Banking A Coal Fire

Hi all, presently I live in Berks county PA. I was born and raised in Lebanon county PA. Real close to coal country.
I used to have an old estate coal/wood stove. It had a crack in the fire chamber, so I had to scrap it at the end of last burning season. I really miss that old stove!
Now on to the present time. I bought a Legacy TLC 2000. I really like the stove as I burn wood in it during shoulder season.
Now getting to the meat of the subject, both my brother and myself were told that Banking a fire, either wood or coal, was to open up the top spinner valve so that the coal/wood fire would burn off from the top, so that it burns more slowly. This is what we always considered as banking a fire.
Now that I have my TLC 2000, I consider banking as both building up the fire/bank to the rear of my stove. I also still open up my top vents when burning coal, as I feel that the fire burns longer. By the way I have two battery powered CO2 alarms and haven't had any problems in doing this.
What do you all consider as banking, and any opinions about my method of burning?

The TLC is a good stove. I bought a ‘new’ old one that a guy had sitting in his garage for a bunch of years that he never used. Anyway. It’s a good stove. It does both burn wood and coal well. As far as I know when they say bank the coal. It means fill it above the brick in the center. You can get a good 4 inches of coal in the center basically like an ant hill.
The air slides on the top sides are actually for burning wood. When burning wood you want the air to feed the fire from the top. And with coal you want the air to feed the fire from the bottom and go through the pile. Opening the sides will help burn off the combustible fumes that the coal puts off when refilling it.

Banking the fire is raking the bed to a wedge shape after shaking and before recharging the firebox. This allows some fire at the top of the bed to burn off gases and prevent puffbacks from occurring. Some appliances prefer the top fire at the front and some at the back, you'll find out what your's likes fast enough. It also reduces the need to fiddle with the air settings as that in itself can be problematic.

In my opinion banking is more of a bituminous coal tending technique. Anthracite doesn't like to be disturbed quite as much. Just shake it down and put fresh on top. There are several ways to prevent puff back. You can drill a hole down thru to expose some burning coals or leave a corner exposed. You can also keep the load door cracked open a hair to keep volatile gases diluted till they decide to ignite safely.

V shaped fireboxes are generally the ones needing a banking procedure even with anthracite. They aren't anthracite friendly shape.

"The Original One Match Club"
Banking a fire is preparing a bituminous coal fire or even a wood fire at the evening time before going to bed. It is to arrange the fire to be compact shape and size and then ashes are layer on as a over nite blanket. This stifles or slows down the air getting freely to the fire to insure that there will be enough hot coals remaining in the morning to bring the fire back to life. Without banking there could be insufficient hot coals to jump start the new days fire with.

FWIW - during our first couple of years with our TLC2000, we would load the coal so that it was even across the top. At some point, we just piled it in and there would be a mound. This does not sound like banking but found that the burn was more even and seemed to last a little longer. At night, we would load this way and then close the primary air a wee bit - I suspect with the sides of the coal pile less dense, this allowed the minimal air to flow freely along the sides keeping the fire/coals purring through the night.

You have a very nice stove but I suspect there are many very nice coals stoves! We look forward to winter now.

I tend to pile the coal up the back wall of my stove. Picture a ramp, triangular shaped. That seems to work pretty well and gives the stove more than enough coal for overnight. I add a little then wait for blue flames, then add more, wait for flames, ect. Sometimes I can get it all loaded at once as long as I have a hot spot in the front. I've already had 1 puff back, I try to avoid that. I always thought it was impossible if the stove had over fire air, which mine does. I usually keep the load door cracked a bit now until I see flames.

My father and grandfather used to say to me, you netter bank that fire for the night, so we always used to load her up and burn the blue, then we used to open up the top spinner slightly and close the bottom spinner slightly.
Then in the morning we would draw her up.
It takes a while to get the feel of the spinner valves, but once you have it down the fire would last all night with no tending.
Now days these newer coal/wood stoves are much much more efficient than the old ones. But I still open up the top and bank up my coal to the rear. I get up in the morning and just draw it up and I am good for the whole day.

"Draw it up"? Explain.

Hoytman wrote: ↑

Wed. Oct. 07, 2020 10:28 am

"Draw it up"? Explain.

I think he means stoke the fire up, get it burning hot

Yea Draw it up.
It's kinda like Make Out The Light Once Now.
I guess it's PA. dutch.
Draw it up means to stoke it up. Never thought that it would be hard to figure out.
I guess the way we bank up the fire might be different than what the rest of the world thinks.
Don't take this the wrong way, I ain't offended and don't mean to offend anyone.
Just a smile.
But as I said before, we used to think of banking a fire as setting it for the night by opening up the top valve and closing down the bottom one somewhat.

Like saying," Throw me down the stairs, your dirty clothes". " Throw the cow over the fence some hay"....

yup we talk funny around here. Outten the light is a good one. or make the light out.

Mntbugy that's a good one we say here too once.

And dinner and supper time. Dinner time is noon, supper is the evening meal.

11ultra103 wrote: ↑

Wed. Oct. 07, 2020 4:48 pm

yup we talk funny around here. Outten the light is a good one. or make the light out.

Mntbugy that's a good one we say here too once.

And dinner and supper time. Dinner time is noon, supper is the evening meal.

Yep there ain't no lunch here, it's either Breakfast, Dinner or supper. What's with this lunch?
Once naw?