What Should My Established Fire Look Like?

 
BeerMonley
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Post by BeerMonley » Wed. Nov. 12, 2008 6:44 pm

should it look like the pic in the upper right of the forum? or is that a a fire thats "going good"?


 
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Devil505
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Post by Devil505 » Wed. Nov. 12, 2008 6:49 pm

BeerMonley wrote:hould it look like the pic in the upper right of the forum? or is that a a fire thats "going good"?
That pic maybe what a stoker fire looks like but unless you have your hand fired REALLY cranking, it won't look like that.
Most of the time, this time of year, my fire doesn't even look like it's burning. :lol: The hotter you run it the more "lively" it will look.
Maybe someone with a good camera can take pics without a flash for you...I can't.

 
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WNY
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Post by WNY » Wed. Nov. 12, 2008 6:57 pm

This should help you out of what some of our fires look like, both hand fed and stokers.

Fire!! A Pre-Season View of Past Warmth

 
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LsFarm
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Post by LsFarm » Wed. Nov. 12, 2008 7:00 pm

Well that depends... on when you are looking at your fire... that fire in the corner of the page is a stoker fed fire with a fan forcing air through the coal bed. You probably won't see a fire like that in your Mark III unless you leave the ash pan door open for quite awhile,, your stove will be really hot if you had a fire burning that hot.

A hand fired stove will have a lower level on the grates of ash, a middle layer of red-hot coals and an upper layer of darker coal that is not burning completely yet.. As the fire matures, and you shake it down, the top layer becomes the middle layer, and you add fresh coal to the top of the firebed..

You probably won't see an all red surface unless you are having very cold weather, and have your stove's air controls pretty open and your stove 'a-crankin' ..

Greg L

.

 
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Post by BIG BEAM » Wed. Nov. 12, 2008 7:52 pm

Most of the time with my furnace I don't see flames.I always wondered why coal stoves(hand fired) have a glass in the door.In the middle of the winter I might have 1/2" high flames but that's about it.Not much to see but the blue color is pretty.
DON

 
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Post by Razzler » Wed. Nov. 12, 2008 9:04 pm

They look different at various temperatures but are all established fires.

This is a new fire just established.
IMG_3017.JPG
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This is a fire burning about 3/4 of a full burn.
IMG_1959.JPG
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This is a fire just above an idle.
IMG_3019.JPG
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SemperFi
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Post by SemperFi » Wed. Nov. 12, 2008 9:31 pm

The stove body is 525 deg.

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100_0761.jpg
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Post by johnstar » Wed. Nov. 12, 2008 9:49 pm

I recently learned that the more draft you have the higher your flame will be, When I have my draft inducer running on my coal furnace the blue flames will be about 5 inches high, when I shut it off the flames drop down to about 1 inch off the top of the coal

 
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Post by BeerMonley » Thu. Nov. 13, 2008 6:15 pm

i think I may be running mine to hot now after seeing the pics, on mine almost all of the coal is red not to many flames. so the coal on the top shouldnt be burning to much?

 
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Post by LsFarm » Thu. Nov. 13, 2008 7:06 pm

There is nothing wrong with burning your stove hot, if that is what you need to heat your house.

Do you have a thermometer, either a magnetic type to measure the skin or surface temperature, or a probe-type that measures the internal temperatures of the stove and in the chimney flue?? If you have a fully red fire, you should have some very high stove-body temperatures.

If you don't have a barometric damper on your instalation, you could be burning the coal really hot, but pulling the heat out of the stove and up the chimney, not letting the fire heat the stove body as hot as it could.. often a lower fire, with a controlled draft will result in a hotter stove body .

Greg L

 
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Post by BeerMonley » Fri. Nov. 14, 2008 8:08 am

i have no damper, but I think if I ran it lower I would use less coal and it wouldnt be so hot in the house. im goin to try to run the vent in the ash door closed more. it sucks now cause its in the 50's here right now

 
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Post by LsFarm » Fri. Nov. 14, 2008 9:06 am

BeerMonley,, invest in a barometric damper,, read some of the many topics/threads on the subject.... burning anthracite coal really requires a barometric damper to burn it efficiently.

