Coalpail.com Forum

Figured I'd pass along tips as they happen/occur to me:

Today in shaking down my TLC, I got at little to aggressive & shook to much. I must have packed the coal bed more tightly than I usually do, as my draw is weaker than usual & thus the stove temp is not rising, even with the ash door still wide open. (I have digital & a magnetic analog thermometers hooked up) I wanted to close the ash door as I usually do but noticed the temp, which started at 185* has been dropping...not rising. If I closed the ash door now (with temps dropping) I would undoubtedly kill my fire. I just looked & the temp is still dropping (now 181*) so I will keep the ash door open until the fire livens up & the temp starts to rise again with lots of air from the open ash door.
I keep setting my egg timer to make sujre I check the stove temps every 5-8 minutes or so. I'll go check right now....BRB.

OK...It's back up to 185* & climbing so I'll give it a few more minutes & then close the ash door.

Moral of the story: Don't close your ash door if your stove temp is falling!

Edit: I just closed the ash door at 190*

2nd Edit: It's now about 30 minutes later & the stove is humming along at 175* & the fire looks fine. (blue ladies still lightly dancing!) If your ash base gets packed too tightly during shake down you can usually just wait & it will fix itself, with plenty of air. (air will find it's way through the ash base & open up channels to the fire. If not, you can poke from underneath to force these channels)

One thing, I noticed last year, which somewhat surprised me, is that the ash can get compacted and severely restrict the air flow through the fire. More than once, I've "rattled things up" clear to the grates with the poker. It doesn't matter how hot the coals are above, if they can get air, they are going to fail.

Dallas wrote:One thing, I noticed last year, which somewhat surprised me, is that the ash can get compacted and severely restrict the air flow through the fire

Absolutely it can smother your fire! Shaking down is more of an ART than a SCIENCE & you have to develop a "Feel" for it. With a hand fired stove, once you master shaking down you have it made!

Thats a big 10-4 on the art verses the science, so far I've dump the whole load of coal twice. I think Mr. Harman could have developed a better shaker grate system. I've only had my Harman Trident SF 160 boiler going for four days and the hardest time i'm having is to shake to much or not to shake to much.

By the way Devil505, Being from Mass also, i'm looking for coal at a little cheaper price than I Paid ($400) for 1-1/4 ton delivered. What about you?

JB

JB Sparks wrote:Thats a big 10-4 on the art verses the science, so far I've dump the whole load of coal twice. I think Mr. Harman could have developed a better shaker grate system.

Not sure if your shaker mechanism is like other Harmans but check out this thread...I devised a STOP to prevent dumping too much in Harmans. "Stops" for Harman Shaker Mechanisms?

ive been poking at the front grate on mine almost every time I shake.i need to get something I can use to get at the back and middle one better, but the middle one seems like it cleans the best during shaking by itself. it suprised me how deep the ash is on 8-10 hours between shaking it. it just keeps falling and falling each time I poke the grate.

greentjdude wrote:ive been poking at the front grate on mine almost every time I shake.

Not sure what your poking but I suggest you do it very sparingly, Some people never poke their fires from the top, but I do LIGHTLY to break up bridging & puncture air pockets in the ash.

im poking underneath between the teeth in the front grate. nothing falls out of there when I shake it and it just clogs up. im sure the rear is like that too but I cant get to it. the middle cleans itself much better because of the grates working side by side. my fire was producing a lot less heat until I started cleaning that front grate out. it was like it was only burning in the middle and sinking to a hole in the middle with a wall of unburnt coal in the front.

greentjdude wrote:im poking underneath between the teeth in the front grate. nothing falls out of there when I shake it and it just clogs up.

What coal are you using again?

im using blashack. I just switched to some agel this morning to test it out. I have to let the fire go out tonight anyway so if there is a problem its no big deal.

the first thing I thought was that the front grate was not hooked up properly, but it is. I took it all apart and put it back together when I first got the stove during cleaning. I did confirm its hooked and shaking too.

greentjdude wrote:im using blashack

Good coal