Secondary Burn

[zogger]

I think there's some merit to that statement. Burning pure Hedge, my stove doesn't do very well. If I mix in some Cedar, Pine, Ash or Silver Maple with the Hedge, it does a lot better. I think it has to do with airflow. A bottom feed after the secondary shutoff would be fantastic.



Having useful coals in the morning isn't a problem. There are sometimes weeks where the firebox never gets cold (even if the coals go out and I clean it out to re-light it). When I say the firebox gets full, I mean 6-11" depth of live, glowing coals across the entire firebox. Factoring in the baffle height, that effectively eliminates feed any more wood in. The stove is obviously throwing heat at this point, but is a lot less than when active primary and secondary combustion is taking place.

Can you give it more air right there at the coal level or under them? I just have front air, basic screw in and out plate. If I rake the big coals right in front of that air and open it up, them suckers catch again and burn down fast, usually within an hour, then I shovel it out.

 

[Cerran]

I think there's some merit to that statement. Burning pure Hedge, my stove doesn't do very well. If I mix in some Cedar, Pine, Ash or Silver Maple with the Hedge, it does a lot better. I think it has to do with airflow. A bottom feed after the secondary shutoff would be fantastic.



Having useful coals in the morning isn't a problem. There are sometimes weeks where the firebox never gets cold (even if the coals go out and I clean it out to re-light it). When I say the firebox gets full, I mean 6-11" depth of live, glowing coals across the entire firebox. Factoring in the baffle height, that effectively eliminates feed any more wood in. The stove is obviously throwing heat at this point, but is a lot less than when active primary and secondary combustion is taking place.

Makes me wonder if it's how the PE injects air into the firebox. When you guys load your PE are you loading it with wood front to back or side to side?

 

[Locust Cutter]

I don't know of any airflow port in the bottom, outside of the ash cleanout trap. Occasionally I will use that to help burn the coals down a bit. I normally load front to back ans it seems to burn better than side to side.

 

[Whitespider]

When you guys load your PE are you loading it with wood front to back or side to side?

Ummm.... just so we're in understanding... my PE loads so the ends of the splits are facing the door. Is that what you call front to back?? Or side to side??
PE says up to 18 inch... but I can get 20 inch in there if'n I haf'ta.
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[olyman]

A friend bought a "custom" knife for which he paid nearly 500 clams, it has sharp corners that make using it rough on the hand and doesn't hold an edge for crap, but to hear him tell it there is no better knife in the world.
Some of that comes into play when folks talk about their stoves. Something they spent big bucks on HAS to be better.

 

[Whitespider]

Having useful coals in the morning isn't a problem. There are sometimes weeks where the firebox never gets cold (even if the coals go out and I clean it out to re-light it). When I say the firebox gets full, I mean 6-11" depth...

Mine's been so full they fall out when ya' open the door

Once those coals ash-over, very little air can get to 'em... the heat output virtually ends. If a' don't keep stirring 'em every 10 minutes or so, they just die out and ya' end up shoveling a bucket load of charcoal chunks out the next day. And stirring 'em just mixes 'em with ash, which makes it even harder to burn 'em up. It's a lose-lose proposition... either freeze your azz off while you're screwin' 'round for 3 hours trying to burn the coals up, or just bite the bullet and toss out a bucket load of unburnt fuel. I got sick of screwin' 'round... I just toss the coals out.

By-the-way... the problem ain't unique to PE. I know of 4 other elitist stoves, all from different manufacturers, that do the same damn thing... and the colder it is outside, the worse the problem gets. (Although, just goin' on posts from this board over the last couple years, PE seems to be a bit more prone to such problems.)
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[zogger]

Mine's been so full they fall out when ya' open the door

Once those coals ash-over, very little air can get to 'em... the heat output virtually ends. If a' don't keep stirring 'em every 10 minutes or so, they just die out and ya' end up shoveling a bucket load of charcoal chunks out the next day. And stirring 'em just mixes 'em with ash, which makes it even harder to burn 'em up. It's a lose-lose proposition... either freeze your azz off while you're screwin' 'round for 3 hours trying to burn the coals up, or just bite the bullet and toss out a bucket load of unburnt fuel. I got sick of screwin' 'round... I just toss the coals out.

By-the-way... the problem ain't unique to PE. I know of 4 other elitist stoves, all from different manufacturers, that do the same damn thing... and the colder it is outside, the worse the problem gets. (Although, just goin' on posts from this board over the last couple years, PE seems to be a bit more prone to such problems.)
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How about adding forced air induction down at the coal level, some sort of blower like a guy would use for..a forge, something like that? Then just flick it on as needed. Might could drop that three hours to ten or fifteen minutes and get some more heat out of the thing at the same time.

