Going to try to burn down a bit of coals this morning, without using prime wood. But the NC13 been just chugging away. When I woke up at 4 am it was 1/2 full of coals. Been trying to squeak out the heat from those coals.
I get a ton of coals when it's really cold out. Sometimes I have to clean them out to make room for more wood.
I'm not sure I would ever clean them out to make room. I usually wait til they burn down enough to make a flat bed and then reload. My cycle times would decrease if I handled the larger coals too early.
The problem is I can't get enough heat out of them to warm up the house. This happens on very cold mornings. Maybe I am turning down the air too much at night? I get a bed of coals that are 8-10 inches and it can take several hours to burn down.
Pretty much my situation when the temps drop below 20 degrees for a extended time. But since I'm on vacation, I can baby her right now. I'm right now trying to figure out if I can switch out the 30 today or just weight til it warms back up a bit.
My situation is just undersized stove in the temperatures that we are getting. If I wasnt around, I probably wouldn't have much a problem, but then again when I'm around I want a warm house.
I had that problem last year with the stove and no back up heat. I would have to pull out some coals to get a reload in. Stove was just undersized for the house,
I'd say that if you have coals that large in the morning you do have the air turned down a bit too much. My next thought was stove size, but it seems with coals that size in the morning that it's a good size burner. what is your stove temp when you get to the stove first thing in the am?
Next time when you get up during the night to pee, give the stove a bit more air. 8-10" is a lot of coals!!!!
+1 May take a few times , pulling them to the front, but works good for me too. If I need more heat when burning down the coals, I add a split on top. Run on high.
+2 with what bogy Dave explained. Adding a small split burns down coals faster that are raked forward and adds a bit of quick heat to the stove while doing so.
We buy a couple bags of pellets each year and use them for 2 purposes. 1) it makes lighting much easier if you put them in the stove and then lay the lighter on top. HOT HOT HOT 2) if you pour a small amount on the coal bed after you rake it in front they tend to burn into the pile lighting it up and burning it down fast. It eliminates the coal bed fairly quick.
That pile of coals, I finally got burned down by about 2 pm. I just kept raking it forward and putting small chunks of wood on top. For the most part it was suprising how long the heat kept decent while I was tending it.
When I get too may coals I rake them towards the front and lay a small spilt on top. It always seems to throw a lot of heat doing this. Sometimes I repeat, This seems to burn the coals down fast.
