Need help with more heat

I’ve got my stoker all fired up and running great. I have a nice trail, and a good feed speed. My fan speed is set on 3. However, I am not getting nearly the heat output I was expecting. The air coming out the the top is maybe 70-75 degrees.

I’ve been reading some threads on cleaning the “fines”. How/where do I access to clean the fines up. All the holes on the grate are all clear and fully open. I just don’t know how to get the “fines” clean.

I know the picture is hard to see, but I have about 3” of tailings, and 2” of burning coal.

Thanks.

Welcome to the forum.

With Alaska's you can pull the grate off and vacuum the fines out. You need to have a set of gaskets on hand to do that though.

You can also remove the blower and adapt a small diameter hose to your vacuum. feed the hose through the blower hole. That will get 90% of them.

From the looks of your fire, your problem seems to be not enough feed. At full burn that grate should be just about full of burning coal.

-Don

Yes add feed, up to the point where there is 1-2" of dead ash at the end of the grate. The second method to clear the fines described by Don, creating access under the grate by removing the combustion air fan, is the one I would use.

Mike

this is an older stove correct?

if it is a triburner stoker. the fan speed controller also controls the coal feed speed. the coal speed feed motor is also for combustion. what happens when you turn the stove motors down via the rheostat there is less combustion air to the coal.

this is what i did years ago to my alaska.....some members here discovered the mod, it;s cheap and works well.

shut down the stove.
then remove the stoker motor.
clean out the fines under the grate with a vacuum, and clean out all the holes in the grate....they can get clogged.
now remove the plastic blower wheel from the stoker motor.
clean and oil the motor while it is out.
now go get a 50 cfm bathroom fan and a power cord (i use old computer cords)
wire the cord to the fan motor, snap in the black plastic collar on the fan housing.
put the fan under the stoker motor with the air outlet up tight against the air inlet for the combustion air (it's a round hole) you have to screw a board on the bottom so it fits in there snug, stoves will vary, shim it in there good so it can't come out. that fan gets power all the time now. run the other motors off the speed control.
the fan is like 15 bucks.

i tried a dayton blower bolted to the stove, it was much noisier and the motor did not last 3 seasons. the bathroom fan replacement motors are like 9 bucks and you can get them from 6 am to 10 pm at lowes or home depot.

Don/Mike/ Lincoln Mania

Thank you all.

When I get home today I will adjust my feed rate to get a better burn going.

As for cleaning the fines, do I contact Alaska Stove to order the gaskets I need? And what gaskets do I ask for, feed gaskets? Grate gaskets? I having trouble finding a manual/parts breakdown. The stove is a kodiak stoker ii

Thanks again I appreciate it.

You don't need gaskets if you use the combustion air fan method.

lm, I think the airflow increases less rapidly than the feed (for aerodynamic reasons I don't want to try to explain) so turning up the dial increases feed relative to air. I like separate controls but I don't think they are needed here.

Mike

Looks like you have plenty of air. When I first looked at your picture, I thought to myself, "he needs to turn up the feed". Then I scrolled down, and seen everyone else thought the same thing. So, there you go. Turn up the feed.

My Kaa-2 boiler was running just fine. When this bitter cold started, it was still doing just fine. House temps never changed. However, boiler temp was a little lower than I liked. Should all three zones come on at the same time, it could possibly pull the little boiler down too far. One turn on the feed put the boiler temp back up where I like it. I won't turn the feed back down unless I have overshoots in warmer temps.