OHHH THE DUST!!!!!

Hi Everyone,

Going into our second year of COAL.

Loved the heat
Loved the Cost
Hated ALL the dust!

I have a auger fed rice coal burner. It works great but We have an increadable amount of thick gray dust. The stuff is everywhere I mean every where.

I have my stove in the basement we have cieling fans that ran all season and we also used standing fans to move the air around. Our thought might be that these fans are contributing to the dust problem.

The coal bin is also in our basement.

I'm also thinking that we are not burning the coal as efficently as possible meaning that we are empting the ash pan twice per day (with alot of un burned coal {thats in another post}).

I have heard of and seen people who have these things in their living rooms if we did this my whole house (and probably my kids ) would be grey with coal dust.

What can we do to keep the dust down. My wife is at the point that she says after the stove starts she isn't going into the basement because of the mess.

I need some suggestions here! &

Thanks
Joe

I'll leave the discussion to others who are more familiar with your particular stove construction. I will say that my Alaska will allow some dust to get into the room during an ash pan change, but it's a bottom vent which ads to the problem.

One thing that you can do to minimize ash escaping from the stove during ash pan changing is to shut the combustion fan off first, and opening the viewing door (to clean the glass for example) will definitely blow a bunch of ash around.

My stove is in the cellar (unfinished) so it's really not a problem. I have to be much more careful with the Harman upstairs.

I'll venture a guess that your dust is coming from when you empty the ashes. One way or another you need to come up with a way to empty & transport the ash without allowing it to escape into the air..... do not shake the stove down with a stove door open. Let it settle for a minute after you shake before you open the door. Never shovel, dump, move ash in the house. Gently remove ash pan, cover it, take outside. Ohh,ya, you said it was auger fed, so you're probably not shaking....that's OK, you're still moving ash. I've heard some people spritz the ash surface with water before carrying it. I think that might be messy and if tried make sure no water hits hot iron.

Maybe the stove has a leak? I think you'd see CO in the room if it did so that's not likely. Just rambling now. Tell us your method of moving your ash.

Any dust, if coming from your coal bin, would be black as the coal. I agree with Freddy, it must be coming from the ash pan as you remove it to empty it. Must you remove it twice a day? Can you wait a whole day before emptying it for the day? Some pics will be helpfull.

Yea, disturbing ash inside is very bad. With the Alaska I pack the ash down to get more time between each emptying. Lots of dust flys around. The stove is near the only window in the cellar (the opening was made in the foundation for a coal chute years ago). I have a fan in the window so it helps with the dust problem. If I had the stove in a finished basement or upstairs I wouldn't be packing the ash down in the pan. I usually get up to 25 lbs. in a full pan (they are not that big). With the UAE Harmony I'm burning now I get about 18 lbs. in a pan, it's really good red ash coal and burns very well.

JKinPA wrote:I have a auger fed rice coal burner. It works great but We have an increadable amount of thick gray dust. The stuff is everywhere I mean every where.

This is a auger that feeds from the hopper right on the back of the stove right? When you fill the hopper do you just dump it in? If you dump a hod of DRY coal you will get a cloud of black/gray dust that the fan can blow all over.

I can definitely feel your pain! I have a Harman Mark II which has a ash pan without a cover and a 15 year old son who's job it is to empty it. That is often a bad combination! On top of that my fan doesn’t have a filter over the intake hole so any little bit of flyash in the air gets picked up and spread all over the house. The same thing can be said about the floor fans I use to move the heat to other parts of the house. This year I am going to pay more attention to when I have the stove open and try to reduce that. I am also going to wait 5 mins or 10 mins after I shake the grates and reload the stove before I have the ash pan emptied. I will also make sure the fans are off before openingthe stove. I also plan to construct a filter for my intake opening on the stove’s fan. I am going to use the same metal filtering material that my kitchen stove’s exhaust fan uses. I’m not sure how I will fasten it on yet. I’m open for suggestions. I can’t think of anything else I can do to reduce the amount of flyash in the air but I’m always open for suggestions. I guess I could probably dust more often but why start something new at this point in my live. Lisa

Two things come to mind...

1. Packing the ashes to get more in the pan has to stop. That alone agitates the ashes enough to make a cloud, and the fans (combustion fan and room fans) will move that cloud all over. It may not even appear to be a 'cloud', as it's so fine it isn't always seen.

