Fire Thread! - Stoves, Wood, Axes, Chainsaws

Bit of a yikes today.
Burner needed cleaning out pre xmas so thought I would do lunchtime.

Had a small Amazon box that was the perfect size for collecting the ash for taking up the allotment.

Cleaned it all out, rescued a few lumps of charcoal to put at the bottom.
Noticed that some of the ash was a little warm still, nothing hot for sure, last fire was yesterday evening.

Bit later noticed a smell, like burning, noticed the box that wasn't yet outside was looking a little scorched on a patch on the side, touched it and it was hot!
Wacked it outside. Other half came home an hour or so later saying she could smell burning outside.
Went outside and the box had literally caught fire and a nice hole was in the side where the scorch marks had been.

Lesson learned. Hot ash bucket being delivered tomorrow!

Reminds me, I must grab some pics to post up, I never got round to that!
 
JonRGV250 said:
I use one of these to keep ash and coal dust in before lobbing it in the trash..


Bin
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Cheers, I have ordered similar, slightly smaller but will be perfect for storing a fair few weeks worth before taking to the allotment.


Edit to say the box has now gone completely. So the slow long "burn" that was going on eventually nuked the whole box. I now have a heap of ash on the shingle by the side of the house.
Bucket comes tomorrow so will scoop up what I can and wash the rest away.
 
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I always check the ash even the next day by moving the remaining ash around and check for warmth.

Not sure why you would want to deal with hot ash? Also maybe i am wrong but the ash can be put into the soil or am i wrong? It doesnt have to go into general waste
 
sja360 said:
I always check the ash even the next day by moving the remaining ash around and check for warmth.

Not sure why you would want to deal with hot ash? Also maybe i am wrong but the ash can be put into the soil or am i wrong? It doesnt have to go into general waste
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Its good for soil, apart from certain things (like potatoes) don't like it.
Ash is alkaline so too much will move the soil away from a neutral state.

Stuff like copper is maintained that was in the original wood, and of course the potassium
You may have heard of the term pot ash, that was where they gathered anything green and basically incinerated it, normal wood ash is in effect the same
 
I dump all my ash on the garden (wood and some coal), mainly the veg patch which is used every year - apart from this I dont add anything else to the soil and use the same patch each year - it has produced great veg each year I have been doing it.
 
After reading the weather forcast for Lundun I thought it would be a good idea to log up just in case.
So double the amount by log burner -Overflowed basket in porch - Filled storage bench behind porch to brim. Filled starting stick box and put the snow shovel in a place where I can get at it.
Just got to find a space in garage to put the generator in- Wouldn't start a month ago so need to have a look at it . Not enough petrol or gooey petrol although I did put some additive in petrol.
Can you imagine the panic and chaos with 2" of snow and a bit of ice :rolleyes:
 
cuke2u said:
I use an ash vacuum cleaner, less dust, holds enough for several cleans and can handle hot ash.
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Speaking of which. Anyone got any recommends for an ash vacuum?
I currently empty the fire using a small fire shovel and a load of newspaper, thought I'd move into the 20th century and get a vac.

Currently thinking either the VonHaus or the Ovation on Amazon. Are they all pretty much the same ?
 
shroomz said:
Thanks I did watch their videos a bit before we got it, very informative channel and we ended up getting the Woodpecker because of their review.

The problem ended up being fresh wood, I've had a different load delivered from somewhere else that is mostly ash with a bit of alder, and all seasoned since March 2023. No problems reaching temperature now, I suspect what I got the first time was still partly green. There were bits that I'd split for kindling that foamed and sizzled on lighting which I don't think is right. So the fresh batch went all the way to the back of the log store to season and completely surrounded by the ash which was about 1/3 of the price too.


Question I have now is whether a bit of primary air to keep flue temperature up is normal? If I totally close the primary, the flue thermometer drops into the creosote region and doesn't really recover even if I open the secondary air all the way. We just end up getting cooked approaching 25C+ but the flue is apparently still forming creosote. But a touch of primary air still open gets the temperature back up and we can still regulate the heat radiated into the room downward with the secondary. Is that something that sounds OK? What's more important - primary air totally closed or the (potentially unreliable) flue thermometer reading?
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This is why it's better to have a smaller log burner and run it hot, then have a massive one and run it cool.

You want to be in the region where the secondary burn is operating, preventing creosote/tar build up in the your flue, as that's what causes flue fires. Also at too low a temperature you'll be releasing a lot more smoke which might annoy your neighbours.

I just open a window if the room starts getting too hot with the log burner on. Our downstairs is open plan, so the log burner heat is spread out, but it can still get too warm if it's over 10c outside.
 
shroomz said:
Thanks I did watch their videos a bit before we got it, very informative channel and we ended up getting the Woodpecker because of their review.

The problem ended up being fresh wood, I've had a different load delivered from somewhere else that is mostly ash with a bit of alder, and all seasoned since March 2023. No problems reaching temperature now, I suspect what I got the first time was still partly green. There were bits that I'd split for kindling that foamed and sizzled on lighting which I don't think is right. So the fresh batch went all the way to the back of the log store to season and completely surrounded by the ash which was about 1/3 of the price too.


Question I have now is whether a bit of primary air to keep flue temperature up is normal? If I totally close the primary, the flue thermometer drops into the creosote region and doesn't really recover even if I open the secondary air all the way. We just end up getting cooked approaching 25C+ but the flue is apparently still forming creosote. But a touch of primary air still open gets the temperature back up and we can still regulate the heat radiated into the room downward with the secondary. Is that something that sounds OK? What's more important - primary air totally closed or the (potentially unreliable) flue thermometer reading?
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I dont think the air source really matters. Stove therm is probably botox as well in general.
My primary does nothing as the grate is blocked. I can do whatever with it and it makes no diff.
The secondary controls the temp.

Ive pretty much found the sweet spot now on ours now.
To light i start with a couple of those heat logs, couple of chunks of split softwood on top, then some smaller kindling. A few bits of paper as I have some around and one of them shaved wood lighter thingies.
This burns for around 45-1hour. I then add two mediumish logs for the first refuel.
Once the flames die I then add a single medium-large log each time.

What I found works for us is trying to create a colas bed from the first and second set. Those heat log things can still be there 3 hours in. I give em a bit of a bash and they break down and create those hot coals at the bottom.
 
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