 24/7. When you get too many coals built up rake the coals to the front of the stove and then place a few softwood splits on them. burn till the splits are consumed and repeat till the coals are reduced to a manageable level. The softwood will produce no coals and in the process of them burning they eat up the coals. This way you keep getting high heat output and keep the coals under control. Just try to do this more often so as not to have a whole stove full of coals to have to reduce. The way I do it is use good hardwood for overnight burns and in the morning use some light wood on top of remaining coals to do a fast warm up burn. That eats up the coals produced from the day before then I resume burning "coaling wood till the next morning...understand?

I do understand. You explain it very well. But here in the NE, as somebody who has to buy my wood C/D/S, I simply don't have access to softwoods. I've tried this with very dry small lumber scraps with the primary air wide open, and it takes a fairly long time, and most if it at very low heat.

Also, just to be clear we're talking about the same thing, Smokeless and I, I think, are talking not about black burned-out coals in the AM, but big live red coals during the day. My little stove fills up very fast with them, and it's a problem to manage. I haven't yet resorted to shoveling them into my ash bucket, but as the winter temperatures drop to zero and below, I sure hope I don't get there.

Also, for me, maybe not Smokeless, my stove is so small that there literally is no such thing as raking the coals to the front. They very quickly get deep enough to make that impossible without spilling over the lip of the firebox. As I say, my stove is simply too small for the task I'm asking of it, though it sure tries. I read here about folks doing that and then putting splits behind the coals for overnight burns, and I laugh. I can't do that, so the back splits haveto sit on a hot coal layer and burn up way to fast to get an overnight burn. Not that it would amount to much anyway, given how little wood the firebox holds.

I guess I'm just grousing here to no particular purpose, since my lovely little stove just isn't capable of doing what I'm asking it to do, despite its best efforts.

 

[glacialhills]

oh, another thought, this is the reason to split wood into different sizes, so you can control your heat output and keep burning hot and not just have a firebox full of coals. big splits of good hardwood will produce more coals, burn longer and let you fill your box with max BTU's for longer burns than the same wood split small.Also this is a great reason to have both hardwood AND softwood. Everyone wants nothing but oak and hickory. But good seasoned softwood has a place in your burn cycle just as hardwood.Softwood produces plenty of heat fast and when it is burned up all you are left with is fluffy ash. It;s Great for first AM burn or shoulder season when not wanting long extended burns. If you have no softwood to burn, split some of your hardwood or "coaling" wood small so you can use it to eat up your coal bed and still produce high temp burns.Just remember, in the AM, shovel out your ash, then rake all the coals to the front, then put on wood for the day. then when you start getting big coalbed rake them all forward and use small splits/softwood to keep burning hot and using up the coals.Remember bigwood, hardwood,= Big coals...Smallwood, softwood,= fluffy ash + eat up coals. I hope this helps you get a handle on your coals give me a shout if you have any other questions.

 

[glacialhills]

yep, I am talking about those big red glowing coals that make you feel like you are getting a sunburn if you get to close.(I have those in the am even after 12 hours) When you start getting a buildup you need to rake them into a mound up front then put in very small 1-2" splits on top back to front. They will fire fast and eat up coals while still producing big heat. But you need to be raking up your coals from back to front...and yes even if its just a couple inches. If you keep those coals on the bottom and in the back, with ashes around them they will be insulated and they will just glow all day and keep building and not burning up. Hardwood can be used to eat up coals also just not as good as soft. Just make sure to have it split small...like big kindling. it will burn like gas when they get put in and eat up those coals (if you rake up front in a pile) in short order.

 

[gyrfalcon]

yep, I am talking about those big red glowing coals that make you feel like you are getting a sunburn if you get to close.(I have those in the am even after 12 hours) When you start getting a buildup you need to rake them into a mound up front then put in very small 1-2" splits on top back to front. They will fire fast and eat up coals while still producing big heat. But you need to be raking up your coals from back to front...and yes even if its just a couple inches. If you keep those coals on the bottom and in the back, with ashes around them they will be insulated and they will just glow all day and keep building and not burning up. Hardwood can be used to eat up coals also just not as good as soft. Just make sure to have it split small...like big kindling. it will burn like gas when they get put in and eat up those coals (if you rake up front in a pile) in short order.

No kidding, this just doesn't work that way with a small stove, if mine is any example. I've split a lot of my well-seasoned wood way, way down to very small splits, and it just doesn't do with a big load of coals what you describe and others have here, too.

