A couple of quick pictures. Image 1 is of the chamber after its burned to just coals. I opened the door and raked them around a bit. Image 2 is a little while later after having the coals burn down. The door was latched at the detente. Image 3 is what it looks like in the morning when I come down and open the door. Confusingly in chronological order it would be 3, 1, 2. All of this was from burning some year old odds and sods pieces that I stacked as a face cord in the front yard where it gets the best sun and wind.
This is what I’m burning now. It is a little bit drier, 18 months rather than 12 months. Also a bit longer. Kind of a quirky angle to the picture so it’s slightly deceiving, but end to end the piece is 19 full inches.
When you end up with that excessive coaling in the AM have you tried pulling coals forward and adding one small to medium split E/W on top. Close loading door completely and let the single split burn with the primary air control wide open and the Cat engaged? Looks like you could get several more productive hours of active Cat and great heat off that coal pile. Of coarse you need to calculate when to put this additional operation into the routine. It should greatly reduce your coal pile/level. And maybe you are already doing this?
I hadn't even considered that- thanks for the suggestion! I'm going to give that a whirl tomorrow. I'm only on my second winter with this stove and kind of learning as I go.
I believe you are doing a great job of reviewing this model. Certainly appreciated. Let us know how the burn down routine plays out if you get time to try it. Hardwoods are heavy coaling. Run a few loads of Pine and you will be amazed. Go weeks without cleaning ash!
That's a great idea! I've usually only burned softwood so never had a cooling issue. I'm burning almond now with burns longer but I'll have a large pile of hot coals each morning and usually ill spread them out on the floor of the stove to burn them down but the "add a split" and a pile in the front sounds like a great idea. I think I'll try it too
Although some of this is "obvious" knowledge to long term burners, it's great info to me. Thanks RGrant for your information. moresnow, the air wide open with cat engaged with the coal pile...is that the way the stove needs to be run at that stage to produce heat, or just to try to get the coals to burn down? Also, I've seen people say they use pine, especially pine cookies, to help burn down the coals. Will the split you said put E/W do the same if its hardwood?
The routine is primarily aimed at reducing coals for a proper full reload . However, the benefit can either be hours of additional heat with just the single additional split or accelerating the reload schedule to fit your timeframe. Pine works well as you have researched. Hardwood works fine as well. I've never used cookies but it may be a option. Use what you have. Sometimes two small splits will ignite quicker also. Play around with the idea. Bottom line is that you don't want to get overwhelmed with excessive coaling that keeps you from putting in a good sized reload. This works in tube stoves also.
Can't really say I've had that issue but if the split is not good and dry I could certainly see that being a issue. Maybe it's my WO throttle position that keeps it working here. All I can say is give er a try folks.
Hard to tell from a pic. How many days can you go before the ashes start spilling over the bottom door edge ?
There is an ash pan that runs the full length and width of the burn chamber. I can measure later this week but I think it is about 2 inches high. It really looks pretty massive to me and holds a pretty good deal of ash. The rake that came with the stove does a good job of clearing the ashes out of the chamber and dropping them into the pan. There is an interesting integrated steel rectangular “sleeve” (? Am I calling it the right thing?) that looks to me like it funnels the primary air through the bottom of the burn chamber and there are these kind of chevron looking channels cut into it that - to me- looks to be where the air feeds the fire but also where the ashes definitely fall through when I rake them. Shoulder season I go probably 2 weeks between emptying it. Now since it’s been colder I think I’m going about 5- 7 days as I’m burning around the clock and loading it up. Those again are estimates. But I emptied the ash pan yesterday so I can make note of it when I empty again. With Christmas so soon I’m sure I can give an accurate high use timespan for it. Ive never shoveled any ash out- the pan and rake work really well.
Ok ... you’re going to have to elaborate on thosenlast two sentences. Maybe I’ve spent years missing out on burning pine. This might come in handy when the big 70 year old pine in my front yard ever comes down. She’s near 100 ft tall and 2’ thick or better...probably better. I was actually hoping it would stay for another 70 years though, or else make some nice boards from it if it ever did come down. Does it have anything to do with the resin in the pine? If so, I am thinking locust or hedge as well. Of course, in asking this, I am thinking of using an old pre-EPA stove, not a CAT or tube stove. Never burned a CAT or a tube stove, but I have. Lopi Liberty tube stove on deck. I also wouldn’t think you’d want to get loaded down with excessive coaling AND then fill the fire box either. Stove will likely go nuclear. I’ve often done exactly as use described, raked coals forward then added a small 5”-6” split or two. Certainly gives additional heat for a while and burns the coals down. Just couldn’t figure out why the pine.
