Hot ash - a problem solved.

[Odana]

Useful Ash Box Linky - much better than buckets!

Edited February 16, 2016 by Odana

[DHutch]

Most of the steam launches run a 'wet ash pan' on the same principle.

 

- Cools the ash pan, which is near the hull, often wood.

- Prevents the ash blowing around, onto the motion, and your face.

- Is clean and easy to clean up.

 

The only downside is it does an 'all eat the ash pan if you make it from anything less than a good grade of stainless. Likely not an issue given the cost of a bucket and the easy it can be fully rinsed out.

 

 

Daniel

[ditchcrawler]

 

Do you have CO alarms?

 

CO isn't heavier than air, contrary to popular belief. It's about the same, apart from an initial rise up due to heat.

Well said

[waterworks]

 

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!

 

If you put a lid on a bucket of burning ash, you will further restrict the amount of oxygen available for combustion, ensuring that it produces even more carbon monoxide. No bucket lid is gas tight, and you don't want anything which might produce CO in your cabin.

I didn't say bucket, I said a hyperthetical gas tight container.

[bizzard]

After burner. Install another No2 stove in the boat and transfer all the hot ash from Stove 1 to stove 2 to burn the rest of the goodness from it until it goes cold, then into the fridge to make sure.

[Peter X]

 

Do you have CO alarms?

 

CO isn't heavier than air, contrary to popular belief. It's about the same, apart from an initial rise up due to heat.

Indeed, and anyway gases all mingle with each other. Life on earth depends on this fact, just imagine what a mess we'd all be in if the nitrogen, oxygen, CO2 and sundry gases in the atmosphere all separated out into layers according to their molecular weight!

 

The trouble with CO comes when enough of it is produced in a confined space i.e. inside a house or especially a small boat, and there isn't enough ventilation for it to escape, so it reaches a poisonous concentration, hence the wisdom of removal of the ash to somewhere outside, the more air blowing around it the better.

 

In the case of Foxy's ash bucket on his stern deck on Christmas Day, it was never going to stay hot for long. Vast quantities of rain fell, filling the bucket with water.

[WarringtonWhite]

Get a container with a gas tight lid, and keep it in the cabin, thereby using the heat instead of wasting it. The old warming pan comes to mind ?

 

That sounds like a good idea. only one problem........ the air tight lid goes on with 'hot air inside' the ash cools down which creates a great little vacuum inside the said container. A good old hammer and chisel would take the top off, but would it be worth it.

 

There is also another problem and that is that you would have to monitor the temp inside the box because you would have to know that the thing wont 'flash' once the oxygen is re-introduced. Eye brow warning there me thinks!

[ditchcrawler]

 

That sounds like a good idea. only one problem........ the air tight lid goes on with 'hot air inside' the ash cools down which creates a great little vacuum inside the said container. A good old hammer and chisel would take the top off, but would it be worth it.

 

The OH laid the hot steamy saucepan lid on top of the ceramic cooker hob and it stuck, so she cooled it down a bit, cost me a new cooker when the hob split in half.

[cuthound]

That sounds like a good idea. only one problem........ the air tight lid goes on with 'hot air inside' the ash cools down which creates a great little vacuum inside the said container. A good old hammer and chisel would take the top off, but would it be worth it.

 

There is also another problem and that is that you would have to monitor the temp inside the box because you would have to know that the thing wont 'flash' once the oxygen is re-introduced. Eye brow warning there me thinks!

 

Surely if the container has a gas tight lid, and the ash was still hot enough to glow, some of the oxygen would be used up as the ashes continued to burn.

 

Air pressure inside the container would drop and atmospheric pressure would crush the air tight container?

 

(remembered from a science lesson back in the 60's, where they used an old oil can and a candle to demonstrate this).

[Peter X]

Here comes the science bit, as I think Jennifer Aniston once said:

 

As the ashes burn in a gas tight container, they will consume the oxygen, although converting it to CO (plus maybe some CO2).

