Looking for some imput on how my ash looks?

Thank you very much for all the responses. I cut the air way back, about 3.5 or so. I have the timer at 1.5 min a half hour and didn't lose the fire all night so that's good. I will try that for a couple days and check her out. Thanks again,

George, how were the results?

Well, I moved the air back. In talking with Coal Berner, (the goto coal guy ) He gave me some tips, and suggestions. He also pointed out that there on the board already. lol

But yes, the burn is much better than any of my other stokers. When I dump the ash, and ck the pile after it rains there is hardly any black unburnt pieces. Unlike with the stoves. The bottom feed, and the bell style pot has me sold.

Steve,
I have yet to burn a hand fed. That ash burns complete all the time, right? Much more efficient? How many hours can you get without shaking yours down? I want to buy one just for the experience.

In a perfect hand-fired world your coal would turn to complete ash. You'd have to stoke the fire at the perfect moment and only poke ash through the grates leaving all embers above the grate.

In reality, you're poking/shaking the ash, letting hot coal and unburned coal fall through the grates, and adding new coal at the same time.

From what I've seen, a properly running stoker burns coal much more efficiently than a hand-fired unit.

No kidding. I always thought the hand fired burnt more efficient. Hmm...

Oh gee, now we're talkin un-biased--no such thing as perfect anything my friend PLUS, I seriously disagree with your "REALITY"

stoker-man wrote:In a perfect hand-fired world your coal would turn to complete ash. You'd have to stoke the fire at the perfect moment and only poke ash through the grates leaving all embers above the grate.

In reality, you're poking/shaking the ash, letting hot coal and unburned coal fall through the grates, and adding new coal at the same time.

From what I've seen, a properly running stoker burns coal much more efficiently than a hand-fired unit.

k9 Bara wrote:Well, I moved the air back. In talking with Coal Berner, (the goto coal guy ) He gave me some tips, and suggestions. He also pointed out that there on the board already. lol

But yes, the burn is much better than any of my other stokers. When I dump the ash, and ck the pile after it rains there is hardly any black unburnt pieces. Unlike with the stoves. The bottom feed, and the bell style pot has me sold.

It is good that you are getting things dialed in. A little black in the ashes won't hurt anything, and as Mike pointed out earlier in the thread...trying to burn every last piece of coal to nothing will result in excessive amounts of heat up the chimney. It is also tough to judge the burn based on the ashes during warm weather...running on the timer all day makes it tough to burn the coal completely. My boiler is loafing along on the timer this week, and you can find a few pieces of partially burned coal in the pictures I attached.

Great, that is very similar to what I'm getting. Thanks for showing.

With Kimmels nut I went no more than 15 hrs before the fire choked itself out with ash. With Blaschak I go 24+ hours before reloading, a bit less than 24 during super cold January nights. If that's hand fed ash you have even better coal than I have - looks like stoker ash there!

Smitty, the ashes are from Kimmel's rice burned in my EFM stoker.

Yeah that's what I get for responding to a thread I tried to speed-read ...

With the ash, goes to show you never know what your gonna get regardless of brand.