VIDEO of my method of tending the stove.

There seems to be so much confusion, regarding tending to your hand fired stove, I felt a video might help.

There are different circumstances, which would warrant different procedures. For example, if your fire is waning and is "as cold as a well driller's ass", it's probably to the point, where it wouldn't light a piece of newspaper, so don't expect it to light a whole bucket of coal. You are going to have to add some kindling or charcoal! If the remaining coals are hot, the stove pipe feels hot, and the ashes aren't too high or too tight, it should catch the new coal fine.

My stove is supposed to be able to burn nut coal, but I have problems, mostly due to the quality of the coal, with the unburnables not going through the grates. In other words, after several days, I'll have a whole fire box full of rock. At that point, the fire must be dumped to remove the rock. Pea coal will pack quicker and more tightly than will nut coal, but with pea sized coal, I can shake any rock through the grates, and I won't lose the whole fire.

What I am going to try to show in the video is my version of tending my fire, which consists of, opening the manual pipe draft, opening the "fill door", shaking down the fire, poking the remaining bed of ash/coal, filling the fire box with 16 pounds of coal from my "coal scooper", closing the door and resetting the manual pipe draft. The reason I open the top door before shaking down is, if you leave it closed, any and all draft will be going through the ash/coal bed, thus creating more fly-ash, to be carried upward, causing a flurry in the firebox area. If I open the fill door, the air will be entering above the fire, which will cause a stronger air flow above the fire, carrying any airborne fly-ash quickly up the flue. This also, helps to keep the door glass cleaner. Let's think about this for a second ... if you wanted to shake down a stove without glass in the door, how would you tell the progress? .. you'd have to have the door open. And "NO", the fly-ash won't come out into the room, unless you are really shakin' and have a poor draft! The bottom, ash door can be opened, to view ashes while shaking, but it will create a bit more fly-ash.

That's great. Thanks for sharing. OK. Now everyone make a video!!!

Where can I find a nifty coal scoop like the one you have? I have a top loader downstairs so a hod is fine but upstairs I have a front loader and need a neat scoop like that.

See the link below for "my projects". You can make one for a couple bucks.

Fire looks a little weak & shallow to be shaking and especially poking in the first place. Aren't you starving the new coal of air? I don't get this whole u tube presentation.
Sorry, my 02 cents.

What are trying to say, CAP? Do you think, it's going to go out? When would you shake it and poke it, when it's full and burning like mad?

Nice video, but I think closing off the MPD is done way too soon, I'd open the ashpan vents for several minutes with the MPD OPEN to stimulate draft and airflow, untill the new, fresh coal is catching fire,, you see either 'blue flames' or a red glow from under the fresh coal.. THEN I think it is safe to close off the MPD.. Otherwise I'd expect to have quite a few members with an out-fire from burying the fire too deep and not getting the fresh coal burning with extra combustion air..

Granted, every stove, chimney, instalation, house and firebox is different,, and obviously this works for Dallas or he wouldn't go to the trouble of making a video of the process..

But I don't think it is a good video to follow for the average stove, chimney and since most instalations don't have a MPD, the application of the MPD is 'extra'.
Obviously it works for Dallas' instalation.

Greg L

Yep.

Just posted this to Bill who is having trouble keeping his Mark III lit.

I believe two short shakedowns just before or after a fresh load and 30 mins later is better than one hard shake. Other words, create hot fire with influx of new air, add coal, shake, close door, wait 30, shake again & top off.

And what's the deal with the MHD? Is your draft too strong or having trouble with Russo's damper design?

Anyway, my .02 cents. Don't mean to offend. What works in a Harman my not work in a Russo and vice versa.

Greg, Why would it only work for me and my stove? Do you feel like it the same, as you and your manual pipe draft that wouldn't work for you?

Cap wrote:And what's the deal with the MHD? Is your draft too strong or having trouble with Russo's damper design?

Cap, before your time, before stokers, oil burners, and before baro dampers, all hand fired stoves had Manual Pipe Dampers ... for a reason. Mine still does!

As a noob I really appreciate the video. I've got a hopper fed and I'm still fine tuning my method. More videos would sure help!

Cap, before your time, before stokers, oil burners, and before baro dampers,

Thanks for the compliment. I feel young these days!

Ok, I guess we're going off topic.

Manual damper slow down draft on the outlet, stove dampers slow it down on the inlet. It's all relative. I well engineered stove damper controls draft the way the stove designer intended it. I'd think so anyway.

And, I'm on record as stating that I do not agree with baro's [for hand fired] 100% of the time as I strongly believe this device prevents you from producing the heat you could otherwise produce without it. I do believe they help with drastic temp & barometric pressure changes to the atmosphere as cold front's come & go and it will save you coal as it limits draft. I keep mine set tight at 2mm or higher if need be.

Razzler wrote:Dallas do you ever get any puffback's after loading your stove like in the video? If i loaded my stove that all the live red coal is covered i get puffbacks. had one that blew the BPD off!

Very, very seldom. If I have filled the stove, as I did in the video and then I reopen the loading door, the volatiles will take off, but nothing too alarming. Last night I had loaded the stove before going to bed and I was sitting on the couch "watching and waiting", half asleep. All of a sudden, my eyes lit up,, as the whole top went into "blue ladies", however there was no real pressure or anything I even heard. ... it just lit up. I have played with it and more than once, when closing the MPD, the blue ladies would immediately appear or go back out if I opened the MPD.

Cap wrote:Manual damper slow down draft on the outlet, stove dampers slow it down on the inlet.

I believe, that the MPD slows the "exhaust", but I don't think it decreases the "draft". I think, somebody checked the draft with a manometer and found the numbers to be about the same with the MPD closed or open.