Fire Died in My New Hitzer 82UL

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Santiago
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Post by Santiago » Mon. Dec. 21, 2009 3:08 pm

Although I posted about my new Hitzer in the past, this is a little different, so I started this new thread.

Well the fire in my new Hitzer 82UL just died.

A little background……. This is a new unit that I installed a little over a month ago. I initially had problems keeping the fire going but, because of the membership here, I learned to remove the “liability plate” and the unit worked beautifully until yesterday.

The fire just died. I couldn’t get it to go over 250 degrees even with the ash door left open. It slowly went out and now I have to remove the coal and clean out the stove. In 25 years of using my Warm Morning stove, this never happened. That Warm Morning cylindrical design with the chimney firebrick in the corners was slick. It’s too bad the Locke Stove Company went out of business!

There are some possibilities…..

1. I have the stack reduced to 6 inches instead of the 7 inches that the stove is designed for. There is such a good draft that I didn’t think this would cause a problem. I kept the baro set at .04 or just a hair over and all seemed to be working fine. I do not have a manual damper installed in the stovepipe.

2. The coal has been in my basement for three years. Does coal go bad? I have never had a problem with this before.

3. I could have been shaking the fire too much or too little. In the beginning, I was getting, what I thought, were too many pieces of un-burnt coal when I shook the fire. I then stopped being so aggressive and all seemed fine.

4. After I had a strong fire, I closed the draft spinner on the fill door. Maybe I should have left it open slightly.

5. I didn’t “poke” the fire and I kept the ashes out of the ash pan to prevent grate warpage. I emptied the ashes twice a day to make sure there were no problems.

6. What’s the best way to clean out the firebox?

My wife and I will be leaving for Florida in a couple of weeks for three months. This was the trial run for the new Hitzer this year. I will make the improvements and/or changes for next winter over the summer.

Thank you all for your help and suggestions……….Please help again!

Merry Christmas !!

 
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SMITTY
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Post by SMITTY » Mon. Dec. 21, 2009 3:20 pm

And a Merry Christmas to you too! 8-)

You may have been feeding it too much air, & it burned up too quickly & snuffed out the fire with ash ...... or it just got colder & pulled more draft than usual with the same results. Could have had a "bridge" of coal the last time you loaded up ... which results in a less-than-full firebox & reduced burn time (poking before reloading will fix that one). Could be coal quality too , as I just learned this year. Did you switch brands or start using a new batch recently?

Coal hasn't gone bad in over a million years underground, so I think your OK with 3 year old coal. ;) :)

That spinner on the load door should be open slightly to burn the gasses off. My Harman has no control in that area -- the air goes around the gasketless sections of the glass (top & bottom).

 
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LsFarm
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Post by LsFarm » Mon. Dec. 21, 2009 7:48 pm

You may have an accumulation of hard crunchy ash on the grates, that has choked off the air to the coal bed. When you shovel out the firebox, do it in layers, and see if you don't have a lot of ash on the grates that blocked the air flow.

Some coal tends to do this, and the only way to prevent the fire from dying is to poke through the grates from below, to help the shaker-grates to break up the hard ash.

Let us know what you find.

Greg L

 
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Cap
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Post by Cap » Mon. Dec. 21, 2009 7:55 pm

Handfired stoves for if burning for an extended period of time tend to build up so much ash, eventually you need to kill the fire and start with a cleaned out firebox. Especially if you are not real aggressive with the daily shake downs. I don not know if this is your issue but it may be a good place to start. Sort of what LS was describing.

 
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Santiago
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Post by Santiago » Tue. Dec. 22, 2009 9:16 pm

I cleaned out the firebox today and sure enough...........there was quite a lot of ash that clogged up the incoming air. I guess I will have to be more aggressive in my shaking. I saved the good coal...about a pail full.

I will have to learn better next year how much to shake. In the beginning, I felt I was too aggressive and caused my own problem by not being aggressice enough. I always stopped as soon as I saw some "red" sparkles coming down. I will need to make sure there are some red "coals" the next time.

Thanks for all of your suggestions!


 
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lowfog01
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Post by lowfog01 » Tue. Dec. 22, 2009 11:08 pm

Santiago wrote: I always stopped as soon as I saw some "red" sparkles coming down. I will need to make sure there are some red "coals" the next time.
I'm really glad you discovered what was killing the fire.

