Production Woodstock IS

Alright, I have an issue with coaling. Over the past 3-4 days I have noticed the coals are accumulating so much that they take up too much room in the stove. I sifted through the coals tonight and found that smaller coals down lower were still going and the larger coals on top of course from the more recent reloads. The coal bed came to be even with the andiron base. The ash within the coal bed did not amount to maybe 30% of the total amount of coal and ash.

In order to get a full load of splits in place tonight I removed the larger coals (placed into a 2 gallon pail) and took out everything else into the ash can. There was alot I could have kept but I wouldn't get a full row of splits on the bottom like I usually do.
Any solutions? Anyone else having this happen?

 

That sounds about right. With all the coals pulled forward, the mound is flush with the door opening. I stirred and stirred last night, filled a full ashpan and got it a little lower. My bigger issue is dealing with the coals in the AM when I am ready to reload. I am loading E/W and try as I might, I am struggling to get the splits in the very back floor to burn well overnight. Any thoughts on how to get those splits to burn down without pulling them to the front when I wake up?

 

Yep same problem. I dug out 2 ash buckets worth of coals the other night plus the ash pan. I think the problem is those long burn times that made this stove famous includes a long coal burn. This stove should be fitted with an automatic primary thermostat like Blaze king to effectively burn down coals when your not home.

 

Now that you guys have chimed in I'm happy it's not just me. You are doing the same thing, taking the coals out.
It's a shame theres no way to get them to burn down a little quicker.

 

I have seen the same thing, the very back splits are still in the shape of a split but in coal/charcoal form. In the morning I have been breaking them up and raking them forward. And it sounds odd because the rear of the stove is the hottest burning part of the firebox and you'd expect less shape in the morning vs the front of the stove.

 

Yep, looks like dem dare bear bottoms got pretty warm. The andiron rail gets hotter than the firebox (which is sort of the whole stove, kinda') and if it gets hot enough, it will expand to a point where it could be longer than the stove is wide at which point it has no choice but to bend.

I wish I could get coals anywhere near that hot- they lay in my stove and mock me with their low temperatures and long lasting abilities. And they get in the way of putting more wood in the stove.

Brian

 

Exactly...so many coals

 

There is a solution to the problem but I would be drummed out of the I.S. owner's group if I mentioned what it was. The key to burning wood coals is to get air to move up from underneath the coals. Wood will take air from anywhere but wood coals, as well as actual coal, requires air actually pass through the bed of fuel to burn it fast enough.

Brian

 

Yep. I'm thinking of ways to build an actuator that opens the primary on a timer. Or a thermostat of some sort.

 

Are you implying that we employ one of the cardinal sins of wood stove operation to burn down the coals?!? Use the ash pan door to introduce air from the bottom? Perish the thought! (Is it ok to do evil that good may come of it?)

 

There's a fine line between burning coals and bending steel .

I guess the real answer is wake up in the early morning and open the air control. I'm not volunteering for that.

 

Crazy talk! That is like saying the Soviets could beat the US into space- absolutely impossible!



The key with bottom drafting any solid fuel stove is not to over draft it. I mean all of us set fires in our houses and maintain them for weeks and months, right? But we do not set the house on fire. The key lies in control, not the act itself. And a lot of our friends and relatives think it is nuts to keep a fire inside the house, right? At least mine do- they say things like 'I could not sleep at night with a fire burning in the house.' or 'I would not leave a house with a wood stove running inside it.' but is it really dangerous? I would think that we, as a group, would say that no, it is not dangerous as long as it is done correctly and within well defined parameters. And so it is with a bottom draft on a wood stove....

Brian

 

In this weather when I'm around the stove I tend to use smaller diameter splits to help combat the coaling. I also try to burn them down before each reload, rather than skipping the burn-down and reloading onto a bunch of coals because it just gets worse. The PH is better in this regard than the IS - stronger primaries dispose of the coals faster. The IS has a smaller grate area than the PH, and I was more concerned about melting something with the IS than I am with the PH (I haven't used the ash door to burn coals on either stove).

 

Try burning a load of primo pine. This will take care of your oak coaling problem.

 

Same thing with the coals all...... I have let the door open a crack with helps a little. But I am checking on it often (not one problem yet when it is all coals). I have yet to have the gall to use the ash pan door. I told my wife I could keep all the coals and not have to buy charcoal

 

J, your so right with the timing. The coaling process would need more air sometime in the middle of the night. If we could do something as easy as move the air damper up a little ways we could get a little more heat out of the stove and be ready for a reload and small coal bed first thing in the morning.

 

This is why an automatic control would make it all work perfectly.

 

If I'm around the stove I usually open it up to 100% air about 2 hours before I think I'll do a reload. That helps.

After reading these comments about coaling, I came home to a cold stove after work today. The boys neglected to build a fire today. So I raked a lot of the hot coals forward and worked the loose ash through the grate then filled the area over the grate with the coals and opened up the ash pan cover for about 10 minutes. It didn't seem to have any effect so I raked the coals to the front of the ash grate and closed the ash pan door and walked away, leaving the air on 100%. About 20 minutes later I walked by and all the coals were glowing nicely and burning down.

The boys are out for the evening and I'm heading to DC for meetings tomorrow and didn't have time to build a fire so the stove is sitting there cold and neglected tonight while the natural gas furnace picks up the slack.

 

What do you think was the cause of this, extremely hot coals sitting on the bottom plate of that andirons? If I remember right, those are 1/4" plate steel? I guess nothing a hammer and vice cannot fix.

 

I'm assuming the coaling stage mixed with full air did this. It's kind of like using a blow torch in there when you open that air up on several inches of hot coals.

I may just leave the andirons out. It's a whole lot easier to reload. I load North and South anyway.