For me it depends on how cold it is outside, 20s and 30s I can let the coals burn almost all the way down, when its in the single digits and below I'll reload on a bigger coal bed, sometimes I can't let the stove get under 300-350 without a reload.
If dont open the damper and the air control I get a face full of smoke. I love my englander but the draft is very poor on it.
Yes, put a thermometer on the flue. It can help a lot. On reloads the same as starting a new fire. Draft open full. The amount of time will vary a lot though before you have to dial it down. That could be from 2 minutes to 20 minutes depending upon circumstances. Let's say we are ready to reload. The draft goes full open and the bypass is opened (we have a catalyst in the stove). Load the stove with whatever you need and the quantity can vary a lot too. If you don't need full heat, then don't fill the stove. Like you, we have a flue going horizontally. We use that for regulating the stove more than the stove temperature gauge. We usually will cut the draft and turn the cat on when the flue temperature is 400-500. Having a horizontal flue will mean your flue temperature will rise quicker than a vertical flue (heat rises) so it is good to keep an eye on this. Let's say it is winter and we are needing good heat. Once we engage the cat and set the draft, nothing is done until the stove temperature gets down to 350-400. At that point, we open the draft full. This helps to burn down the coals so we don't have that problem of too many coals. Just wait until winter hits and we'll no doubt see many posts about too many coals. It hurts to read about folks actually shoveling out hot coals because there is not enough room in the stove to get enough wood in for an overnight burn. Getting that draft open early will prevent that problem. And of course, with the draft fully opened, you are already set for opening that firebox door when that time comes. Many will ask if that doesn't cause a lot of heat going up the chimney. It will cause some but not a lot. You can prove this by watching the flue temperature. In addition, all the bad stuff has burned off so you are not sending dirty air up the chimney.
Once mine coals i rake them all to one side. I can usually squeeze another couple hours out of this practice. Occasionally i will check the flue temp and open the air inlet or add more wood as needed. Lately been trying to run on 2 loads a day and its working out good so far.
The general rule is to always fully open your air before you open the door to prevent any smoke or severe heat in your face. I whipped open the door on my smoke dragon one time without opening things up and the heat blasted out and singed my eyebrows. Generally I don't reload until the stove top is round 200, 250, that's after about 12 hours of burn time (a packed tight full load) and the house is around 68 to 70. I do open the air up at around 350 to burn the coals down. I load NS. Pull the coals to the front of the stove then push them back a little bit and make a little spot across in the front for one 17" long piece of kindling to set in to help get things going, after loading then I treat it the same way as a cold start with the door cracked for up to 5 minutes, then close the door and wait until the stove pipe, ( single wall) surface temperature, is 300 and start dialing it down. Having the door cracked for getting the fire going can be good or bad if you have it cracked open to Far, you get too much cold air and it won't start getting hot but if you don't have a big enough of a crack you are not getting enough ! air to get it going so you have to find the sweet spot there and the fire will get cooking real quick. I find somewhere around a quarter of an inch is just about right on my stove
Coldest part of the stove is the front. Not sure if theres an advantage of going to the side or not, can't say I ever tried it.
I was wondering the same thing. This does make sense, but what different burn characteristics / advantages have you seen doing it this way? Just getting the stove to a certain temp quicker, so you can engage the cat?
The coals at the front of the stove allows those coals to burn down at the coldest spot of the firebox while restarting a new load (with the same coals) to eventually create a new bed of coals. Coals in the front also slowly engage the new splits from front to back instead of all at the same time. It's a vicious cycle being a coal
600 degrees is a bit hot for a reload in my opinion. I shoot for the stove to be quite a bit cooler than that. Liek others have said open the damper and let the coals burn down and then reload.
Maybe if you have so few you want to pile them up to get a fire going again without matches on a e/w stove. My last few stoves have all been n/s loaders that burn front to back so getting whatever coals are left towards the front and air in gets the reload cranking quicker.
I'm still confuzzedAre we talking cat or non cat? Are the temps combustor temps or stove top temps? Dennis what's your average combustor temp when you reload?