Sifting Ash From My Mark II?

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medtech
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Post by medtech » Thu. Oct. 23, 2008 12:00 am

I've had my stove running successfully for 5 days now. I have the knob open 3/4 of a turn and the house stays at 72 all the time. I'm a little scared to go any lower because the fire is barely burning at 3/4.

This is my first year with coal so I'm learning as I go. When I check it in the morning the stack temp is about 150. There is still a faint glow of orange from deep inside the coal bed. I tried shaking until a few red ashes started falling thru the grates like the manual said. However, this still left quite a bit of ash in the stove and the fire would not get going even with the ash door open.

The next time I shook the crap out of the stove. Good size chunks started falling out of one side but I kept shaking until red coal was coming from all the way across. This worked great, within a few minutes the coals were glowing red and the stack was up to 300. I stirred the coal all around with the poker and shook a little more. This removed almost all the ash. I reloaded and closed the stove back down.

I went to dump out the ash pan and noticed there were some pretty good size chunks left so I made a sifter. I took an old satellite dish and drilled a bunch of 1/2" holes in it. I dump the pan of ash on it and shake for 30 seconds and have all the big chunks left. I take them and toss them back on the fire.

My question, am I shaking too much if I get this much unburnt coal? If not, do other people bother sifting the ash to recover the unburned coal? If I shake it less and just leave it will the fire eventually choke itself out because of too much ash? This stove is great, I just need to find the best way to shake it down with the least time and effort.

 
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coalvet
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Post by coalvet » Thu. Oct. 23, 2008 9:22 am

Hello, after many years of burning coal, if there is one thing I've learned it's not to stir the coal bed, this is not what the remaining coal needs. Continue to shake your stove as you have until you see some hot coal drop, that should be enough. After many days of constant burning you may need to poke around from underneath your grate but that should do it. Also the quality of your coal has a lot to do with ash buildup. Hope this helps!

 
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morrisfamily3098
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Post by morrisfamily3098 » Thu. Oct. 23, 2008 9:29 am

My experiance with my hitzer 50-93 I HAD was it needed shook down about every 8 hrs. it went out about 2 - 3 times a month so I sold it and bought a stoker with the COAL-TROL. all I do now is load my 200# hopper about ever 3-4 days and dump my ash pan every 2-3 days. wont look back I LOVE IT


 
joespond
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Post by joespond » Fri. Oct. 24, 2008 8:31 am

Hi,

I too started my first ever coal fire in a Mark II I bought last spring. My chimney wasn't complete at the time so the stove sat in the basement all summer/fall. This gave me a chance to replace the seals. I started it for the first time last sat. night and its been burning awesome all week. I shake twice a day. I am burning Kimmels nut. It seems like great coal, as I don't get clinkers or other ash problems. I shake until the first red embers fall as directed by others here. I can also tell when to think about stopping shaking, as the grates will sort of start to jam. Even with the short choppy strokes, It will sort of jam which I believe is because some unburned and uncrushable coal has made it to the grate. I just filled it anyway, and the next time I shook, it was business as usual.

So far so good for me.

Thanks all,

Bill.

 
medtech
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Post by medtech » Fri. Oct. 24, 2008 1:45 pm

Last night it got down to the mid 20's. This was the first time I actually had to turn the stove up a bit to keep the house warm. With the knob at 1 1/2 turns open the stack temp was 250. This morning I had to shake a lot longer before red ash started coming thru so I stopped and reloaded. I think my problem before was I was burning so low that it wasn't burning even or complete. No problems now!

 
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Devil505
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Post by Devil505 » Fri. Oct. 24, 2008 1:58 pm

medtech wrote:I think my problem before was I was burning so low that it wasn't burning even or complete. No problems now!
You'll find that as the weather gets colder, you'll use much more coal but your stove will be much easier to run with better drafts & hotter fires....Quicker to shake down & reload! (good idea to start wearing safety glasses when reloading, with those hotter fires too)

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