Lost My Fire Tonight...Why?

av8r · Post by **av8r** » Sat. Feb. 21, 2009 10:04 pm

Temps today were near 40, sunny. Stove was idling for most of the day, I'd bet. About 8 PM, I went over to check on it and I had a little bit of fire, maybe the size of an small orange only on one side of the plate. I manually stoked the stove to kick the fire up and within 20 minutes the fire was out. Took me a while to relight it and now it seems fine, but wtf? Draft was strong, combustion fan running fine, etc. Is there something obvious that could have caused this? About 3 weeks ago, I kicked the minimum FR to 7 from 4 just in case we had a warm day.

You thoughts, guys....

thanks

Cold_Mainer · Post by **Cold_Mainer** » Sat. Feb. 21, 2009 10:06 pm

maybe feeder plugged a little bit and not enough coal on the grate?

av8r · Post by **av8r** » Sat. Feb. 21, 2009 10:22 pm

Grate was 70% full..about what I'd expect

cArNaGe · Post by **cArNaGe** » Sun. Feb. 22, 2009 3:07 am

I took a wizz on your coal. Put it out. Sorry

Freddy · Post by **Freddy** » Sun. Feb. 22, 2009 6:14 am

Maybe you lost electricity for 1/2 an hour? Maybe you need to clean? I dunno clean what... stove pipe, chimney, elbow, last nights dishes? Maybe the bird of paradise got constipated & had something to do with it. I'd check this 'n that for blockage & if none, just wait & see if it happens again.

WNY · Post by **WNY** » Sun. Feb. 22, 2009 7:33 am

i keep my MIN around 8-10 when it starts getting warm to keep the draft up.

009to090 · Post by **009to090** » Sun. Feb. 22, 2009 8:22 am

Freddy wrote:Maybe the bird of paradise got constipated & had something to do with it. .

Did the Pheonix rise from the ashes?

Chris F.

Dann757 · Post by **Dann757** » Sun. Feb. 22, 2009 8:40 am

You should start drilling for natural gas like your lucky neighbors up that way!!!

coal-cooker · Post by **coal-cooker** » Sun. Feb. 22, 2009 8:46 am

Maybe just a bit of bad coal, too. I had a couple of times this year that the coal just would not get hot. It would burn very slowly with no heat at all. I could open the bottom door and with the coal glowing like crazy, the stove would not get over about 400 degrees. It wasn't all of the coal, just a couple of loads out of my supply. Last time, I woke up to a cool house and when I checked the stove it was still full and glowing, but temp was down to about 200. Had to shake out a lot of burning coal, just to get it down so I could add fresh on top. Enough to drive you to drink, but hey it's a short drive anyway.

av8r · Post by **av8r** » Sun. Feb. 22, 2009 11:07 am

WNY wrote:i keep my MIN around 8-10 when it starts getting warm to keep the draft up.

Thanks, I'm going to bump the min up some more.

Thanks to all.