I'll keep working at it, but unless there's some tiny difference in technique that makes a big difference in the result, I can only assume that the fire dynamics in a tiny firebox somehow don't permit it to work that way. (I have pretty much ideal draft, from what I can tell, on my 15-foot class A chimney and six-foot double-wall internal flue, for whatever it's worth.)

 

[otrip]

I seem to get an abundance of coals only when I load N/S instead of E/W and load it up with a only a couple pieces larger rounder or unsplit wood.
Of course I'm new at all of this.

 

[glacialhills]

Well, I dont know about really tiny fireboxes but on the medium firebox I have used for years or large one I am just about done setting up, I will just rake the coals up front where the primary air comes in and reload and the coals burn right up.You are using a newer brick lined box with air controls right... hmmmm just thinking.....do you let your fire burn all the way down to coals before reloading? You need to burn in cycles and not keep adding wood to the fire throughout the day.Maybe thats why you get so many coals? and you need to be raking the coals forward before each and every load...not just keep piling big splits on top of a whole flat layer of coals...they wont get air into them and burn up if in the back or on the bottom away from the air intake.That air coming in is what will reduce your coals...if they are all the way in the back or half buried in ashes or left flat on the bottom they will build up big time.This is my routine for over 20 years 24/7 burning is a bit different than an occasional burn ... you should be loading the box....burn till mostly only coals are left (no big flames)and the house starts to cool just a bit...open and rake all the coals forward, put in wood and repeat. then in the morning shovel out the ashes, rake live coals to the front and load for the day. here is a link to some videos that help explain some of this better, the last one is good to learn how to start a top down fire with almost zero smoke at startup. the only way I do it. (broken link removed to http://www.woodheat.org/videos.htm) good luck and maybe someone with a very small stove will chime in and help ya figure it out also.

 

[glacialhills]

Here is another link that specifically addresses your problem all be it with a bigger firebox. I wouldn't think that the solution would differ with a tiny one (broken link removed to http://www.woodheat.org/tips/toomuchcharcoal.htm)

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Something else you might try. This works during the daytime at least and only at night if you happen to get up during the night. When the fire in the stove is such that the stove temperature starts to drop, give it a little more draft. Keep doing this until it get to where you have the draft full open. Usually, but not always, this will allow the coals to burn down faster and by the time it starts to cool much in the house you have room to add more wood.

btw, this will work, as will the method which Glacialhills explains...if your wood is good and dry. If that fuel is not properly seaoned, you will have a constant problem with this. That is the very reason to have next year's supply of fuel on hand already Do not buy wood and expect it to be fully seasoned, no matter what the supplier says.

 

[jqgs214]

Make sure you know where your primary air comes in, I had a 1.2 cu/ft fire box and the small split method worked great, make sure all the coals are piled high as close to the primary air as possible and lay the split across the pile e/w and make sure primary air is wide open! The split should burn up in 20min or less and the coal pile should be significantly lower, may need to repeat on larger coal beds.

 

[BJ64]

I agree.

It stands to reason since the coals are what is left after everything else has burned away - that this is the hardest part of the wood to burn.

The trick is getting air to the coals to make them burn at a faster rate . We may try several methods to get the heat from them.

Scatter them about sort of evenly and open the primary air to the max.
Pile them where the primary air hits them the most.

 

[SlyFerret]

In a way, I wish I had this problem. I'm wishing I had more coals.

I get up at ~6:00am and reload the stove in the morning. My wife and I carpool to work (The drive is about an hour during rush hour) We leave the house by 7:30am, and return at about 6:00pm (on a good day). By the time we get home 12 hours after my morning reload, the stove is usually cold, and there are no usable coals left. I light up a cold stove after work, and have it rolling well enough to load up for the overnight between 10:00pm and 11:00pm.

I'll second the idea of splitting some of your bigger splits down a little smaller. I find that if I don't load big enough splits at night, I won't have enough coals in the morning. If you experiment a little bit with the size of the splits, you might find the "magic" size for your setup. Too big = too many coals, too small = too much fiddling with the stove.

-SF

 

[ClubbyG]

This is GREAT info! I am facing the SAME problem, and it is due to my wood being underseasoned. I am bummed as the temps have been quite chilly in CT as of late. I can not get long burn times with my current wood supply, and my wife will toss a few splits on during the day. By the time I get home from work, I have a mountain of glowing red chunks that do little to ignite the next stack. I'll have to try a few super small splits to burn those coals down.

 

[BJ64]

This is GREAT info! I am facing the SAME problem, and it is due to my wood being underseasoned. I am bummed as the temps have been quite chilly in CT as of late. I can not get long burn times with my current wood supply, and my wife will toss a few splits on during the day. By the time I get home from work, I have a mountain of glowing red chunks that do little to ignite the next stack. I'll have to try a few super small splits to burn those coals down.

