Starting a Fire

 
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VigIIPeaBurner
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Location: Pequest River Valley, Warren Co NJ
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Post by VigIIPeaBurner » Sun. Dec. 27, 2015 1:36 pm

joeq wrote:
VigIIPeaBurner wrote:In my set up, I use wood for a scratch fire and never have any creosote - or soot for that matter - that lasts through a day after the coal fire bed is established. Wood is split into nothing bigger around than 1 1/2". It burns to coals inside of 40 minutes. Foil? Fooie ! toothy
In my Surdiac, with Matchlight? 10-15 mins to add anthy. :D (Bazinga! Oh yeah, no foil either)
:funny:
Oh, I'm adding coal in that same time frame of 10-15 minutes. The wood is gone to coals and long buried by anthracite inside of 40 minutes. I don't have a soot problem, probably because I manage the combustion air and draft speed. I keep double doors and ash door open and run in fireplace mode and regulate both to keep the flames going strong. Fireplace mode supplies the fire with ample oxygen and moves the cold soot up the chimney. Stove gets warm and keeps soot and volatiles from condensing on the cool glass and iron. I'll gradually close/open both to regulate the wood fire as I add coal. Inside of an hour, the firebox is mostly full and the damper has been closed. In an 1 1/2 hrs the thermostatic air control is closed to it's cruising position.

I have used regular charcoal but don't see any real time savings. Never wanted to use match light because of the waxy starting fluid absorbed into the charcoal and it's not hard at all to start charcoal with newspaper pulp-paper drink carriers. My frugal side shows ... bag$ of charcoal ... firewood log sitting there - hmmmm. Split a good piece of oak, black locust or birch down to kindling size and build the stack in the firebox all at once. Maybe add a stick or two after it gets going. This process is on my daily agenda for tonight. Looks like we'll finally be settling into normal January temperature patterns this starting Monday. Fall seems to be over :dancing:

 
Jmb02
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Hand Fed Coal Stove: Vigilant II
Coal Size/Type: Anthracite; nut

Post by Jmb02 » Sun. Dec. 27, 2015 11:21 pm

Been burning for the past 24 hours after using charcoal to start the fire. Finally got the "blue ladies" everyone talks about. It is a quite calming fire. Hot as hell though :D

 
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Rockcrusher45
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Hand Fed Coal Stove: Chubby Coal Stove
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Post by Rockcrusher45 » Tue. Dec. 29, 2015 5:34 am

In my chubby stove when the fire goes out what works best for me is:

Shake down the ash a bit then take a poker, pushing all of the unburned coal and bones back away from the front loading door toward the rear vent, add 7 match light briquettes to the area excavated and light them..
with both the rear vent and bottom wide open... wait 15 mins... then add a half a scoop of coal and depending on the draft..10 mins later, after the coal has caught add 2 scoops of nut coal...its very simple...with a chubby why burn wood at all in it? :roll:
the matchlight coal takes up less space in the stove and the coal catches faster using the briquettes as a starter..
And to be Frugally truthful.....I happen to see and collect alot of discarded bags of charcoal at my transfer station every November...
must be dem wood burners thinking that their charcoal goes bad if they don't use it by the end of the summer....lol

 
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blrman07
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Post by blrman07 » Tue. Dec. 29, 2015 7:59 am

I use wood to start the fire and when it's burning good I start adding the coal a shovel at a time. Get some blues, add some coal.

My wife loves to see a wood fire flame. She has been very ill lately and comes downstairs in the mornings before I go out for my daily work routine. 20 minutes before she comes down I put a log on top of the coal. By the time she gets there the log is burning and she has the flame to see. Before I go if the log is still burning I help her back up stairs and push the remainder of the log down into the coals and cover it with coal.

Best of both worlds. :D


 
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Badger Freezer
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Post by Badger Freezer » Tue. Dec. 29, 2015 12:49 pm

The quickest method of starting a fire , this works for me:
3/4 full coffee can of wood pellets with only the center slightly soaked with charcoal lighter fluid.
let the wood pellets sit for five minutes to soak in the lighter fluid
put 1/4 coffee can of rice coal on top of pellets
dump contents upside-down on cold coal bed
using a BBQ long-handled lighter, light the pellets(I have never had a flare-up, but be careful nonetheless)
when the flames are tall, sprinkle fresh coal around the wood pellets and wait for them to ignite, don't damper anything shut(except the check draft)
build up your fire from there, then locate the dampers.
One bag of pellets should last the whole season, same for rice coal.

 
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VigIIPeaBurner
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Other Heating: #2 Oil Furnace

Post by VigIIPeaBurner » Tue. Dec. 29, 2015 7:43 pm

I’m offering up the method I often use to start a fire in the empty firebox of my Vigilant II model 2310. I have used non match light charcoal when I have leftover unburnt charcoal from a BBQ meat smoking session. More often than not I use hardwood firewood split up into narrow pieces. No wax or petro chemical starters are used, just paper products and a match or two and it’s zero to full fire with one hod in 40 minutes.Top off with the second hod once the stove temperature settles in. For what it’s worth here are the steps that gets me there.

