Damaged my Harman 1500A (warped shaker grates)

I think I may need some help on setting up my furnace. Burnt none stop for two weeks. Shut down furnace for a good cleaning and noticed that my shaker grates were warped? (Kind of sagged) think I was running a little too much air. Bottom ash chamber door air control is set at half a hole. (Door has twin holes) Burn chamber air control at 1/2 turn out. (The door has twin air controls.) Any help would be appreciated!

What causes grates to sag is haveing the ash pan full, and touching the bottom of the grates.
The grates are cooled by the incoming combustion air, if this air is blocked by too much ash, the grates overheat.

Greg L

Guilty as charged, The Harman has a large ash pan and I tend to get lazy and let it get over full of ash. I’ll give it a try to see if I can keep coal from falling through the shaker grates one grate warped real bad, but spring isn’t all that far away. Thank you for such a quick answer.

Greg L, awesome point here and I never thought about this!

Does a full ash pan effect a koker the same way? Possible warped grates?

Thank you!

As naughty as it sounds, I dump every time I shake it....

Lightning wrote:As naughty as it sounds, I dump every time I shake it....

TMI.

When I first got the Harman. I was using pea coal and found out how much the grates opened up.

Yep. It emptied into the ash pan an jammed everything up. Had to closed the intake and dig it out from the top after it choked itself out.

Every stove is different. It' always a learning curve for everyone of them.