Shaking Down in Warm Weather

Devil505 · Post by **Devil505** » Fri. Feb. 27, 2009 4:04 pm

It's 57* here right now, which calls for a different technique for shaking down hand fired stove. The major difference is opening the ash door & waiting much longer for the weaker draft to allow a lively fire to get going. This time of year I have found to be much easier to accidentally kill your fire due to lower fire temps & weak chimney draw.
I just opened the ash door & set my egg timer for a full 8 minutes b4 I'll go back & check the liveliness of my fire.
After that, it's pretty much the same technique as usual, with just a longer wait to get up to operating temp on reload.

Edit: Nope.....8 minutes was not long enough....probably 10-12 minutes will do it.

Anyone else have any warm weather tips?

SuperBeetle · Post by **SuperBeetle** » Fri. Feb. 27, 2009 4:17 pm

In warm weather I don't completely fill the stove. I fill it around half full to get less heat. (I hate having to open the windows and be wasteful). Just be careful when doing this as you may lose your fire.

Devil505 · Post by **Devil505** » Fri. Feb. 27, 2009 4:20 pm

OK...Shook down & dumped a bunch of coal into the lively flaming center of stove, leaving both side pretty clear (with small flames) Opened the secondary sliders to let more air in above the coal bed & help flames. Back at computer & set egg timer for 7 minutes to check fire again.

SuperBeetle · Post by **SuperBeetle** » Fri. Feb. 27, 2009 4:25 pm

Devil505 wrote:OK...Shook down & dumped a bunch of coal into the lively flaming center of stove, leaving both side pretty clear (with small flames) Opened the secondary sliders to let more air in above the coal bed & help flames. Back at computer & set egg timer for 7 minutes to check fire again.

Yep you need air above or she may go

I hate when that happens.

Devil505 · Post by **Devil505** » Fri. Feb. 27, 2009 4:27 pm

OK --Back....Flames were pretty lively on far left side of stove so I filled the middle & right side completely, leaving the left side alone & flaming nicely. (no flames from center or right side yet) Closed the secondary sliders & set the egg timer again for 6 minutes..this time. (exact timer settings are obviously not important as long as you can remember to check your stove soon, with the ash door still open.

Devil505 · Post by **Devil505** » Fri. Feb. 27, 2009 4:32 pm

OK......Just went back & center had decent flames now so I filled the left side up full, checked the stove temp & closed the ash door...Done.

Devil505 · Post by **Devil505** » Fri. Feb. 27, 2009 4:36 pm

SuperBeetle wrote:In warm weather I don't completely fill the stove. I fill it around half full to get less heat. (I hate having to open the windows and be wasteful). Just be careful when doing this as you may lose your fire.

this time of year it's still cold at night (& will be getting colder over he weekend) so I still fill my stove completely. I'll probably start filling less in about a month or so.

CoalHeat · Post by **CoalHeat** » Fri. Feb. 27, 2009 7:46 pm

This time of year I have found to be much easier to accidentally kill your fire due to lower fire temps & weak chimney draw.

Not with my Harman, the chimney is still drafting fine.

With this warm weather both stoves produce too much heat. I'm keeping the hand-fed burning on a low fire because it's going to get cold again real soon. 2 windows open on the first floor and 3 open on the second floor, it's 77 up here.

I wonder who else nearby has windows open??

lowfog01 · Post by **lowfog01** » Fri. Feb. 27, 2009 8:14 pm

Wood'nCoal wrote:
I wonder who else nearby has windows open??

I have the two windows in my family room (stove room) and my sliding glass door open all the way. My kids are running around in shorts and T-shirts.

Our outside high was 68*. Our inside high was 90*. With the cost of coal it's still cheaper to open the family room windows then to let the fire go out and have to deal with the cost and frustration of starting all over again. I've been idling my stove all day - 200*. I’m not putting anymore coal on it because tomorrow I'm killing the fire and installing my barro. If the existing coals keep the house around 65* I’ll be happy.

Devil505 · Post by **Devil505** » Fri. Feb. 27, 2009 8:27 pm

lowfog01 wrote:I've been idling my stove all day - 200*.