I'm happy all this time we waste here is doing somebody some good.

If you think for a moment it makes sence. The small splits start burning and start pulling a draft through the stove - thereby increasing the air flow over the coal bed and causing them to burn down.

 

[gyrfalcon]

In a way, I wish I had this problem. I'm wishing I had more coals.

I get up at ~6:00am and reload the stove in the morning. My wife and I carpool to work (The drive is about an hour during rush hour) We leave the house by 7:30am, and return at about 6:00pm (on a good day). By the time we get home 12 hours after my morning reload, the stove is usually cold, and there are no usable coals left. I light up a cold stove after work, and have it rolling well enough to load up for the overnight between 10:00pm and 11:00pm.

I'll second the idea of splitting some of your bigger splits down a little smaller. I find that if I don't load big enough splits at night, I won't have enough coals in the morning. If you experiment a little bit with the size of the splits, you might find the "magic" size for your setup. Too big = too many coals, too small = too much fiddling with the stove.

-SF

Heh. "Magic size" is a great term. I sure have been playing with a great range of sizes. You'd be amused at the number of different piles of them around my hearth. A 6-incher is pretty much the largest that will fit anyway. The stove temp in the morning is usually down to somewhere between 100-200 and loaded with small but red-hot coals. Fairly easy to start a fire from them with small kindling or super-dry very light stuff (like sumac). But if you're burning 24/7, which I am, I don't get how or when I can remove ash accumulation without either letting the stove (and the house) go way cold or shoveling out large quantities of very hot coals. Burning a few very dry very small splits with the primary air wide open reduces the pile of coals somewhat, but not enough so I don't still have to shovel a lot out. I got one of those sort of slotted ash shovels to try to sift out the coals from the ash, but there just isn't enough room inside the stove to make that work, and sifting a shovel full over the ash bucket, I end up sitting in a cloud of airborne ash particles.

Most of my wood is pretty good, the old "mixed hardwood," split down to 6 inches or less and stacked (by me) in long open stacks in full sun and wind this spring. Some of it is quite dry, some of it a bit less so, but pretty much all of it lights and burns easily with no hissing or spitting.

I always laugh when I read here about raking the coals forward because when the firebox is only 9 or 10 inches front to back and loaded with coals, it's all "forward." It's also only maybe 2 1/2 to 3 inches deeper than the bottom of the door, so a modest day's accumulation of ash and coals really fills it right up. Burning 24/7, I can sometimes manage two days without shoveling out, but that's the limit, and it's a little dicey at that.

 

[gyrfalcon]

Well, I dont know about really tiny fireboxes but on the medium firebox I have used for years or large one I am just about done setting up, I will just rake the coals up front where the primary air comes in and reload and the coals burn right up.You are using a newer brick lined box with air controls right... hmmmm just thinking.....do you let your fire burn all the way down to coals before reloading? You need to burn in cycles and not keep adding wood to the fire throughout the day.Maybe thats why you get so many coals? and you need to be raking the coals forward before each and every load...not just keep piling big splits on top of a whole flat layer of coals...they wont get air into them and burn up if in the back or on the bottom away from the air intake.That air coming in is what will reduce your coals...if they are all the way in the back or half buried in ashes or left flat on the bottom they will build up big time.This is my routine for over 20 years 24/7 burning is a bit different than an occasional burn ... you should be loading the box....burn till mostly only coals are left (no big flames)and the house starts to cool just a bit...open and rake all the coals forward, put in wood and repeat. then in the morning shovel out the ashes, rake live coals to the front and load for the day. here is a link to some videos that help explain some of this better, the last one is good to learn how to start a top down fire with almost zero smoke at startup. the only way I do it. (broken link removed to http://www.woodheat.org/videos.htm) good luck and maybe someone with a very small stove will chime in and help ya figure it out also.

Yup, once I get going for the day, I do let it burn down to just coals before adding more wood. I do rake the coals forward, at least to the extent that I can without having them spill out the door (and I make a little trench through them in front of the doghouse), which means the best I can do is to get a lot of them up front. And I stir them around a bit first if there's an ash accumulation on top to shake that off.

I've tried the top-down method a couple times without success, but haven't really worked on it because the bottom-up works fine for me. I'm also preoccupied with the other basic burning issues and all their variables, so figure I'll save working on the top-down thing when I have a few brain cells to spare. It's a poor workman who blames his equipment, as the saying goes, but my stove seems to operate so differently from so much of what I read here (and at your links, thank you, which I've already seen), I have to wonder if there really aren't some significant differences in the way things work when you get below a certain cubic footage for the firebox.

