Mid-Winter Cleaning

WooHoo.....supposed to hit mid 40's today and tomorrow!!

Fortunately I saw the forecast earlier this week and for a change was able to plan for a good mid-winter cleaning. I have been burning wood yesterday and last night so that I can let it burn out this morning. Then I can vacuum out all the fly ash in the stove and flue pipe and be ready to burn coal for the rest of the cold days of winter. It's been about 7 straight weeks of burning coal so the top of the baffle plate is probably thick with the ash impacting the heat transfer to the air tubes.

I don't know how all the "northerner's" on the board here stand their severe cold weather. I was ready for a little warm spell to give me a break from our cold temps which I know are much milder than they experience!

If I could move south I'd have done it years ago!

I normally clean mine out at the end of the year only. Last year I sent 5.25 tons through it ..... lots of flyash, but there was plenty of room in the pipe to draft. The way I attach my pipe to the chimney, it's a royal pain in the ass to remove, so I only remove it at the end of the season. I think with the coal I'm burning this year, there will be even less ash. We shall see.

Dial is at 1.25 turns out for the warm day today. Lately I've been keeping it at 1.75 turns for a real hot burn. One night I had it open 2 turns!

In our milder locale, 1.5 turns is the most I have had to go, that was the 15* night. If it got as cold as that on a regular basis I would probably move the stove from the unfinished basement to the first floor for more efficient heating. Since I am burning 90% coal to 10% wood I am using about 3 tons a year.

My horizontal pipe through the the thimble doesn't have a fly ash issue since I can vacuum that out by sending the wand through the baro while the stove is running. But the ash that accumulates on the baffle and at the exhaust port on the back of the stove does impact the draft a little after about 6-8 weeks. Coalkirk brought it up in another thread about the ash on the baffle impacting heat transfer to the air tubes and I think he is correct about that.

Yeah it gets pretty deep on the baffle. At the end of the season, there is usually a V shaped ash dam at the bottom where it exits, usually an inch deep. It's such a pain in the ass to clean back there ... too bad that back section wasn't removable. I had to grab the hose off a tiny wal-mart vacuum in the barn, & duct tape it to my Rigid vac's hose. The Rigid won't even fit. With that setup, I'm able to snake it all around the exit, then force it up on top of the baffle. Whatever I miss up there I can get through the loading door.