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[cando attitude]

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to you guys. 

The rest of the family is still in bed so I thought I would jump on line for a quick moment.....Anyhooo....I wanted to share something with you guys that seems to help me with increased burn times.  I just put the stove in this year so not a lot of experience and was noticing that I always had a lot of larger, hot coals in my ash box.  I'm an engineer by trade and a tightwad to boot so I was determined to keep these coals instead of throwing them out with the ashes so I went out and bought several standard 1" firebricks to install in the stove between the larger firebrick that came with the stove.  I have them placed such that I have 1/8" to 1/4" gaps between the firebricks to allow ashes to fall and air from the blower to feed fire.  This has worked great.  I no longer have large coals in my ash box and I seem to be getting increased burn times. 

As I'm trying to understand this, a few things come to mind.  First of all, this does impede the airflow into the firebox, which will increase recovery times but I also believe that this keeps the fan from blasting all the hot air through the stove (allowing for more dwell time in the stove and thus more heat transfer).  I also believe that these smaller ash slots reduces the natural updraft of the stove when the stove is not calling for heat (i.e. fan off).  Additionally this has certainly helped me to keep an improved bed of coals.  So that's my $.02 for the day.  I am interested to see if others have tried this and if others have/do, if you see the same benefits.

Good day guys,

Cando

[Crow]

 So do you know how many bricks are in the bottom? I have last years model and it has 13 bricks. I have talked with a member here who has 12 bricks and another member who has the latest version with 9 larger bricks with built in spacers. What I did with mine was to build spacers for each side of the fire bricks to keep them spaced without them moving around when stirring the coals. It's working out well with only a fine ash getting through the gaps.

[cando attitude]

Good point, Crow.  I do not know how many bricks are in the bottom, guess I just assumed that all had the same number.  I'm guessing in the 9-10 range.  Surely not 13.  On average my gaps were ~1-1.5".  The next time I burn down I'll try to get a count.

[Bud Man]

What did you make the spacers with? I would like to make some but didn't know if steel would warp.

I have had trouble with bricks moving when I rake coals.

[Crow]

I used two 1/2 inch host bars 36 inches long. I welded eleven spacers to them. I used 3/8 inch rod cut in 2 inches in length for the spacers using one of the bricks for a guide. I set them in and slid one to each side and now I cant move the bricks by accident and the scraper slides down them so I don't even hit the brick. Have not pulled them out yet to see if they warped or not.

[Bud Man]

Thanks, but I have to ask what is a host bar?

[Crow]

 The host bar is the 1/2 inch bar I welded the 3/8 inch spacers to.

[Bud Man]

Thanks Crow. I need to do something to keep the brick in place. No matter how hard I try, I will hook one about once a week and have to let the coals burn down so I can fix it.

[Bud Man]

I talked to Slimjim and he gave me a fix for this. I talked to P&M about this and they are supposed to send me 2 bricks. Haven't seen them yet. Wish I could get them, Bricks keep falling over blocking air flow and giving me a very poor fire. Can a BL 2840 with bricks be converted to shaker grates? Slimjims fix will work but I have to burn it down and probably lose a day or two of heating with it.

[oaky]

I dropped in these brick spacers two weeks from today, I have to say that they work really great. No more 0"- 2" gaps between firebricks, no more large pieces of charcoal, up to 3", only 1/2" pieces in the ash drawer & and the ash is evenly level from front to back. In the firebox, the embers are now evenly glowing from front to back, no dead areas. Most of all, the firebricks are now permanently set at 1/2" spacing with no concern of them moving while raking coals.

Since I dropped these spacers in, I only need to clean out the ash drawer once a week instead of twice. The fire seems to be burning hotter with less smoke. An easy $18 fix.

I couldn't upload photos, but they are on another forum, under: Firebrick Spacing Tricks.

Thanks Crow, for this idea!

[Bud Man]

I'm burning down tonight so I can work on this tomorrow. Seems as some of these 2840's were shipped without the proper number of bricks leaving the spaces to wide causing them to fall over. Not all of the stoves have the same size bricks in them. Once I get burned down I will measure one and make the spacers.

The new stoves have bricks with tabs on them so they remain properly spaced and can't fall over. If these spacers warp I will try to get a new set of bricks.

[oaky]

My BL 2840 dealer wanted $42 apiece x 12 or 13 tabbed bricks. I'll stay with my home built metal spacers, if they become unusable after a few years, I'll build another & the current bricks can be replaced when needed, for a few dollars apiece from Menards.

When you make these metal brick spacers, slightly grind the ends of spacer tabs to a taper, it'll help to guide the spacers between the bricks a bit easier. I used a small hammer to lightly tap the spacers in. Don't be afraid to leave a little wiggle room between the bricks, makes it easier to slide in, some brick ends are slightly larger than the other end.

It felt real good knowing how solid the bricks felt in place.

Happy New Year!

[Bud Man]

I made my spacers with 1/2" x 1" bars 36" long. I drilled 1/2" holes in them 3 1/8" apart and welded 1/2" x 3" rod in them.  Put it all together and everything seems solid. 

My stove should have 13 bricks in it but came with 12. I put the 12 back in and found a brick 1 1/4" thick that filled the extra space. With the spacers my gaps between bricks is a bit wider than it was designed to be but I can live with it.

[oaky]

After spacing my fire bricks 1/2" apart, I came up with a wide gap, like you, I placed a 1 1/4" brick in there, worked out perfectly.

Don't worry about the slightly larger spaces, you're still a lot farther ahead with all the bricks being evenly spaced at all time. You're wood consumption & ash output will be less, with a much better burn.

[Bud Man]

Stove has been burning for 4 hours now since the spacers were put in. It's burning like it did when it was new. Trying to get a coal bed built now.

$42 a brick is ridiculous! Doesn't the warranty cover quality and workmanship? Rory @ P&M said they had problems with not enough bricks sent with some of the stoves. Isn't that workmanship?

Sorry, just had to complain.