Wood Klinkers

[wg_bent]

I've been burning nothing but some Elm lately. In the past I've noticed little klinkers or what look like very hard ash. Very similar to coal klinkers. Lately with the exclusive use of Elm There is much more. Elm burns with very little ash, so I've had to clean the stove out a lot less often. Today it went out, so I cleaned it out with the vacuum. The two center fire bricks were fused together with a large klinker. When I removed them and broke the klinker, it had become a part of the brick so much that when I broke it, the brick actually came apart. Anyone ever hear of this?

Now I need two more bricks. Where can I get them?

 

[BrotherBart]

I've been burning nothing but some Elm lately. In the past I've noticed little klinkers or what look like very hard ash. Very similar to coal klinkers. Lately with the exclusive use of Elm There is much more. Elm burns with very little ash, so I've had to clean the stove out a lot less often. Today it went out, so I cleaned it out with the vacuum. The two center fire bricks were fused together with a large klinker. When I removed them and broke the klinker, it had become a part of the brick so much that when I broke it, the brick actually came apart. Anyone ever hear of this?

Now I need two more bricks. Where can I get them?

Our local hearth store sells them for a buck and a half apiece. If you can't find any I will pick up a couple. They will fit into a Postal Service Flat Rate box so I could send them for nine bucks postage.

Love those Flate Rate Boxes. I mailed 45 pounds of bolts for nine dollars. The clerk at the post office wanted to strangle me.

 

[Corey]

Wood klinkers in general is a new term to me. I burnt a pile of elm early in the season, switched to oak and hedge for the cold months and have thrown in some pine, poplar, maple, locust, and a few woods I don't even know what they are. So far, I haven't come across anything what didn't go right down through the ash grate.

Are you sure there was no plastic, glass, metal or anything else that might fuse in the heat of the firebox in the wood before it was burnt?

Corey

 

[wg_bent]

Corie, I thought the same thing. Kids tossed in somthin'. But it' has happened WAY too many times and sometimes after a fresh burn, and always just with Elm.

 

[JAred]

Funny you should mention Your "clinkers'' getting stuck to your fire brick and taking the fire brick with it. I too have been burning alot of elm and went to clean the stove out entirly and noticed some stuff stuck to the fire brick I shoved the shovel under it and to busted the bricks! I wonder what these clinkers are composed of? It's like this stuff is melting into the brick ? I fixed mine with some furnace cement for now. next season I'll pick some new bricks up.

 

[wg_bent]

Funny you should mention Your "clinkers'' getting stuck to your fire brick and taking the fire brick with it. I too have been burning alot of elm and went to clean the stove out entirly and noticed some stuff stuck to the fire brick I shoved the shovel under it and to busted the bricks! I wonder what these clinkers are composed of? It's like this stuff is melting into the brick ? I fixed mine with some furnace cement for now. next season I'll pick some new bricks up.

Oh good, I'm not nuts. This stuff is literally fused to the brick. Same plan here for fixing the bricks with some furnace cement. Bad quality Bricks?

The clinkers appear to be melted mineral deposits. I'd guess Elm has a high concentration of a particular mineral in it, and not much else, so what's left of the ash is this melted clinker. If you've ever burned Coal, this stuff is very similar looking.

Good grief, just when I was beginning to sort of, kind of, (oooo this hurts) like elm, now I have another reason to hate that stuff.

 

[fbelec]

hey warren i haven't burnt any elm this year and i noticed that if the ash is in the stove more than three days it's all stuck together. luckly there are no bricks on the bottom of my stove. it has a built in grate. the stuck ash doesn't stick to that. cast iron.

weird

 

[Mike Wilson]

I didn't burn any elm this year, but I did get these 1" thick pancakes of hard stuff that looked like really well compressed ash. You could pick them up with your hand, etc. Thy seemed to appear after I burned for at least 4-5 days, always on the bottom of the stove. Clinkers? Don't know.

-- Mike