2. I use 2 ash pans for my Alaska Channing. (I bought the 2nd one separately) The key to ash control without getting a faceful of ashes is speed in dumping! I start by very quickly dumping "cold" ashes (from the previous emptying cycle) into a metal trash barrel with a 3mil bag in it and get it done in 2 seconds or less, immediately putting the lid on the trash barrel. I do a one-handed dump of the ash pan and have the can lid in the other hand, to keep the cloud to as much a minimum as possible. Also, the trash barrel with ashes in my basement hatchway area, so any airborne ashes are mostly contained there. Then it's time to swap the empty ash pan with the "hot" one in the stove. Upon removal of the hot one, I quickly cover it with a flat sheet of galvanized steel (eg, unbent duct pipe) to stop ashes blowing out as I carry it the 15 feet or so to my hatchway. I leave it, covered, in the hatchway to cool until the next time I have to empty the ash pan. That way, if there's any hot coals in the ash pan, they will be completely covered by the makeshift 'top' and will either suffocate or simply burn out harmlessly. The lid also prevents any 'popping' sparks from jumping out.

I never empty an ash pan in the cellar, the pan goes outside and gets dumped into my wheelbarrow or ash can if it's raining. Later it goes up to the ash mountain I'm building or on the gravel driveway in the winter.

I also plan to construct a filter for my intake opening on the stove’s fan.

That's an easy fix, Lisa. If the fan is the same as mine just take a piece of room air conditioner filter, remove the 2 screws that hold the intake guard on, place the filter on top of the guard and under the retainer. Use the crevice tool on your vacuum to clean the filter as needed. I did this after I had to clean all the dirt and dog/cat fur out of the fan squirrel cage a few months after I got the stove.
Yes, the nice Harman info plate on the back of the stove has fallen off.

I always shook the stove with the ash door open, so I could watch the ash fall, & stop shaking when red embers began falling. BAD idea if you want your house clean. Funny thing is that I never noticed the ash in the house until I bought a gigantic Maytag 25.1 cu.ft. refrigerator -- in GLOSS BLACK! Looks great when clean, but DAMN does it show every single speck of fly ash!! Since I noticed that, I see it all over our pots & pans we have hanging, & anything that doesn't get used much.

Then I shovel the sides that the ash pan missed & just toss them willy nilly into the pan. NOT good. Gotta be patient, & shovel S L O W L Y ....

Dust clouds are great for my asthma, let me tell ya!

I'm very careful with the Harman upstairs, Smitty. A few times I forgot to shut the convection fan off and opened the loading door. You can imagine the results.

My procedures:

Convection and Distribution fans off.
Direct Vent Exhaust fan on full.
Open ash door SLOWLY
Pull out ash pan SLOWLY
SLOWLY carry ashpan 10 feet, out the closest exterior door.
Once oustside, dump ash in large ash can, or dump on driveway.
Vacuum any spilled ash by the Ash Door, with this dryvac and make sure it has a Drywall filter installed....

Yes .. and make sure it's not a 10 year old Wal-Mart special that you forgot has no filter ...... Or you will have the result that Wood'n Coal just described with the combustion fan on!

Don't ask how I know this....

I always find it funny that when a person can save a couple of $1000.00 bucks every season that they won't take the time to let the dust settle.
I shake my Harman down an hour before I'm ready to unload the ashes. First I let her come to a boil and shake her down. Let her rest for a while and rev her up again so when I open the door everything is going out the way I want. Now I still have to be careful since the ash is as light as a feather, so I slip the cover I made on the ash tray thats coming out and out I go to dump it. Before placing the clean one back in I carefully shovel any remaining ash out of the bottom and slip the ash tray in.
With the savings I'm getting I don't care how long it takes to clean the ash. (I have a magazine rack right next to the Harman just like most people have in there bath room,lol.)

Wood'nCoal wrote: If the fan is the same as mine just take a piece of room air conditioner filter, remove the 2 screws that hold the intake guard on, place the filter on top of the guard and under the retainer. Use the crevice tool on your vacuum to clean the filter as needed.

That does sound simple but I think my fan is different. I'll have to pull it out and check it out. Thanks, Lisa