Too Much Ash

Ls farm, you hit the nail on the head, thats how I make my woodburner with one grate burn coal. I put two steel plates against the sides to get the coal over the grate. Need to shake down alot, its a pain but gota do what you gota do.

now that you have a nice deep bed of coal, lets talk about long burn times. my clayton 1800 seems happy when its in full swing. there aren't many in betweens because its hand fed w/ basic controls. stokers are better when the weather is up and down. my secrets are easy. don't skip chores, you must tend to coal fires regularly.in the morning before work i go to the basement, assess the fire,shake the grates clean add coal, draft for 10 min then add the rest for the day.the fire is normally stong in the morn because of the deep fire the night before. when i get home from work its the same deal.
it only takes 5 to 15 min per day and the payoffs are great! saved over 1000.00 bucks last year on propane. shooting for close to 1700.00 this season. i live 1hr south of NE penna. coal region. i'm getting anthra. coal at 125.00/ton pick-up pricenow that you have a nice deep bed of coal, -up price

I have the desired firebox & grate design, BUT.......we are still losing fires because of not getting rid of enough ash. We have been shaking it down TWICE in a twelve hour peroid.Yesterday late afternoon when it went out AGAIN, it had to be 98% ash. Tried to bring her back with no avail. I'm burning bagged blachack(anthracite, just as suggested by stove manufactuer)& thinking of trying another brand when this is gone. I can get longer run times than my wife for some reason - funny part is, she follows my instructions on paper in addition to having watched me @ least a dozen times. Defineatly NOT fun cleaning out the firebox to start over, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do......................

cyber, i to was burning blashak nut size coal w/ no results. then i started burning stove size coal from direnzo coal co in minersville pa. great product. also heard reading coal is good. but it may be the size of coal too. large coal furnaces must burn stove coal or bigger. the grates are designed this way. nut coal tends to jam up shaker w/ ash and clinkers.let me know size coal your burning out of curiosity.

I'm burning nut just like my owner's manual says to. I'm starting to think I should be burning @ a higher rate(I.E. therostat set only to 70F)because with the great tempature swings we're experiecing this winter, the load has been struggling to stay lit. I'm setting it a bit lower to insure my burn time is @ least 12 hours before requiring any attention. Definately have to reavaluate...........

try stove size for fun (maybe just a bag) experimentation brought me huge success.