Coalpail.com Forum

ok, I did a little test of my own. I turned on my power vent, went to the back of the stove. I lit a few matches. The flame was pulled under the carpet. I blew out the match, and let the smoke emanate by the carpet. The power vent pulled the smoke from the match into the stove under neath the carpet. Am I correct in thinking that there should be no air being sucked into the stove this way? Would this cause the fire to burn up near the coal hopper?

Maybe your grate isn't seated properly. Can you slide it back and forth? If so it isn't seated properly. I wuld pull the grate and cement it all back in place.

I had reseated the grate last week. I had the guy who installed the stove come over tonight. He was in the area and he thinks that the grate was too rough and pitted. He took his disk sander to it. He also checked the hopper gasket and came to the conclusion that the hopper may be tilting when the bolts are tightened lifting it off the gasket. We don't have the bolts tightened all the way, and he modified the hopper opening a bit to make sure it was seated properly. I will get some washers tomorrow so I can tighten it where it sits currently. I just started the stove and I am going to monitor it for a few hours.

Sounds good.

ok, the hot coals seem to be sitting where they are supposed to be. hopefully this was the problem. I do have a question about the blue flames coming off the coals. Will they come off the coals near the rear of the coals, in the middle, all over? Just wondering. They seem to be going straight up when the door is shut. I from time to time was opening the door momentarily to check on whether the ash was dropping properly, and when I opened the door the flames went to the rear of the stove. When I closed, they went straight up again.. Normal?

Sounds about right regarding the fire. I do have a question about your match test though. It says you fired up your powervent and lit some matches to the rear of the carpet and the flame and smoke were sucked in? Was you combustion fan running at the time? If not, the powervent has to pull air from somewhere and the carpet would probably be the path of least resistance. Just something to look at. Good luck.

Jeff

no combustion fan running. Just the power vent at full force. My hopper still got hot and it looked like the fire was starting to creep again. Not sure what I'm going to do now. I may contact Alaska and see if they can recommend a repair tech or something like that. It still seems that the ash is not falling off properly and backing up on the grate. I have an acquaintance that has an Alaska Stoker, so I may go to his house and watch his operate.

Have you tried a full time combustion fan?? It seems like your draft is pulling air from the hopper and stoker mechanism instead of through the holes in the grate.. If you had a full time combustion fan, like most new-design stokers have, then this fan would provide the air for the fire and keep the DV draft from pulling air through the hopper and stoker..

I think looking at and watching your neighbor's stoker is a good idea..

Take care,, Greg L

Just got off the phone with Alaska. Turns out I should have my power vent plugged into a wall outlet, not to the stoves rheostat. The guy that installed it hooked it up that way. If I turn down the cumbustion motor and blower fan, the power vent would come down too. That effective would close the baro damper to nothing. Pehaps this was my problem. I'll make adjustments and fire it up when I get home today

That's a first.

I have an alaska 140 with a single feeder, my coals stay hot to the point of the grate holes but when I look at the flame it looks like it is creeping toward the feeder. My hopper is warm on the bottom and the side that the feeder is on but before reading this post I just thought that it was the heat from the stove, it has been running since saturday like that ( I don't think I noticed it before) anyways let me know if this is urgent or if it is normal.

Since the fix my hopper runs room temp. I would shut it down and cement the grate into place. Better safe than sorry.

The hopper on my Alaska is hot to the touch on the bottom edge closest to the stove, it's due to radiant heat from the stove.

The grate was cemented to the strong back just for safety's sake.`The stove is working properly as far as I can see. It's heating the whole

I would like to give a BIG shout out to everyone here for they're help in this issue, especially Rick 386. He was a huge in supplying me with info to get this thing rectified. I couldn't have done this without ya! The heat is NICE! Thanks so very much!

I too was having the coal hopper get hot. I agree it is due to the radiant heat of the stove. The rear of this stove gets very warm, and the bin gets hot. I felt the underside of the bin, and it is cooler than the sides of the bin.. If there was a fire creeping into the bin, it would be hottest there, wouldn't you all agree?

shano06 wrote:I have an alaska 140 with a single feeder, my coals stay hot to the point of the grate holes but when I look at the flame it looks like it is creeping toward the feeder. My hopper is warm on the bottom and the side that the feeder is on but before reading this post I just thought that it was the heat from the stove, it has been running since Saturday like that ( I don't think I noticed it before) anyways let me know if this is urgent or if it is normal.

I was freaked out by this also. I had a nice long talk with the Alaska company today. They have been very helpful through this. The flames will always be at the rear of the coals. That is normal. As long as those coals are are hot only at the holes in the grate, you will be fine. If RED HOT coals are at the base of the bin, then you have an issue. Just a question...Are you power venting with this stove? If you are powerventing, make sure you have a barometric damper and that it is set properly. My stove was improperly set up with the powervent being controlled by the stove rheostat. If I turned down the stove, it would close the damper, sucking more air from in the stove instead of from in the room. I found that my bin may have been a cause for air getting in because it was not seated properly on the stoker gasket.

No power vent on my 140 just a class 1 chimney, I keep hearing you talk about cementing the grate, my grate hasnt been movable even when I switched the side the hopper and feeder were with the exaust, it sounds like a lot of your grates move around, Im not sure if I am missing something.