Ash Build up in My Vermont Coal Stove??

can someone post a picture of the slicer tool referred to in this thread please ? I am interested to see how it differs from a poker with a view to using it in a hitzer

many thanks in advance !

Van

A slicing tool is more knife shaped rather than round. About 1/8 inch thick by 5/8 wide, long enough to reach the furthest part of the grate plus some extra when inserted from the front of the stove in slots just at grate level provided for this purpose. Some have an offset on the end to better reach into the corners.

To use in a Hitzer you would have to cut slots in the stove and provide means to cover the slots when not in use to prevent overfiring. If I had to choose between shaking or slicing and could only have one method I would choose slicing as being more effective. Of course this is very dependent on the particular coal you are using.

Richard

Richard

thanks for explanation

Van

It's been a little warmer, so I decided to to see how low my stove (Vermont Castings first generation) would idle. Turns out to be room temp. No big deal I needed to give it a thorough cleaning anyway. Removed some cracked furnace cement and applied fresh. Did make one improvement. I pulled off and reinstalled the gasket that I had added to the doors as Paul suggested. The gasket material that I had was a little smaller (~3/8) than Paul's so I added a second continuous gasket to the top of the lip on the front of the cast iron grate. I positioned it so that it contacted the door gaskets and glued it in place with furnace cement. When I close the door I can feel a little resistance, so I am getting a great seal now. Re lit the stove and wow! It was the fastest that it had ever came up to temp. The seal made a tremendous difference.

The great thing about this site is the exchange of ideas and everyone trying to get the most out of their stoves. No more complacency for me. Thanks to everyone!!

Terry

VigIIPeaBurner wrote:

rewinder wrote:Nice movie there VigIIPB!
You have a nice looking fire after 12 hrs. What was the surface temp at that time? Also, being a batch loader, can you run it at a low temp when it's warmer outside? (say 200deg surface temp?)

Looking forward to the next episode!

The time was actually closet to 13 hrs and the surface temp was 640 before I started. At six ft above the stove, the surface temp of the pipe measured 178. I've played a lot with the low temperature burn and run the stove while it's in the low sixties. That can be found at Reducing Grate Area for Spring Burning

I'll try to up load the second part of the video that shows the complete and thorough recharge. It's a large file. I do not always do the poking through the front doors but included it to stay with the thorough theme. If you're wondering what the stove top temp was, after 19 minutes it was ~ 440F. Hope this answers some Qs.

great video!!! Your brave doing that bare-handed!! lol and I see the gloves next to the stove :)

VanBuren wrote:can someone post a picture of the slicer tool referred to in this thread please ? I am interested to see how it differs from a poker with a view to using it in a hitzer

many thanks in advance !

Van

Slicer tool is the sword looking thing on top...

Here's a link to the pictures of the tool I posted on another thread. There's a tape measure in one for reference and my, um, template of the shape of the original tip.

• Older Vigilant Stove...Am I Safe?

(edit=)Scubasteve - thanks! I keep the gloves nearby and usually wear them. I think I was more attentive to the camera so I didn't put the gloves on. It's hard enough using the little buttons with my fat mitts.

I like the video of the VC and I find all of the info helpful. However, I have this stove down to a science. Ten minutes tops. Wake up and open the damper and air control. add a thin layer of coal. open ashpan and go dump the ashes from the night before and leave ashpan open come back in and close ash pan. No shaking yet. I thoroughly slice through the top grates and then I slice underneath. I pay most of my attention to the back corners. I basically slice until I see small embers or a red glow. Them I shake about five times. By this time embers start to come down. I then shut the front doors and add the rest of the coal. I bank it up the back just to the top of the refractory. Then I open the ashpan and leave it open for about 2-4 min(until I see the blue ladies dancing on top). then I shut the ash pan door, let the ladies dance a for another 2 min then shut the damper and adjust the aircontrol. I heat approx, 2000 square feet. The only time it gives me trouble is when it is below -10 which happens a lot in VT. The one question that I have is will I notice a difference with Pea. I have always burned nut. Thanks for any info you can give.

Cheers, Ryan

Your airflow will be more restricted with pea size coal, so you will get less heat out of it. Many people use pea size in the fall and spring, and nut size for the cold months.

Greg L

There's one discussion about pes vs. nut here. What Greg states is true for many people. My set up has more than enough draft to get great heat out of pea since it's not regulated by a barometric damper. I've used pea all season long for many years in the 2310 and get just as much heat from pea as nut. The Vigilants, as you know, have built in manual damper sized to perform well with the thermostatic air inlet. If you have access to a half dozen bags of pea, give it a try in this cold weather we're having. You might be surprized. It will take a few tries to learn how to reload with pea because it might take a little longer to light off the entire load.