Ok, another experiment, open it up, staring at the heap of barely burning coals, shove some thin..I said thin, as in 3/4-1 inch max a side...super dry pine kindling directly through the heap, several of them, different areas, skewer it. I have found pine helps a lot to make recalcitrant hardwoods behave better.

 

[Whitespider]

How about adding forced air induction down at the coal level, some sort of blower like a guy would use for..a forge, something like that?

If you think back zogger, I tried something sort'a like that.

At the bottom front is a small "boost air" hole, which is distributed through a manifold thingy... it's designed to supply a little air at floor level during start-up (because EPA tests require the door be closed shortly after lighting). I drilled more boost air holes... first just a couple, then more, then more, etc. It didn't change a thing until I removed the firebrick from the floor and installed a coal grate an inch or so off the bottom. Man, that thing worked awesome with the extra floor air and grate... except, that inch under the grate would fill up with ash in a single loading. Cleaning out the ashes was a royal friggin' pain; ya' had to lift out the grate, which would only fit through the door at an angle... and ya' had to do it after every burn cycle (meaning ya' pretty much had to let the fire go out). And trying to raise the grate to a reasonable level reduced firebox capacity way too much... I ended up pluggin' the holes and reinstalling the floor brick.

I thought about cuttin' the floor out, welding in an ash collection cavity, and installing the grate permanently... but that would have meant a total re-engineering of the whole stove. All three air intakes... primary, secondary, and boost... are under the floor, and so are the doors and control linkage (run by a single lever on the front beside the door). Primary and boost air use the same internal passage channel (making forced air problematic), secondary has its own. Heck, it would have been easier to build a new box from scratch.

That experiment confirmed something (to me anyway). Burning on a grate, with at least some combustion air fed under it was way, way, way better... the difference was friggin' amazing. And I still had good secondary combustion‼ No doubt it would have failed the EPA tests configured like that... but it sure worked a ton better‼ Way more heat for way longer and no coal build up (until ashes filled the area under the grate).

Like I said in a previous post in this thread... elitist stoves are designed to pass EPA testing, they ain't designed to be "better". I'm sure the manufacturers do the best they can within the "regulatory limits", but the first and foremost consideration has to be passing the EPA testing or your product is rejected... anything else has to come a distant second. Those new proposed regulations that likely will be approved sometime early next year are gonna' make it interesting, and problems such as I (and a few others) have had will become a lot more commonplace... mark my words‼ Mark my words‼
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[zogger]

If you think back zogger, I tried something sort'a like that.

At the bottom front is a small "boost air" hole, which is distributed through a manifold thingy... it's designed to supply a little air at floor level during start-up (because EPA tests require the door be closed shortly after lighting). I drilled more boost air holes... first just a couple, then more, then more, etc. It didn't change a thing until I removed the firebrick from the floor and installed a coal grate an inch or so off the bottom. Man, that thing worked awesome with the extra floor air and grate... except, that inch under the grate would fill up with ash in a single loading. Cleaning out the ashes was a royal friggin' pain; ya' had to lift out the grate, which would only fit through the door at an angle... and ya' had to do it after every burn cycle (meaning ya' pretty much had to let the fire go out). And trying to raise the grate to a reasonable level reduced firebox capacity way too much... I ended up pluggin' the holes and reinstalling the floor brick.

I thought about cuttin' the floor out, welding in an ash collection cavity, and installing the grate permanently... but that would have meant a total re-engineering of the whole stove. All three air intakes... primary, secondary, and boost... are under the floor, and so are the doors and control linkage (run by a single lever on the front beside the door). Primary and boost air use the same internal passage channel (making forced air problematic), secondary has its own. Heck, it would have been easier to build a new box from scratch.

That experiment confirmed something (to me anyway). Burning on a grate, with at least some combustion air fed under it was way, way, way better... the difference was friggin' amazing. And I still had good secondary combustion‼ No doubt it would have failed the EPA tests configured like that... but it sure worked a ton better‼ Way more heat for way longer and no coal build up (until ashes filled the area under the grate).

Like I said in a previous post in this thread... elitist stoves are designed to pass EPA testing, they ain't designed to be "better". I'm sure the manufacturers do the best they can within the "regulatory limits", but the first and foremost consideration has to be passing the EPA testing or your product is rejected... anything else has to come a distant second. Those new proposed regulations that likely will be approved sometime early next year are gonna' make it interesting, and problems such as I (and a few others) have had will become a lot more commonplace... mark my words‼ Mark my words‼
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something like the secondary tubes with air holes, but at the bottom, coals sitting on top, routed to one of those holes you made, with a blower (important part there), which should keep the ashes out enough to keep the coals burning down.

