Accidentally Displaced Fire Brick in a New Blaze King Princess

[erice]

I've been having a problem with too large an accumulation of red hot coals - and hard chunks of something derived from the coals. Unless I leave for 24 hours and let the stove cool down (and come back to a 40 degree house), it's too hot to get the coals out.

I've been doing some reading today and apparently the excess coals issue is caused by my throttling the stove back to 2 or 3 at night, even during the day sometimes (?). I'm burning mostly poplar and pine, with hard wood at night.

So, in the process of prying up and removing the large, crusty, hard, black chunks that formed, I tilted one of the fire bricks up on one end. I tried gently tapping on the brick to get it to reseat itself but that didn't work. I've since removed all the coals from the stove and am letting it cool down in the hopes that I can clean out the stuff that is keeping the brick from going back down.

Does this sound like the right approach?

Does anyone have an idea what the black chunks are?

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

Eric

 

[webby3650]

That sounds like the thing to do.
Excessive coals aren’t caused by turning the stove to lower settings. Quit the opposite in fact. It’s caused by 2 things: running on high and reloading often, or under seasoned wood. Wet wood will coal without really ever burning good, so it doesn’t make good heat, so more wood is stuffed in before you would normally need to.

 

[Tar12]

Eric I run a Princess have not encountered this issue.I run mine between 2-3 o'clock around the clock with well seasoned wood.Sounds to me as if your wood is still way to green...try raking all coals front and center and running the air wide open to burn the coals up....I always do this in the final stages of the burn.As Webby mentioned putting more wood in on top of the coals will only make the coaling problem worse and if the moisture content of your wood is to high its only going to compound the problem.Have you checked the moisture content of your wood?

 

[Woody Stover]

Are you trying to have flame in the box all the time? That might be causing you to think you need to reload when there is no longer any flame. In reality, a lot of the heat in a load of wood is produced during the coaling stage when all the flames are gone. Later in the burn I will open up the air a bit on the coals, as these guys have said, and that will keep stove top temp a bit higher until the coals have burned down and you have room for another full load. You don't want to shovel out coals. That's wasting heat, not to mention that you will fry your face and start your clothes on fire with the door open on a big load of coals.

 

[moresnow]

Wood moisture as noted sounds like a definite possibility. A few years back I would get what I would call clinkers in my old stove. Solid masses of something very hard! Stuck to the bottom of the stove. Nasty. I even broke firebrick chipping the stuff out. Quite sure I was running unseasoned/wet wood.

I have not experienced this issue with my BK. Generally my wood is nicely seasoned these days. No more trouble.

My solution to the excessive coal pile would be to spin the thermostat knob way open for a few hrs towards the end of the burn. Or. Lay a small dry split on top of your piled up coals. Turn the stat towards wide open and your coal pile will normally shrink quickly. Food for thought.

 

[jetsam]

If I get too many coals, I rake them up, take a split of dry pine, split it up into little sticks, and lay the tiny splits across the coals. Burn it hot for an hour or two and your coals will be much diminished, with reasonable heat output in the meantime.

 

[erice]

Thanks for your comments.

I fixed the fire brick.

I think the wood I've been burning may not be totally dry. It was green last Spring and was split and stacked in open air all summer and Fall. i was hoping our eastern WA sun and low humidity would do the job. I don't see water or steam, but it could be dryer....

Fortunately, with a little work, I can access some well seasoned wood, which is, of course, behind the wood I stored last Fall.

i'll also try some of the other suggestions to get rid of excess coals.

 

[aaronk25]

Wood moisture as noted sounds like a definite possibility. A few years back I would get what I would call clinkers in my old stove. Solid masses of something very hard! Stuck to the bottom of the stove. Nasty. I even broke firebrick chipping the stuff out. Quite sure I was running unseasoned/wet wood.

I have not experienced this issue with my BK. Generally my wood is nicely seasoned these days. No more trouble.

My solution to the excessive coal pile would be to spin the thermostat knob way open for a few hrs towards the end of the burn. Or. Lay a small dry split on top of your piled up coals. Turn the stat towards wide open and your coal pile will normally shrink quickly. Food for thought.

He is spot on. I have a princess and burn pine and oak. If the pine moisture content is 15% ish no coaling. If it gets wet it coals. Oak at 20% coals. When it’s cold out I run a mostly mix of pine as it burns down the oak coals. If I guy could get his hands on some 15% or less oak which would require being split 3 years ago, ALL pieces split so it will dry, no rounds, covered in a well ventilated shed not stacked uncovered, I think that would minimize the coaling.

The coaling is the denser and most likely wetter center piece of the wood.