I always stop short when I read that "I shake until I see the first red embers come down." In my humble opinion that is a huge mistake. In order to see that first red ember you generally have to be shaking your stove with the ash pan door open and doing that releases huge amounts of flyash into your house. It took me a couple of years to realize that and change my method of shaking. Now I never open my ash pan door unless I have a lot of the Blue Ladies Dancing because the updraft catches the flyash and keeps it in the stove. I always leave the door shut while shaking, looking at how much my coal bed has dropped rather then if any red embers have fallen; a three to four inch drop is a good indicator that I've cleaned out a lot of ash. I also have learned to feel if I have shaken enough. Once I meet any resistance, I'm through shaking. About once a week I do a thorough poking from the top and really clean the ash out. Recently, I noticed that on my Harman I can see the red shadow through the air intake valve on the ash pan door, so that’s another way I can tell when it's really clear of ash. Just a few hints I wanted to pass on for dealing with the flyash which can be a serious drawback when burning coal. Lisa

 
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Santiago
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Post by Santiago » Wed. Dec. 23, 2009 12:16 am

Thanks lowfog01...........

With the Hitzer 82, you have to have the ash door open to shake the grates. As you shake, with the door open, you look between the ash pan and the grates to watch for red coals and the rest is by feel! Here's where the Hitzer experience really counts.

It's getting colder and I would love to refire.....but, Florida for three months is coming soon so there's no sense in starting a new fire now.

 
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Post by Don_t_Say » Wed. Dec. 23, 2009 12:23 am

Lisa's got it figured out! This is my first year with coal and I still have the same fire I started November 5th. :D

 
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Post by grizzly2 » Wed. Dec. 23, 2009 6:17 am

This year I started having my first problems with ash buildup. Once I started burning the fire a little harder as the outside temps dropped, the fire got loagy. I lost a fire for the first time ever while away overnight. I haven't been doing anything differently this year, but the coal I got was not of the same uniform size I had burned before. I doubt that the size is a problem but I wonder if it is from a different mine and breaker. I have been shaking ,raking and poking more often than in the past and this appears to be keeping the fire going well. I am Definitely producing quite a bit of ash.

Any opinins about my ash production? :?

 
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Post by 9mmruger » Wed. Dec. 23, 2009 7:47 am

I am producing a similar amount of ash in my 30-95. I will need to poke it down this evening as I see dead spots around the four corners. When I poke it down, that is also the time that I clean the glass so that I can see my blue ladies dancing. So beautiful after the glass cleaning. I have to empty the ash pan every day and a half. :)


 
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Post by LsFarm » Wed. Dec. 23, 2009 8:26 am

Grizzly, coal varies a lot from breaker to breaker, and even from month to month at some breakers. You can read about this till your eyes fall out on the 'coal quality' forum here.

You probably will have to shake more aggressively, poke up from below into dark spots in the fire, and be more diligent about the process of getting the burn ash out from under the fire. You may want to ask your coal supplier if he changed suppliers.

Greg L

 
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Post by lowfog01 » Wed. Dec. 23, 2009 9:17 am

Santiago wrote:
With the Hitzer 82, you have to have the ash door open to shake the grates.
Wow, I didn't know that. What a pain! I'll add that bit of knowledge to my file. When I brought the Harman I got it on the spur of the moment because I didn't know anything about coal and had never seen a coal stove. I have always thought I was blessed because it's so easy to run but the ability to shake the grates with the ash door closed is a major plus. Merry Christmas, Lisa

 
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Carlos
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Post by Carlos » Wed. Dec. 23, 2009 12:07 pm

What I have found often is that once my fire has been going for a month or so, that air pockets form just under a crust near the top. I beleive this is called "Bridging" & below he bridge/crust there is often almot nothuing but air. You can do you normal shaking & you'll feel little resistance as all you are doing is shaking air. If you get a lively fire going first & then poke aggresively into the top, you will break the crust & see the whole coal bed settle down into the air pocket.
You'll have recaptured allot of coal bed real estate by doing this regularly.
Once all the air pockets are filled with fresh coal, you'll get good..hot..long fires again.

 
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SMITTY
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Post by SMITTY » Wed. Dec. 23, 2009 1:57 pm

An added bonus to shaking with the ash door closed, is that you minimize the amount of flyash that gets on top of the baffle plate, inside your connector pipe, & up and on the inside surface of your chimney.

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