Re: Cleaning a fire

In my small experience with wood firing which is probably something over 100hrs spent throwing wood, the fire is mostly self cleaning, ie. ash is simply sucked through the flues and ends up in the smokebox or cinder catcher in the base of the diamond stack or shot out the stack through the screen. The flues on the other hand do get covered with soot and pitch out of the wood, so several times a day it works good to put the Johnson Bar in the hole, apply the brakes with at least a min. set and plenty of throttle for a minute or 2 while the fireman pours sand in at the fire door with the door just cracked open. The high draft sucks the sand right out of a can and scours the flues. The same is true on oil burners. On wood, the ash pans hardly ever have anything worth dumping as the ash is sucked out by the draft assuming the engine gets worked. The screen on the diamond stack need to be beaten fairly often depending on the wood to keep it from getting plugged and reducing draft. This is usually done at a depot stop (or wherever you ran out of steam along the line because you forgot to do it) with a brake club or whatever is handy.