Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Username: Password:

Author Topic: More burn time  (Read 4068 times)

aarmga

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 423
  • OWF Brand: Nature's Comfort
  • OWF Model: NCB-250
  • Central Wisconsin
    • View Profile
More burn time
« on: January 25, 2017, 08:29:32 PM »

Seems this place is pretty dead, kinda sad really.  I'll post here anyway because it's snowing 8+ inches and I'm bored waiting for the snow to stop so I can go plow the driveway.

Onto my topic.  So I did exactly what Natures Comfort told me exactly not to do with great results.  I was told that I should never let my ash bed build up past the door lip because it can damage the firebox.  Seeing that so many stoves don't even have an ash drawer I thought to myself that why the heck would that even matter. So lately I have been cramming my wood stove extra full to get my ash bed up about half way in the stove.  Now it's been a few days since the ash bed has been extra thick, maybe 12-15 inches thick.  I use my homemade rounded garden hoe to stir the ash and scrape the bottom a little to get the hard ash knocked up off the bottom.  I just pull my ash drawer out, dump it and leave the 15 inch ash bed alone. I throw in about 4 30"x8" long pieces and this thing burns a full 24 hours easy now.  Filled this stove Sunday at 4pm and didn't open the door until 6pm Monday night after work to find that I still had a good fire going without loosing much of my ash bed. When I pulled the ash drawer out it was about half full or so.  Personally I think that ash drawer is great but it hurts the performance of the stove when all the ash falls into it before it's used up completely, which can be another 12 extra hours.  So I'm going to do exactly what NC tells me not to do and keep a thick ash bed.  I also closed the air door down to about 1/8 opening from 1/4 to try and keep more heat from going out the chimney. So far so good!
Logged
Stihl 211 - 16"
Remington Rodeo Pro - 20"
Stihl 661r magnum - 36"
SpeeCo 22 Ton Honda splitter
JD 1025r with FEL
Natures Comfort NCB 250 custom added overhead air injection

bowhunter79

  • Training Wheels
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 11
  • OWF Brand: Natured Comfort
  • OWF Model: 175
    • View Profile
Re: More burn time
« Reply #1 on: January 26, 2017, 07:56:22 AM »

Ive seen similar results.  I think having the ash higher up makes the smoke work a little harder to get out the chimney with more time to possibly gasify.  I have recently been thinking about trying to add some grates to keep the bigger chunks of coal from falling into the ash pan. 
Logged

aarmga

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 423
  • OWF Brand: Nature's Comfort
  • OWF Model: NCB-250
  • Central Wisconsin
    • View Profile
Re: More burn time
« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2017, 12:06:48 AM »

Hi bowhunter, currently it is -3 degrees out with temps between 0 and 15 during the day. I am getting 15 hour burn times before the temp starts to fall in the stove.  I have been refilling Twice a day once before work 11 hours and once about 13 hours after work with water temps at 180 and a nice hot coal bed ready to relight the second I throw wood in.

I've heard of people doing this ash grate modification but not yet seen anything.  If I don't see something I'll try putting a sheet of small gap 1/8" expanded metal with a couple tabs to hold it in place over the fire brick area where the ash falls through.
« Last Edit: February 04, 2017, 12:14:27 AM by aarmga »
Logged
Stihl 211 - 16"
Remington Rodeo Pro - 20"
Stihl 661r magnum - 36"
SpeeCo 22 Ton Honda splitter
JD 1025r with FEL
Natures Comfort NCB 250 custom added overhead air injection

robertj1

  • Training Wheels
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 14
  • OWF Brand: natures comfort
  • OWF Model: ncb 325
    • View Profile
Re: More burn time
« Reply #3 on: February 04, 2017, 01:03:35 AM »

Use stainless steel expanded flat. You will burn up carbon steel.
Logged

aarmga

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 423
  • OWF Brand: Nature's Comfort
  • OWF Model: NCB-250
  • Central Wisconsin
    • View Profile
Re: More burn time
« Reply #4 on: February 04, 2017, 02:59:55 AM »

Good to know! Thanks :post:
Logged
Stihl 211 - 16"
Remington Rodeo Pro - 20"
Stihl 661r magnum - 36"
SpeeCo 22 Ton Honda splitter
JD 1025r with FEL
Natures Comfort NCB 250 custom added overhead air injection