I work from a home office, so I'm around all day and able to keep an eye on and work on these various stove issues all day. Gettin' a bit weary of it already, and it's only mid-November...

 

[gyrfalcon]

I agree.

It stands to reason since the coals are what is left after everything else has burned away - that this is the hardest part of the wood to burn.

The trick is getting air to the coals to make them burn at a faster rate . We may try several methods to get the heat from them.

Scatter them about sort of evenly and open the primary air to the max.
Pile them where the primary air hits them the most.

I'm just giving the scatter method a try now after reading this.

Problem is, though, the stove temp is down around 150-200 while all this is going on, and the only reason my room temp is as high as 60 this morning is because the boiler is maintaining it. (Um, I work nights, so noon is "morning" for me.) So I guess I need to do this later in the day after I've gotten the temperature up to a comfortable level and can tolerate the cooling during a coal clearing process. Hmmm. Maybe that's part of my problem is trying to deal wiht this in the morning with a warm stove rather than hot.

OK, some more things to think about and try out.

 

[sfgraham2]

Been burning 24/7, crazy cold snap here in CT...

Shoveled out some coals yesterday afternoon... Been burning all evening and overnight.

The coals are really starting to stack up, running out of room for wood or biobricks... They don't throw the same heat as when everything is burning.

If I shovel out live coals, it's like I'm dumping pure fire/smoke into my ash bucket. I know if I let them go they will eventually burn down, but I need to throw more heat with more wood.

Am I doing something wrong? Not enough air, etc? It's running nicely, 450-500 stovetop until I get coals and then it's down below 300 and the house temp starts dropping.

With this I2400 and it being in the 20's outside I got the house up to about 72 last night. Open ranch floor plan. Woulda thought I would be able to push 79 to 80 with this thing.

Trying to heat 100 percent wood. Furnace hasn’t kicked on yet. But winter hasn’t even started and I feel like I’m trying to hold off the dogs here…

Still learning...

Very similar situation. I to have a smaller stove (HI200), ranch with open floor plan, live in mid-Eastern CT. Last night the best I could do was get the area where the stove resides to 72. I've had to use the boiler as backup because it's so freakin cold out lately. As for the accumulation of hot coals, me too. I've found that a slower burn keeps me from loading as fast as a rip-roariing fire would. Yeah the stove isn't quiet as hot, but it's slowing down the amount of wood I'm loading into the stove, and thus keeping the coals manageable.

 

[gyrfalcon]

Very similar situation. I to have a smaller stove (HI200), ranch with open floor plan, live in mid-Eastern CT. Last night the best I could do was get the area where the stove resides to 72. I've had to use the boiler as backup because it's so freakin cold out lately. As for the accumulation of hot coals, me too. I've found that a slower burn keeps me from loading as fast as a rip-roariing fire would. Yeah the stove isn't quiet as hot, but it's slowing down the amount of wood I'm loading into the stove, and thus keeping the coals manageable.

I think this may be where you're going wrong. It's the slower burns that produce the most coaling, not the volume of wood going into the stove per se. A hotter fire reduces more of those coals to ash, and does it a lot faster.

I'm still messing around with some of the suggestions from this thread, but one thing I think is working for me is that when I'm down to nothing but a big bed of almost translucent orange-hot coals, opening the primary air up all the way for a while burns them down while keeping the stove temperature up. THe trick is to put the next load of wood in just as the stove temp is starting to drop. My stove's "cruising range" is around 400, and that's the temperature I need to keep the room heat comfortable (I'm talking low 70s near the stove, maybe 68 30 feet away on the other side). So for me, I want to stop burning down coals when the stove is heading down from 350 or so and pile on the next load.

 

[sfgraham2]

Very similar situation. I to have a smaller stove (HI200), ranch with open floor plan, live in mid-Eastern CT. Last night the best I could do was get the area where the stove resides to 72. I've had to use the boiler as backup because it's so freakin cold out lately. As for the accumulation of hot coals, me too. I've found that a slower burn keeps me from loading as fast as a rip-roariing fire would. Yeah the stove isn't quiet as hot, but it's slowing down the amount of wood I'm loading into the stove, and thus keeping the coals manageable.

I think this may be where you're going wrong. It's the slower burns that produce the most coaling, not the volume of wood going into the stove per se. A hotter fire reduces more of those coals to ash, and does it a lot faster.