I’d like to see the inside of this stove all around and the ash pan. I’d also like to see outside measurements of the stove. Man...if they made that thing with triangular shaker grates for anthracite coal and a deep fire box I’d be all over it. Anthracite burns far different than bituminous or the lignite this stove was designed to burn. Come on WoodStock!! You’re near coal country. Build us an anthracite coal stove to burn pea and nut coal...but please make it with the old time triangular grates to be rotated.
Stove Stories: Navajo & Survial Hybrid Stove Coal industry on Navajo Nation could end with plant closure
This is the manual for the wood/coal version they make for the Navajo nation. https://woodstove.com/images/Navajo-Manual-PDFs/Navajo_Covers_Specs1802.pdf The dimensions of the stove on the outside are on page 3. I have a few photos I'll upload in the next post. I can't figure out how to get them on my computer from my phone. Now- they say that the wood/coal version is only for the Navajo people. The stove I have is wood only. I'm not dropping a hint towards anything that I know with a wink and a nod with a nudge, but if that was a serious question you had, I don't think it would cause any harm to call them and ask them. They were so excellent to me when I bought the stove and help me troubleshoot a few things via phone and through email.
Very annoying... I'm sorry about the picture orientation - they're all rotated 90 by the top to the left. I've tried a few times to reorient them, but I cannot get it to fix. So- my apologies, that's all I can say. Here are some photos from inside the stove. Still haven’t emptied the ash pan this week. Probably Christmas morning. The first photo is the bottom grate to the ash pan. It’s a heavy duty steel sleeve that fits in between the layers of firebrick. It goes right in the middle with bricks on either side. I originally said they looked like chevrons- I guess a little like them. The 2nd photo is the rectangular inlet inside of the ash sleeve. The top of it is where the "chevron" cuts are, they go straight into the pan. 3rd is the gasketed primary inlet port. It looks on the back end like the width of the ink stick on a bic pen. It jets out into the rectangular opening in picture 2. I think it's a well thought out feature and the chevron cuts that span the distance of the ash gaps are also where the oxygen will come up to feed the fire for the primary burn. 4th photo shows the air controls on the front. They feed both the primary and secondary air inlets on one lever. Note the bic pen sized inlet hole in the middle of the bottom rectangle. Also note the bottom 3 and top 3 rectangles. Fully open. 5th phot0 is the same view, but the slide complete "closed" - again- note the single hole in the middle. 6th photo is the whole door, primary at the bottom- at the top is the secondary burn air inlet. It is controlled on the one and only air control on the front bottom of the door. It runs from the bottom of the stove door to the top and shoots the fresh air across the top of the stove. I don't have any information if it is channeled in any sort of way to exposed the air to more heat on the inside of the door or if it just rises up a straight channel. I can say that I do see a good amount of "secondaries" but I also want to say that my firebox shows secondaries at temps as low as 400F on the stove top, and so what I think is happening is the fresh air from the top is forcing the combustibles back down into the chamber and they get hit by the flames from the primary wood charge. This is my estimation of what's happening because I've read that secondary combustion doesn't otherwise occur until the internal temps hit 1000F. I could be wrong.... just don't know enough. Again- sorry the photos are sideways. I know that's annoying.
I tried this, and it worked pretty well. I have a stove bottom quite high with black and red coals- I put in 2 of the wood bricks I'm partial to and it did burn down the coals pretty well. Does anyone know why this works? Also- we had a warm day here yesterday and sunny- so I pulled the cat, put it in a pot on the stove in the kitchen. Mixed 50/50 distilled water and vinegar and put the heat on medium, I left the lid on. Got it to a bit of a slow boil and was really surprised to see how much material came out in the bath. After that I put it in the sink and sprayed it with the water/vinegar mix and quite a bit more soot came out. When I finally rinsed it off with the water I again was really surprised to see how much was inside the cat. I dried the catalyst off on newspaper pages- and it took kind of a while to get all the moisture out of it, but when I put it back in the stove the difference was very noticeable. I used to have to get the stove up to about 400 or so STT to get the cat to light off, but after the vinegar/water refresher I gave it a shot at 300 STT and it took right off. I'm a convert once again thanks to the advice people have shared on this site. Does anyone have a regular interval that they give the catalyst the bath?