So for each O2 molecule consumed, there will now be two molecules of CO, which I reckon could in theory increase pressure a bit.

However 78% of the air we're enclosing in this experiment is nitrogen, to which nothing happens, and the reduction in temperature as the ash cools (combustion will end if the oxygen runs out) will bring the pressure down according to Boyle's Law that PV/T is constant, where P=pressure, V=volume and T=temperature (in Kelvin). While the steel bucket holds its shape, which I guess it would, V will only change slightly due to contraction of the steel and the ashes, T will drop by about half, so P will drop a lot too. Getting that lid off will not be easy, unless it contains a one-way pressure valve to let air in. If the bucket is weak enough, the pressure difference could crush it, reducing V and bring P back closer to one atmosphere.

[Peter X]

Footnote: the candle experiment is a bit different, because it's burning paraffin not just carbon; here's a good explanation of that:

http://www.math.harvard.edu/~knill/pedagogy/waterexperiment/

[Loafer]

The OH laid the hot steamy saucepan lid on top of the ceramic cooker hob and it stuck, so she cooled it down a bit, cost me a new cooker when the hob split in half.

 

Cripes. Bad luck!

[GUMPY]

The OH laid the hot steamy saucepan lid on top of the ceramic cooker hob and it stuck, so she cooled it down a bit, cost me a new cooker when the hob split in half.

Oops

I hope there were no raised voices!

[ditchcrawler]

Oops

I hope there were no raised voices!

No point. The bit that griped me was I couldn't buy a new ceramic, it had to be the whole hob, top half of the oven so went the insurance route and added the cash to buy a complete new cooker.

[Lady Muck]

Get a container with a gas tight lid, and keep it in the cabin, thereby using the heat instead of wasting it. The old warming pan comes to mind ?

My friend has just discovered shes been giving herself CO poisoning from doing this. Bad idea.

[cuthound]

I found the best way of dealing with the problems associated with hot ash was to get a boat with a diesel stove.

 

Clean, controllable and with current diesel prices, no more expensive to run

 

Edited to remove letters pretending to be spaces.

Edited February 21, 2016 by cuthound

[Loafer]

I found the best way of dealing with the problems associated with hot ash was to get a boat with a diesel stove.

 

Clean, controllable and with current diesel prices, no more expensive to run

 

Edited to remove letters pretending to be spaces.

 

Always a man with the right idea, CH.

[Theo]

Here comes the science bit, as I think Jennifer Aniston once said:

 

As the ashes burn in a gas tight container, they will consume the oxygen, although converting it to CO (plus maybe some CO2).

So for each O2 molecule consumed, there will now be two molecules of CO, which I reckon could in theory increase pressure a bit.

However 78% of the air we're enclosing in this experiment is nitrogen, to which nothing happens, and the reduction in temperature as the ash cools (combustion will end if the oxygen runs out) will bring the pressure down according to Boyle's Law that PV/T is constant, where P=pressure, V=volume and T=temperature (in Kelvin). While the steel bucket holds its shape, which I guess it would, V will only change slightly due to contraction of the steel and the ashes, T will drop by about half, so P will drop a lot too. Getting that lid off will not be easy, unless it contains a one-way pressure valve to let air in. If the bucket is weak enough, the pressure difference could crush it, reducing V and bring P back closer to one atmosphere.

Nah.

 

Boyle's Law is PV = constant (Assuming constant T). Charles's Law is V/T = Constant (Assuming constant P) What you quoted is perfectly true but is the combination of Boyle and Charles.

 

The rest's right though.

 

N

[Loafer]

Nah.

 

Boyle's Law is PV = constant (Assuming constant T. Charles's Law is V/T = Constant (Assuming constant P) What you quoted is perfectly true but is the combination of Boyle and Charles.

 

The rest's right though.

 

N

 

Theo, you should change your name to 'Google'!