I'm still messing around with some of the suggestions from this thread, but one thing I think is working for me is that when I'm down to nothing but a big bed of almost translucent orange-hot coals, opening the primary air up all the way for a while burns them down while keeping the stove temperature up. THe trick is to put the next load of wood in just as the stove temp is starting to drop. My stove's "cruising range" is around 400, and that's the temperature I need to keep the room heat comfortable (I'm talking low 70s near the stove, maybe 68 30 feet away on the other side). So for me, I want to stop burning down coals when the stove is heading down from 350 or so and pile on the next load.

Interesting theory. May I ask what size stove your using? My firebox is 1.2, quite small. When I burn with the primary air wide open I feel as if I'm going through wood faster then the coals are turning to ash. Maybe I'm just to anxious to drop another log on the fire. I guess I should just let the coals do the heating if the stove temp is staying above 300? Then again running wide open isn't very efficient. It's about finding that happy medium. Goodtimes..goodtimes...

 

[gyrfalcon]

Very similar situation. I to have a smaller stove (HI200), ranch with open floor plan, live in mid-Eastern CT. Last night the best I could do was get the area where the stove resides to 72. I've had to use the boiler as backup because it's so freakin cold out lately. As for the accumulation of hot coals, me too. I've found that a slower burn keeps me from loading as fast as a rip-roariing fire would. Yeah the stove isn't quiet as hot, but it's slowing down the amount of wood I'm loading into the stove, and thus keeping the coals manageable.

I think this may be where you're going wrong. It's the slower burns that produce the most coaling, not the volume of wood going into the stove per se. A hotter fire reduces more of those coals to ash, and does it a lot faster.

I'm still messing around with some of the suggestions from this thread, but one thing I think is working for me is that when I'm down to nothing but a big bed of almost translucent orange-hot coals, opening the primary air up all the way for a while burns them down while keeping the stove temperature up. THe trick is to put the next load of wood in just as the stove temp is starting to drop. My stove's "cruising range" is around 400, and that's the temperature I need to keep the room heat comfortable (I'm talking low 70s near the stove, maybe 68 30 feet away on the other side). So for me, I want to stop burning down coals when the stove is heading down from 350 or so and pile on the next load.

Interesting theory. May I ask what size stove your using? My firebox is 1.2, quite small. When I burn with the primary air wide open I feel as if I'm going through wood faster then the coals are turning to ash. Maybe I'm just to anxious to drop another log on the fire. I guess I should just let the coals do the heating if the stove temp is staying above 300? Then again running wide open isn't very efficient. It's about finding that happy medium. Goodtimes..goodtimes...

Yeah, my Tribute is I think also 1.2. It's beginning to seem not just small, but tiny!

I think you need to spend a couple days really watching and nursing things along to get a sense of what works. I'm having some luck finally at resisting that urge to throw another piece on the fire quick before it dies down, and instead having faith that the coals will light up the wood by themselves. But it seems that the firebox needs to be at a certain temperature-- for me, it's between 300 and 350 stovetop-- for that fast light-up with a new load to happen and bring it quickly back up to 400-450.

One very wise soul here suggested that when you're down to just a good coal bed, if you open the primary all the way again, you can get more heat from those coals and also burn them down to a reasonable amount. I'm finding that absolutely works, and it gives me maybe another 45 minutes to an hour at 400 with just coals before it starts to slide down again, and also reduces the depth of the coal bed by turning them to ash.

I think there's really no getting around the fact that with a small stove, you can't just load and walk away for half a day if you're going to squeeze the most heat out of it without eating wood like popcorn. Each set-up seems to have its own particular cycle.

BTW, once I get a full load really going well, I can turn the primary off all the way in a couple of steps with no change in the way the load is burning. It really rocks pretty good for quite a while just on secondary air.

 

[Todd]

I had this problem with the two small stoves I use to have and I think my problem was trying to get the longest burn possible out of a small stove. I finally realized the fact that I can't get a long burn with a small stove so I just burned them hotter with smaller splits during the day and loaded it up with larger splits for a longer burn at night hoping for coals in the morning.

 

[gyrfalcon]

I had this problem with the two small stoves I use to have and I think my problem was trying to get the longest burn possible out of a small stove. I finally realized the fact that I can't get a long burn with a small stove so I just burned them hotter with smaller splits during the day and loaded it up with larger splits for a longer burn at night hoping for coals in the morning.

That's for sure the conclusion I'm coming to. Moral of the story-- don't get a small stove unless theres somebody home all day who can keep an eye on it and tend to it every few hours. Also, with such a small surface area to transfer heat from, I find that the room temp responds very quickly to a drop in stovetop temp in cold weather. So the key for me is to keep it up at that 400-450 level for as much of the day as possible and to minimize the time it languishes at 300 or so, which is when my room temperature starts to drop.