With your hand fed stove, set the barometric damper at about .04-.06" and then you can set the air intake lower and not pull all the heat out of the stove body.

It works.. your stove manufacturer recommends a barometric damper too..

Greg L.

 
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Post by VigIIPeaBurner » Fri. Nov. 14, 2008 9:21 am

LsFarm wrote:Well that depends... on when you are looking at your fire... that fire in the corner of the page is a stoker fed fire with a fan forcing air through the coal bed. You probably won't see a fire like that in your Mark III unless you leave the ash pan door open for quite awhile,, your stove will be really hot if you had a fire burning that hot.

A hand fired stove will have a lower level on the grates of ash, a middle layer of red-hot coals and an upper layer of darker coal that is not burning completely yet.. As the fire matures, and you shake it down, the top layer becomes the middle layer, and you add fresh coal to the top of the firebed..

You probably won't see an all red surface unless you are having very cold weather, and have your stove's air controls pretty open and your stove 'a-crankin' ..

Greg L

.
Thought I'd share these pictures from a top loader hoping it shows a cross section of a mature fire. It's a different perspective than the Harman's fire but the front grate holds the pile more uniformly vertical, you can see the layers Greg was talking about. Pictures are of a fire that hasn't been shaken down for 18 hours and had 15-20 Lbs of pea added 11 hours earlier. Stove temperatures are in the middle of the stove's operating range and it was in the high 50s outside.

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LookingAtFront_DoorsOpen.JPG

18 hr. old fire in top loader looking at the front of the fire, no flash.

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LookingDown.JPG

Same... looking down onto the top of the fire.

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FlashLookingAtFront_DoorsOpen.JPG

Front (side) view with flash shoing ash layer.

.JPG | 151.2KB | FlashLookingAtFront_DoorsOpen.JPG

 
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Post by Devil505 » Fri. Nov. 14, 2008 9:37 am

VigIIPeaBurner wrote:Thought I'd share these pictures from a top loader hoping it shows a cross section of a mature fire.
Glad you posted those pics Vigil:

That last pic looks like a very fragile, end of burn cycle pic that requires some care not to smother the fire when shaking down.
If that was the state of my fire, for shaking down & reloading I would:
1. Open the ash door & let the fire liven up....Don't shake down or disturb fire at all!
2. Sprinkle a shovel full of coal (or 2) across the top but not touch it!
3.Wait for the first sprinkle to catch & then add another few shovels of coal across the whole fire
4. Wait until the new coal is burning well & the whole fire is very lively
5. THEN I would shake down
6. Poke for bridging & air pockets
7. Refill, wait for it to catch & then close ash door.

 
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VigIIPeaBurner
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Post by VigIIPeaBurner » Fri. Nov. 14, 2008 11:33 am

Devil505 wrote:
VigIIPeaBurner wrote:Thought I'd share these pictures from a top loader hoping it shows a cross section of a mature fire.
Glad you posted those pics Vigil:

That last pic looks like a very fragile, end of burn cycle pic that requires some care not to smother the fire when shaking down.
If that was the state of my fire, for shaking down & reloading I would:
1. Open the ash door & let the fire liven up....Don't shake down or disturb fire at all!
2. Sprinkle a shovel full of coal (or 2) across the top but not touch it!
3.Wait for the first sprinkle to catch & then add another few shovels of coal across the whole fire
4. Wait until the new coal is burning well & the whole fire is very lively
5. THEN I would shake down
6. Poke for bridging & air pockets
7. Refill, wait for it to catch & then close ash door.
Exact-a-mentally! :lol: That's the procedure I follow too - thanks for listing all the steps. The fire was not as weak as the flash (bottom) picture shows - flash washes out the glow but better shows the ash layer. It was taken at the same time as the top picture but it did need tending. There was about a third of a fire box burning... about 3-4 inches thick. I've got great draft if I open everything up and am lucky I can often rescue the fire even if there's only a patch in the center or side left burning. There's only been a few times when I had to add kindling on top of the fire patch. I didn't need much of a fire that day, it was nearly 60 outside but it was a nice clear evening for the kids on Halloween night.

If you compare the top picture against the bottom picture, you get some perspective on what's still burning after 18 hours.


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