spark arrestor-a brilliant idea gone bad!

[markct]

so last night while boiling i noticed how many sparks and the good bit of were coming outa the stack, and the ash was making a nice mess all over my milk tank in back. so after all those hours boiling and thinking i said ahh let me add a nice piece of this stainless mesh i have with openings a little smaller than 1/8 inch square. so i cut out a nice circle of it and bent the edges up so the taps would hold some spring tension against the stovepipe inside and this morning i went and put it up into the top of the stack, so i fired up the evap and all was going great, it was daytime so i dunno how the sparks were doing, but i was boiling away, then after about 5 hours i went to load the wood and noticed a bit of flames wisping outa the front when i opened the door, hmm musta just been the blower still coasting, loaded it shut the door and started the blower and in a few seconds the sugahouse was full of black smoke, and it dawned on me what likely happened so i shut off the blower and grabbed the ladder and tried not to burn myself as i pried the screen out which was plugged up with ash. then all was back to normal. so any ideas on how to minimize my ash and spark problems without causing this same problem? maybe bigger mesh?

[sapman]

I think your mesh was a little too small. I've used stainless hardware cloth, perhaps about 1/4" openings. I put it under the base stack, right on the arch collar. I think this keeps the sparks hot enough to get consumed more completely.

Tim

[fred]

putting screen on your stack is just asking for trouble

[Big maple]

Our last arch came from leader with the same setup SAP MAN talked about. It still spewed ashes and embers. It is neat to watch at night but still leaves a mess. One night I waled around the back of the shack and there was a 40' tall dead poplar tree that was one giant red ember.

[danno]

I added forced air ABOVE the fire and it has made a huge differance reducing ash, smoke, spark. I added it to hopefully improve my wood consumption and I think it has - but will not make that final decision until the end of the year.

The air above the fire significantly improves combustion and efficiency - the wood burns in the fire box, not in the stack. Now, I get very little ash in the fire box, and not much ash or smoke for that matter out the stack. Evap. rate has stayed about the same, but stack temp runs about 200 degrees cooler.