Start with tightly crumpled individual sheets of newspaper. A friend told me about using the pulp paper drink carriers which burn hot longer than just paper. For a Vigilant use two 4 cup carriers. Stuff a sheet in each of the holes in the 1st carrier and two of the 2nd carrier. Nest #1 into the two open holes of #2, and it will cover most of the Vigilant’s grates. Placing the newspaper on the grates makes for easy lighting from underneath. Center the pulp paper starter over the grates and seal off the perimeter with coal. No need to get fancy. Place the split hardwood over the pulp paper starter.

If the chimney draft is sluggish when cold, warm it with a pied of newspaper bundled into a V. Light the ends of the V and direct the lighted paper to the bottom of the chimney/pipe. Light the paper from underneath and between the grates. Lighting one is enough but lighting 2 or 3 makes it a little faster. Once the wood starts to burn, I’ll add 3-4 more pieces of wood.
FireingUpVigilant_set1.JPG

Pictures associated with the first 3 paragraphs

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While the wood fire starts, I leave the ash pan drawer cracked open ~ ½” and the double front doors open. I have the Vigilant screen in case the wood pops or ejects stuff from the fire. The thermostatic air control is stet straight up and down (at 12 o’clock). I don’t move it from this position as its design is to control combustion air in response to stove temperature. With my system, set at 12 o’clock yields stove top temperatures ranging from 450-700F depending on damping and room heating demands. Your system might need a slightly different setting.

Good dry hardwood usually minimizes the pops. For this example, I used Black Locust wood that usually pops – why I use the screen in the beginning. Believe it or not didn’t get any pops. Once the wood fire starts to roar, regulate the fire by closing/opening the doors to control the amount of combustion and over fire air. At this point, I don’t fully close the double doors. Not closing them minimizes soot formation on the glass.

When the wood is burning strong the ash pan door can be closed. I’ll push the burning wood and wood coals down onto the grates. Around 10 minutes after lighting the paper, the first 2 shovels of coal (I use pea here) are spread over the wood fire leaving room for the wood to show through. The double doors and the ash pan door are opened and closed as needed to keep the fire going strong.

Add coal by the shovel full over the next 20 minutes until the first hod is empty. The fire should be well established in that time. Close the stove doors and damper to allow the thermostatic control to begin to regulate. The flap won’t close by itself until the internal damper is engaged, the exhaust needs to travel through the back of the stove to better heat the bimetallic coil that controls the flap. I leave the thermostatic air lever set at 12 o'clock. My stove top temperature hit just over 700F before when the thermostatic air flap closed to ~1/4”. It might fully close like it did in this example where the stovetop temperature dropped to ~400F. It later rebounded when the stove cooled and then warmed back to 700F cruising temperature. The last picture (+32 minutes) is after nearly a full hod was added.The blue flames never disappeared. The air flap was open about ¼”.
FireingUpVigilant_set2.JPG

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Hope someone will find this useful. I would add a video but mp4 format isn't allowed ... yet :|

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scalabro
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Post by scalabro » Tue. Dec. 29, 2015 8:43 pm

BLAST!

Two pages of how to start a fire.....really?

1. Dump half burnt coal and ash and throw away. Don't fret it's only a few cents :lol:

2. Open all vents, dampers, etc, etc.

3. Cover the grates with "Matchlight" or its equivalent.

4. Light a match.

5. Throw it on charcoal.

6. When charcoal is gray cover with a layer of your favorite flavor of Anthracite.

7. Repeat step 6 until fire pot is full.

8. Relax and log on to coalpail.com

 
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VigIIPeaBurner
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Posts: 2579
Joined: Fri. Jan. 11, 2008 10:49 am
Location: Pequest River Valley, Warren Co NJ
Hot Air Coal Stoker Furnace: Keystoker Koker(down)
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Vermont Casting Vigilant II 2310
Other Heating: #2 Oil Furnace

Post by VigIIPeaBurner » Tue. Dec. 29, 2015 8:54 pm

scalabro wrote:BLAST!

Two pages of how to start a fire.....really?

8<...

8. Relax and log on to coalpail.com
It's all in the details!
toothy :dancing:


 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Wed. Dec. 30, 2015 12:27 pm

scalabro wrote:BLAST!

Two pages of how to start a fire.....really?
Here's 29 more of fine reading lol

How to Light a Hand Fired Coal Stove

 
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63roundbadge
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Post by 63roundbadge » Wed. Dec. 30, 2015 7:44 pm

A softball sized pile of match light or in my case cheap Ace Hardware charcoal soaked in lighter fluid will start easily if nestled in the center of black coal. Don't disturb it for at least 8 hours.

But---it's amazing how many fused pieces go unpoked and unshaken that you'll find with a full cleanout.

 
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63roundbadge
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Post by 63roundbadge » Wed. Dec. 30, 2015 7:47 pm

Jeez. I missed all the previous banter.

It ain't that hard. Really.

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