Cleaning & Sealing Burn Grate

Seems a few have had a problem with improper burning on the grate, too close to the feed, smoke from hopper or a hopper fire....Ref. http://nepacrossroads.com/post14674.html

Well, here a pic of my Keystoker 90K grate. I am in the process of moving it, so I figured I would do a little cleaning and document it for everyone.

First Shut the stove down and let it cool for a few hours or overnight. The coals still may be warm!!

1. Clean the coal out as much as you can out, shovel, etc...
2. Vacuum the rest out. Use a Nylon Paint brush to brush the ash, coal out.
3. Remove the Bolt/Screw on the RH (Right Hand) plate
4. Scrape/Cut the sealant around the RH plate.
5. Gently Pry up from the front and Remove Plate
6. Clean the Combustion holes on both sides (small drill bit or piece of wire works good).
7. Clean/vacuum UNDER the plate really good, you will get alot of fine coal dust under it and will affect the burn.
You may put your vacuum in the section below the plate and turn the combustion blower on to move some of the dust/
ash into the vacuum.
8. Re-Install the RH Plate
9. Bolt it down
10. Apply a liberal amount of Furnance Cemet (Pipe Cement) rated for at least 1000-1500 Degrees. Any place that sell Wood/Coal stoves should have it, make sure you put enough along the back part towards the hopper and along the sides. Prevents the fire from spreading from where it really should be burning (Burn area noted in pic).

You shouldn't have any combustion air except thru the holes. It shouldn't burn any farther back before the air holes unless you have an air leak.

Enjoy your spring cleaning!

Interesting, Dave. My Keystoker only has one burn plate for the entire grate:. But then again, you outta see the junk that came out from under it when I took the stove apart!

Chris

As I stated before, a little cleaning/maintenance goes a long way and keeps your stoves running great! Different models have slightly different configurations, 1, 2, 3 grates, etc..

Interesting how the design has changed a bit, ours is 3 years old.
Yes, it does build up with a lot of stuff under it.!!

I see you have a good seal on the back part!!

Yeah, I really puttied it in on the back part, as there was quite a large gap/step there, and I didn't want fines falling under the grate through there nor air to leak up to where it doesn't belong.

I plan to pretty much pull the stoker apart every spring and clean/reseal the grate, as well as go fishing everywhere for fly ash buildup.

Indeed, the design of the stove has changed quite a bit. I'd be interested to hear from Keystoker why the changes were made. All I know is that my stove has a lot of heat exchanger area above the firebox that collects fly ash and is very difficult to clean. I'm pretty sure the stove was plugged solid up there before I got it, and even just the other day while testing out some long radiator type brushes from McMaster-Carr on the cold stove, I knocked another 1/2 pound or more of fly ash from up in the heat exchanger, on top of the POUNDS of ash I'd already knocked loose during restoration. It was a mess.

Either way, I just sit in front of the stove, in the dark, watching the dancing blue ladies, and smile. The wind is howling tonight, it's snowing, and I'm warm. The old girl is running perfectly!

Keep up the nice "how-to's", Dave!