The video you referred to, is it the one I posted? If so, I'm using pea in those videos. It does take me a little longer because I have to walk a flight of stairs to refill my bucket ant dump ashes. It's about a 180' round trip. What goes up must come down! Who needs gym fees - I buy coal.

I am going to try the pea. Do you get longer burn times? I run my stove at a surface temp of 500-600. If I run it any lower I get clinkers as well as a cold house. But at 500-600 I go thru a bag and a quarter a day. I believe that this is tipical?

fgb5 wrote:I am going to try the pea. Do you get longer burn times? I run my stove at a surface temp of 500-600. If I run it any lower I get clinkers as well as a cold house. But at 500-600 I go thru a bag and a quarter a day. I believe that this is tipical?

My burn times are about the same for nut or pea. A big factor in this is the Vigilant's thermostatic air control. A 700* stove in balmy 40* outdoor temperatures is the same 700* stove when it's 20 and breezy outside. Mainly, fuel usage and BTU output varies if the draft is consistent. It really doesn't seem to matter in my set up. Pea generally is a little slower to light off on recharging. I think the biggest factor is coal quality. If you have good draft, you shouldn't see anything different if the coal is good quality. In a hand fed, pea will cut back on the draft because the air passages are more numerous and smaller throughout the loaded fire box. I've had bulk pea from the local yard that has varied in size. The last load was on the small side of the pea range, more like large buck, and was a little harder to light off when recharging.

Right now, I have some nut that has a nice long burn time and lower ash but is really hard to shake down with the Vigilant 2310's gentle grate action. No clinkers, almost all powder. I run at max of ~ 700* most of the main heating season. With my current coal, I'm going through roughly 50 - 70 Lbs. If the day is sunny & in the 20s, closer to 50. When it gets into the low 20s and the teens and the days are cloudy, my usage will be on the higher side and the oil furnace assists in the heating load. If you are using 40 lb bags, you're seeing about the same usage rate. Although not with this season's coal so far, I've burned as much as 80 - 90 Lbs/day but that's the extreme.

One peculiar thing is you said you see clinkers when running cool. Generally, clinkers are formed when the burning coal bed gets overly hot and the minerals fuse together, analogous to how glass is made. When I run cold (in hand fired stove), the anthracite doesn't all go to powder. I get coal ash shaped like the original piece but it's all solid ash and will crumble when I mash it. Some describe this as 'granola' ash. Check this thread for clinker pictures.

I, for the ash build up in the Vermont Vigilant 11, I think the worst is horizontal parts in the fire box so it acts as an insulator and it is more difficult to get the heat out of the stove. The anthracite ash is so stiky that it will stuck on all horizontal places and there are a lot in the Vigilant 11. When I modified mine(you can see it on Hand Fired Coal Stoves at A different Vigilant 11 coal stove),I eliminated all horizontal shells and made the fire box smaller. What surprised me the most is that :I get more heat with less anthracite, 12 Hrs burn time without any care, the stove can idles at 300 F with 6 pounds of coal for 12 hrs. and no more than 10pounds at night for the next 12 hrs. after shaking (it is not too cold now but it was impossible to do so before), when it is colder it can go as high as needed(once I let it go to the max. of the thermometer and I was very impressed with a so small quantity of anthracite). An other place for ash build up was the front end of the fire box with the horizontal bars...I removed all that crap and changed the desing. It is even cleaner when opening the front doors and the glasses stay very clean. I think those bars are a goog bypass for the air :it is easier to pass there than through the coal beb.
Salutations

This one I just pulled up OK

VigIIPeaBurner wrote:

mrpete64 wrote:I think that I am...coal retarded!! After using my vermont casting wood stove, for 35 years, maybe I am not "cut out" to use coal. I keep getting coal ash build up in my Vermont castings coal stove. I shake the hell out of it...clean it twice daily...and still cannot get it to work correctly. Some times it works great...and top stove temperature is around 450.
Any suggestions on what I am doing wrong?
Thanks!
Mr. Pete--->

Hi Mr Pete, I can show you how I do a full recharge of my 2310. It is easy once you learn the stove. Maybe the Vigilant does fall into the "He-Man/Cave Man category" as eelhc states - I love it but it does the job reliably for me. I burn pea. Did try about a half ton of nut but found that with my chimney's draft, I can easily burn pea. Some have better luck with nut because the larger air spaces in the load doesn't restrict the draft as much I guessing.

I'll (hopefully) post a two part video of how I do the "full recharge". It's not the greatest but I'm using a Sony DSC-P100 that's more than a few years old and the conversion software gets balky, not to mention its old too. The fist part is attached below. It shows how I wake up the fire, set the first charge and what the old ashes look like. I'll follow up with the second half if I can get the old software to run all the way through.

great movie
sure am glad I diver a stoker
BDD