I can get mine to idle down to around 120*-130* when it's warm out. Have you tried to get your temp down real low by almost closing the air intake? (200* is pretty high for idle)

lowfog01 · Post by **lowfog01** » Fri. Feb. 27, 2009 8:47 pm

Devil505 wrote:
lowfog01 wrote:I've been idling my stove all day - 200*.
I can get mine to idle down to around 120*-130* when it's warm out. Have you tried to get your temp down real low by almost closing the air intake? (200* is pretty high for idle)

I've thought about it but I'm afraid to try if I'm not going to be home most of the day (like today) to watch the stove. I don't have the experience to trust the draft or fire with less air. When I do that I always think the fire is going out and I still needed the fire to warm the house tonight. I refuse to turn my NG furnace on. I'm sure I'll have more opportunities to try for a lower burn in the spring. Thanks for all your input. Lisa

SMITTY · Post by **SMITTY** » Fri. Feb. 27, 2009 8:54 pm

My stack temp is around 125 -150*........& with the coils, my boiler hit 225*. I don't think the burner kicked on once today!

I have the damper set the same - 1 1/4 turns out - but the draft is only .025 - .03 which keeps the fire low. My house is 71* now -- normally on a cold day it's 65* in here with the stove going full tilt. BAD insulation!

Devil505 · Post by **Devil505** » Fri. Feb. 27, 2009 9:00 pm

lowfog01 wrote:I'm afraid to try if I'm not going to be home most of the day (like today) to watch the stove.

Your fear is real, but 200* is overkill with all but the weakest draft imaginable. I have a pretty weak draft but I can regularly run my stove at fairly low temps (say 130*) without losing it. Check out this thread Large Stove How Low & try experimenting with low stove temps when you are home.
Running your stove real low means you are right on the edge of possibly losing it but you should be able to find a nice, low comfortable temp that wont blow you out of the house or lose your fire.
Another toy I recommend is this http://www.smarthome.com/3219/Redi-Chek-ET-73-Rem ... ter/p.aspx
which will remotely alarm if your fire gets to hot or to cold, for when you are home.

lowfog01 · Post by **lowfog01** » Fri. Feb. 27, 2009 9:02 pm

Devil505 wrote:
lowfog01 wrote:I'm afraid to try if I'm not going to be home most of the day (like today) to watch the stove.
Your fear is real, but 200* is overkill with all but the weakest draft imaginable. I have a pretty weak draft but I can regularly run my stove at fairly low temps (say 130*) without losing it. Check out this thread Large Stove How Low & try experimenting with low stove temps when you are home.
Running your stove real low means you are right on the edge of possibly losing it but you should be able to find a nice, low comfortable temp that wont blow you out of the house or lose your fire.
Another toy I recommend is this http://www.smarthome.com/3219/Redi-Chek-ET-73-Rem ... ter/p.aspx
which will remotely alarm if your fire gets to hot or to cold, for when you are home.

Thanks I'll check those things out. Lisa

VigIIPeaBurner · Post by **VigIIPeaBurner** » Fri. Feb. 27, 2009 9:16 pm

Wood'nCoal wrote:
I wonder who else nearby has windows open??

Wood'nCoal, are you running the Alaska too?

None open here, except when I holler at them squirrels

If it stays this warm, we'll be chasing bears. That's usually by the third week in march - they'll be on my deck soon.

Saving the high BTU stuff for the weekend. Since my cart is stocked like a wine cabinet, I can pull the coal that suits the weather for the hand fed. The last load of Reading pea is more like buckwheat. No draft problems yet but burning the pea-wheat keeps the burn rate down. It works pretty good. Load late at night and again ~ 1pm. Takes a long time to gt up to full temp with the air opened up more than usual at night. Closed it down this afternoon and it's now getting to 550 on the stove top -just getting on the hot side of the pm load The 'roost' room with the stove is 74, kitchen 71, upstairs hall 70 as I post this. Planing to switch back to the superior tomorrow night, looks like for most of next week.