If it’s split the center burns first, rounds coal ALOT as the last thing to burn is the center. Try using splits, see if that helps.


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[BKVP]

At the risk of being attacked, I do throw out a lot of coals (sometimes).

for the first 14 years, I would go cut western larch and Doug fir in the Blue Mountains, about an hour drive up, 6 hours of cutting and splitting and stacking, then another hour home.

Then about 4 years ago, I met an arborist. Now, once a year I have full length (massive diameter) walnut, locust and and silver maple delivered to my back yard. I cut, split and stack right in my back yard. Boy is that nice!

However, when burning Doug Fir and Tamarack, I cleaned out ashes about 2-3 time a winter....at most.

Now, s much as I travel, when I get ready to leave home, I shovel EVERYTHING out of the stove so that the better half can get full loads in and not have to deal with removing hot coals. Now, my schedule is that I clean it our every three weeks. At least twice as often as when I burn mountain wood.

As the guys here posted, I rake all the coal forward by the glass door (which cleans the glass) and toss the wood in the back.

Give it try, it works. And to my purist wood burner friends, forgive me for the tossing of hot coals.

 

[Woody Stover]

If I get too many coals, I rake them up, take a split of dry pine, split it up into little sticks, and lay the tiny splits across the coals. Burn it hot for an hour or two and your coals will be much diminished, with reasonable heat output in the meantime.

It's only 22* here now and a little breezy. That's the forecast high temps for the next few days, so I need to burn down coals and get the biggest loads I can into my 1.5 cu.ft. box. I just did a variation of @jetsonofsam's approach above, but instead of Pine kindling, I just tossed in a 4"x4" Black Cherry split, opened the air and flamed the split a bit, closed bypass, and stove temp above the cat went from 275 to 425. The Cherry split is coals now but overall coals are less. I just opened up the air to see if I can keep the stove temp over 400 while burning down the coals further...
Uh oh. With low temps coming, I'm gonna need to get some wood outta the woods, where my stacks are. This little bit o' Cherry won't last long...time to load the on-deck circle with some Red Oak, White Oak and Black Locust.
Before:

 

[moresnow]

Red Oak, White Oak and Black Locust.

wood snob

 

[Blazing]

He is spot on. I have a princess and burn pine and oak. If the pine moisture content is 15% ish no coaling. If it gets wet it coals. Oak at 20% coals. When it’s cold out I run a mostly mix of pine as it burns down the oak coals. If I guy could get his hands on some 15% or less oak which would require being split 3 years ago, ALL pieces split so it will dry, no rounds, covered in a well ventilated shed not stacked uncovered, I think that would minimize the coaling.

The coaling is the denser and most likely wetter center piece of the wood.

If it’s split the center burns first, rounds coal ALOT as the last thing to burn is the center. Try using splits, see if that helps.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

15% covered in a shed.. Hum I got ya lol.

 

[WiscWoody]

Coaling alway happens for me when it goes below zero for days on end like now, it hasn’t been above zero since Sunday and it won’t be above zero until Thursday maybe and I always burn good dry wood. After I’ve fed piece after piece into the stove for days on end the coals just build up. I end up having to let the fire die down during the day when it gets to maybe...oh -8 like today and then I rake to the front, have the primary air all the way open, let it sit a bit, rake again, let it sit a bit, do more raking to shake off the ash etc. The furnace takes over for a bit and the house cools down to 60. Then I pull the ash plug and scoop the ash/coal mix into the pan and being ready with my gloves and winter garb on I quickly take the pan outside and set it out to cool overnight. There! Done for a few more days and good to go for yummy wood fired heat!

PS, I’ve been burning 4 year seasoned red oak this winter, nice stuff.

 

[BKVP]

Raked up front...going to run on high for an hour...

 

[Tar12]

Raked up front...going to run on high for an hour...View attachment 218826

A pic from the deep bowels of a King...I use the same process with the Princess.

 

[moresnow]

Pic @ 1hr perhaps?

 

[BKVP]

Pic @ 1hr perhaps?

Take note of my custom coal fork I made. So I just raked them forward again...

 

[BKVP]

 

[BKVP]

View attachment 218836

The long handle allows me to work and not get burned. It's all 100% 1/2" stainless..

 

[WiscWoody]

Man get those coals out so we can walk on them! Lol. I’ve never had the desire! Nice coal tool BK.

 

[moresnow]

That's a pile of coals! Looks like it would go for quite some time. Nice fork. Best off to keep your better half happy with one of those lying around

 

[BKVP]

Wait for it....Wait for it...

 

[BKVP]

 

[BKVP]

Ah..tonight's load.

 

[SuperJ]

View attachment 218855

The empty spot on the top left is bugging me. There's room for one more split!