11. Attend the boiler from two to four times per day. In mild weather, running with a checked fire, morning and night is usually often enough. In severe weather, once in early morning, again at mid-day, again at five or six o’clock and finally thorough attention at from nine to eleven o’clock in the evening.
12. If, through burning poor coal, the fire pot gets full of ashes, or slate and clinkers massed together, the quickest way to get a good active fire is to dump the grate and then build a new fire—from the kindling up.
13. If a hard clinker lodges between the grate bars, do not force the shaking, but first dislodge the mass with a poker or slicing bar. Then the grate will operate without damage.
Weather and Time of Day.
—In severe weather keep the fire pot full of coal, and run the heater by the dampers or regulator (if one is used). Thoroughly clean the grate twice a day. Let the top of the fire in front be level with the feed door sill. Bank up the coal higher to the rear.
In moderate weather there should be from 2 to 6 inches of ashes between the live coal and the grate. As the weather grows colder keep the grate and the fire pot a little cleaner—sometimes it helps to run the poker or slicing bar over it through the clinker door. With some fuels this is never necessary.
Night Firing.
—In very cold weather, when the house should be kept warm all night, clean the grate well at a late hour—the last thing. Clear the bottom of the fire pot of all ashes and clinkers so that the grate is covered with clear-burning, red-hot coals, then fill the pot full of fuel. If possible, leave some of the flame exposed to burn the gases. Leave the drafts on long enough to burn off some of the gas, then check the heater for the night. Thus there is plenty of coal to burn during the night and some on which to commence early in the morning. Some drafts do not make it necessary to leave the dampers on to burn off the gas after feeding.
With the ash-pit draft damper closed and the cold-air check damper open at night, but part of the coal is burned and there is much of it not burned in the morning. So, by reversing the dampers in the early morning the fire starts up quickly and often the house may be well warmed before any coal is put into the fire pot.
Some boilers are run the other way—a very poor way. If the grate is cleared off in very cold weather and coal added at five or six o’clock in the afternoon, by eleven o’clock at night nearly one-half of the coal is burned and the grate is covered over with a mass of ashes and clinkers. With little coal remaining, to shake the grate will quite likely put out the remaining fire; to put fresh coal on a low fire reduces further its declining temperature. The result is a cold house that will grow colder until a new fire is started.