I still think the thin pine splits will work as the easiest/fastest thing to try, at least to some degree. Pine burns pretty well, no coals really. Just burns up like thick paper.

edit: to avoid psychological cooties, because I know you like to start or kindle a fire with accelerant, don't call the thin pine splits kindling, refer to them as "endlings" used to end the old fire to begin anew.

 

[Locust Cutter]

I think I need to just install and OWB and keep the PE (or something like it) for ambiance and the joy of seeing an active fire.

 

[Locust Cutter]

Burning porous soft wood definitely helps oxygenate hthe fire a bit and burn more completely. I don't think the EPA had Locust and Hedge in mind as stove fuels...

 

[Whitespider]

I guess you'd haf'ta see the stove zogger, those extra "boost" holes were drilled into the internal passage that also supplies primary air. There ain't any way to "route" an air tube to a blower without destroying the existing air supply routing. Like I said... a total re-engineering.

I tried the "thin pine splits" thing... it was suggested by several. It was only marginally effective at best... and is just more screwin' 'round. You need to understand something... when I'm stirring the coal bed to get it burning or shoveling it out, I'll often find partially burned and charred full length splits under them. The irritation factor is unbelievable.

I think I need to just install and OWB...

He!! No ‼
I ain't goin' outside to load the box... screw that‼
No, the current forced-air furnace is awesome... and, if'n I want, I can load it naked without gettin' goose bumps
But... what ever floats your boat...
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[zogger]

I guess you'd haf'ta see the stove zogger, those extra "boost" holes were drilled into the internal passage that also supplies primary air. There ain't any way to "route" an air tube to a blower without destroying the existing air supply routing. Like I said... a total re-engineering.

I tried the "thin pine splits" thing... it was suggested by several. It was only marginally effective at best... and is just more screwin' 'round. You need to understand something... when I'm stirring the coal bed to get it burning or shoveling it out, I'll often find partially burned and charred full length splits under them. The irritation factor is unbelievable.


He!! No ‼
I ain't goin' outside to load the box... screw that‼
No, the current forced-air furnace is awesome... and, if'n I want, I can load it naked without gettin' goose bumps
But... what ever floats your boat...
*

Oh well...maybe if you get an invite to join the Stonecutters, they can steer you to a *real* leet stove, something like a blaze king

Hey, ever try just a few real small pieces of coal in the bottom? small pieces and not many, not sure how that stuff is sold or graded...Throw the wood on top, maybe the coal would keep it burning longer plus keep throwing heat as the charcoal lumps finish burning

After that, running out of ideers. Last one...

Double, or make it a triple, barrel stove.

 

[Chris-PA]

At the bottom front is a small "boost air" hole, which is distributed through a manifold thingy..

Unlike your spectrum, my Magnolia has no primary air inlet under the door. There is only one air inlet, at the bottom rear, flowing up a tube to the air manifold. At the front of the manifold is an extension that crosses the flue outlet, and serves as the air wash. A single control regulates all of it.

If I open it up a bit there is still plenty of air dropping down the past the door and sweeping in under the fire to prevent much coal formation. If it has built up coals a couple of small splits an opening the inlet more than usual will burn them up.

I load the firebox with the lowest level end-on to the door, and the next row cross-wise to the door. Air wash flows under, through and up, and secondary air flows down from above. Because both are throttled they don't get out of proportion.

 

[Eric Modell]

It looks like Spider needs a stove with Bias ply tires and a carburetor!!!!

 

[brenndatomu]

It looks like Spider needs a stove with Bias ply tires and a carburetor!!!!

Carbureted engine can run good on wood gas too, hmm....carbureted stove... off to my workshop! mwahhahaha!

 

[woodchuck357]

Carbureted engine can run good on wood gas too, hmm....carbureted stove... off to my workshop! mwahhahaha!

That's secondary burn!

 

[Whitespider]

Carburetor?? Fuel injection?? I just ain't seeing either
A carburetor mixes air with raw fuel before it is drawn into the combustion chamber...
Fuel injection mixes raw fuel with air before it is drawn into the combustion chamber...
(Yeah, I know, the above is an over-simplification.)

I relate elitist stove technology closer to the early emission control systems.
Basically, a primitive exhaust gas recirculation system with air pump... and those systems were complete crap
(Hey... you guys opened this door )
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[slowp]

My grateless, powerless elitist communist feminist stove is roaring away after I started it with newspaper and kindling. Don't know what I did wrong......

 

[Whitespider]

Don't know what I did wrong...

I do
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