Education Time (for Me): What Does It Mean to Dump a Fire?

oliver power wrote:Should you ever get a clinker, or coal caught in your grates, don't panic. Most times, simply leave it alone. Come next tending time, it may be burnt up, and gone. Don't jump on the shaker handle, causing damage to the stove. Sometimes you can poke from under the grates. BUT, lets say you get a stone caught in the grates. You have to let the fire burn out in order to dislodge the stone. That's when it's nice to be able to dump the grates, and start over. Oliver

Yep Yep Yep... sometimes I think I get a touch of that OCD stuff and just hafta figit.

anthony7812 wrote:Yep Yep Yep... sometimes I think I get a touch of that OCD stuff and just hafta figit.

I've learned the hard way, not once but twice, to not reef on the grate handle anymore. The grates in mine are $60 each and I've broken the front grate twice. I've been successful poking up thru the bottom to dislodge any jams. Some standing on head is necessary but better than a total shut down clean out and purchase of a new grate

I wish grates for the Harman were 60 bucks. Knock on wood never cracked one. Ive looked up prices and I believe they were well over 100 bucks to replace one.

So is the consensus that conventional grates are advantageous over the circular Alaska Kodiak grates?

I don't see how a round grate in a rectangular stove can clear the corners of the coal bed.

In the video link it shows shaking with the ash door open. This is a good way to spread fly ash in the room. It also shows poking the corners to clear the ash. There are better systems in my opinion.

I don't think you can just say one is better than another because it depends on the design of the stove and grate. The Ransom duplex grates in the antiques work very well. Warm Morning works pretty well too.

By far the best grate system I have used is on my Glenwood Modern Oak 114. This is triangular grates fairly widely spaced. It works so well because the coal bed partially bridges to allow very fast and easy ash clearing followed by a quick poke from above to settle the bed. This has the original brick lined fire pot which is important.

Buying a new stove I would insist on hopper and thermostat and would prefer rocking grates.

Ditto on that new stove type franco b

Dump a fire?? That's what happens to me when I eat hot peppers the night before....

Are there any videos of someone similarly tending a Hitzer or a DS Machine (or similar)? If you don't have the ash door open when you shake down, how will you know when you have reached the stage where hot coals begin falling through the grates? Is it a timing and feel sort of thing? Perhaps the video was shot that way so the viewers could visualize the event more fully.

lsayre wrote:Are there any videos of someone similarly tending a Hitzer or a DS Machine (or similar)? If you don't have the ash door open when you shake down, how will you know when you have reached the stage where hot coals begin falling through the grates? Is it a timing and feel sort of thing? Perhaps the video was shot that way so the viewers could visualize the event more fully.

It looked to me that the ash door had to be open to access the shaker handle.

Yes it is often a case of feel, the ash is soft and when unburnt coal is on the grate it becomes gritty and harder to shake. Often the glow in the ash pan can be seen through the openings in the air shutter or through the access hole for the shaker, or you can give a quick look by opening the door.

Not counting time to empty ash pan or to retrieve fresh coal, tending time should only be about a minute to shake down and refill with fresh coal. Also ash pan should be big enough to only need emptying once a day. Not that many stoves can do that, and I don't think any without a hopper. The thermostat automatically opens more at the end of a burn and remains open until fire recovers so that also lessens tending time.

franco b wrote:It looked to me that the ash door had to be open to access the shaker handle.

I just watched it again,and I believe you are correct. The ash door covers the shaker handle slot.

From either personal experience or looking at and examining or reading others experience I have not found any stove, new or old, that I don't think could be made better in design, in one area or another.

Too many users are willing to put up with shortcomings that should not be there, or just accept it as normal as long as it gets hot.

franco b wrote:In the video link it shows shaking with the ash door open. This is a good way to spread fly ash in the room.

Mine must have the ash door open to shake the grates also. In my experiences so far, there is always a good draft pulling in thru the ash door so fly ash can't get into the room that way. I'll purposely keep the load door closed while shaking, to maintain a healthy draft pulling in thru the ash door. Otherwise yes, fly ash could to get out into the room.

interesting views from everyone about this subject

A round grate in a square stove CANNOT be better
Dump grates where made on purpose to dump the firebox into the ashpan if you ever let the fire go out.
Being able to shake the stove without opening the ash door is BETTER
Being able to view the lower section of the firebed as you shake is BETTER (Antique stoves like Glenwood had this mastered with their lil' 3rd. shake door and mica stoves which allow you to see the "glow")
Clinkers have always been a subject of grate design and they will always exist to some degree with coal burning (opening draft prior to shake may help soften/burn the problem, placing cast fingers at the bottom of firepot may help free them "Antique's", Placing a cast ring between grate and firepot may help reduce the jamb by lessoning the gap "Chubby", designing individual apposing cast slider grate system that allows for some play between each and every sliding finger grate that lets a clinker get through if needed may help "Crane 404", creating a funnel effect to the grate so clinkers tend to head towards the center and not towards to edges and many other ways to alleviate this issue (that will always be their) have been attempted to some degree or another and its personal preference as to which helps the best.

Typically folks on this forum don't let their fires go out very often so having a dumper grate is pretty mute for most of us.

The circular grates like found in a Franco Belge take a lot of shaking to get the ashes down. The Harman grates can move all the ashes necessary in about 1/20 of the time it took with Franco Belge. True, a clinker and inexperience can cause your hot coals to fall into the pan on the Harman. But I think the Harman grates are better than circular by 1000%.

pine grove coal user wrote:The circular grates like found in a Franco Belge take a lot of shaking to get the ashes down.

That's why there is provision to slice the grate which is fast and easy. Tending is very fast.