Anybody have a coal stove?

From what I've read they are good stoves. You'll get a lot more information if you go to www.nepacrossroads.com. That's the home of the coal forum.

MrsSouthy said:

Hitzer 503

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My cousin has the Hitzer 55 and it's a well built unit. He burns wood in it though (he can't build up the nerve to try coal,,,, the stove came with the house he bought) and that sucker chews through huge amounts of wood.

Not sure if the 503 is as inefficient when it comes to burning wood as the 55 is, but that's something to consider if you were debating burning much wood in it.

Also, of the friends of mine who left coal, the number one complaint was the black dust in the house. Not a one ever complained about the heat (we have access to good coal here)

pen

It's simple. Wood is work. Cut, split, stack, carry, load, load, load. Heat cycles.
Coal is shovel into bucket, carry, pour into stove. Shake twice a day. Constant heat.
If you're buying wood - coal is the cheapest heat period.

Here are the basics without spending days on the coal forum. (I'm Coaly there too)

Simply pouring in a bucket a day, shaking morning and night is all that is required to keep a much more constant temp in the house. There are many advantages like a much longer duration fire, clean burning, and hotter fire if you need it.

The chimney has a gray to white dust - I only sweep it in the spring to prevent corrosion since it's a stainless chimney. The ash does become acidic in the summer from condensation moisture. A liner needs to be for coal, which is a little more expensive, but I use the better stainless even for wood.

When shaking grates, always kick up the fire to get the draft going before shaking the ash into pan. This pulls anything airborne up the chimney instead of a dusty house. That is why you hear people claim coal is dirty. It was, before sealed stoves. They are clean when you get the hang of it.

You do have to wipe the glass inside the stove with a damp rag daily. The ash that sticks after shaking can etch the glass if it is allowed to build up. I open door in morning when at it's coolest and dip rag into water pot on stove for a quick wipe. No big deal. Stays perfectly clean.

Started with wood as our ONLY heat source for years. (Goldilocks) Larger temp swings, and longer warm up if away from home all day into the night. After 15 years, finally went to coal. It was a pleasure ! Then I doubled the size of the house and added a second chimney and connected the wood stove to that one in the kitchen. The coal stove heated the entire home, but it was nice having wood in spring and fall when a constant fire wasn't needed. Coal is some heavy duty heating.

We started with "stoked" stoves, meaning you open the door and load on the burning pile. Then went to European hopper stove, with thermostat, which was more efficient, but took longer to catch up in the morning after it's lowest temps needing to be shaken down. Now I have a Hitzer EZ Flo 50-93 which is their largest hopper fed. It also has a thermostat and you can adjust the low burn when the thermostat isn't calling for heat. They are mush more efficient keeping the larger intake for the thermostat closed and burning steady but low. All mine were gravity fed and never burned more than 2 buckets (coal hod) a day. That is 2 tons yearly in NE PA heating 1880 square feet.
At the time it was only $100 -110 a ton, so we heated for years for $200 to 200. Now it's just over $200 a ton, so with enough land to support wood, we went back to the work of wood. BUT we went back to wood with a large kitchen stove that not only is ONLY heat source, but stove top, oven, and water heater. The much larger stove gives more even heat - Zero outside overnight goes from 81* f high to 70* at the lowest point in the morning. Stove top runs 600 over firebox and is down to 135 in the morning with a deep bed of coals. Takes off with little to no kindling, just small splits. So I think we've reached the best solution for our needs.

I keep coal stoves in my rental homes so there is no worry about cleaning.

NOT ALL COAL IS THE SAME ! Some has higher sulfur content and is more acidic. Some creates more ash. Size only changes how fast it burns. Pound for pound it has the same BTU. Larger coal (chestnut and stove) has more oxygen space between pieces and burns faster, with greater heat output. So on warmer days you want the "fines" from the bottom of bin to burn slow, and bigger pieces overnight for more heat.
Coal can be stored out of the sunlight and wind with no BTU loss, no bugs, and will not burn in a pile without being on a grate with air coming up through it. So it is very safe.
I picked it up with trailer in bulk, so don't have much coal dust unloading like you can with a chute delivery. Can't breath that stuff.

Hey, watch the "wood fired locomotive" comments. They are more efficient than burning diesel and converting power to electric !!

My coaly screen name isn't from heating with coal, it's firing locomotives and steam traction engines. Engineer is a "hogger" and fireman "coaly"

I still burn a lot of coal in stuff like this. Me and the boys - NOTHING like the smell of coal and hot iron;




And I start 'em out small;

I was referring to hard coal (Anthracite) only. It varies by brand, area it's mined and breaker. "Old Company Lehi" has historically been the best if they are still mining it there, but you can always get a shale like material that burns poorly mixed in. Bagged it probably won't happen, bulk with a loader and weighed on scale is cheaper. Or delivered by the ton. I never went the extra cost of bags. I'm involved with firebox and grate design on modern cook stoves, and some brands make a big difference during testing. Soft coal burns with a yellow flame, smokes, causes soot, and is much different. You could compare it to burning soft and hard woods. It's fine when you want to shut a boiler down and not have to feed it water for 3 days until the fire dies. The antique boilers I run are all manual feed, so it has it's place.

Yes, you can close your air way down to a very low heat output. But when it warms up, some stoves require ambient temperatures to stay below 40* over a 24 hour period to keep burning. Depends on chimney as well. Less temperature differential inside and outside chimney is less draft, less oxygen through fire bed. You can get to a point where you loose "critical mass" heat in the coal bed and there is no getting the fire back. It will sit there sluggish, glow, loose temp and finally die. Very frustrating. Hitzer is one of the few that will burn in the summer with little to no problem with weak draft when very warm. We always lit the coal fire early November and it would go nonstop until we didn't load and leave it burn out.

I've explained coal burning to many, so can clip and paste from emails easily without writing an essay;

Starting the coal does not take a stabilized wood fire to get the coal going or bed of coals. If you start with some paper, and cardboard strips, and a few pieces of kindling, you sprinkle coal on it when starting it. The secret is LOTS of air up through the fire to make the flames rip through the coal on top. Like a torch though the coal is what you want. Add more every few minutes and you will see blue flames and the coal will start to glow. 15 minutes from match lighting to coal burning on the pile is it. Very small kindling pieces no larger than 1 inch diameter is what it takes. You don't want pieces of wood burning with the coal mixed in the fire bed an hour later.

Little to no smoke keeps the glass clean, so if you're doing it wrong and slow, the glass gets brown just from the kindling. No worry, when the coal gets going fully, it gets so hot when you wipe with damp rag it wipes clean as the rag tends to steam it. A couple days, the brown film removes on the rag.

This is easier accomplished with the ash door open slightly, but is not advised since it will go wild if you don't stay with it. It's not recommended by manufacturers, but many start it that way, and some stoves almost require it. I've came home to a stove almost out, shake without dumping what's left into pan, and have just a few specks glowing under the fire looking up through the grate. Sit with it with ash door open a few minutes and the glow grows. Once you get blue flames on top, it's safe to close it and you have an established fire again.

Don't be afraid to cover the burning coal with fresh coal once started. It's strange to cover it fully, making the stove dark like it's out, but when you open the ash door and look up though the grate you can see what kind of fire you have. The red glowing mass will grow until the entire grate area is glowing. The fresh coal on top will expel a flammable gas as it heats up. This is what causes the blue flames across the top of the fire. Since most oxygen is used up going through the fire bed, coal stoves will have either a secondary air intake above the grate to admit oxygen to allow this gas to ignite, or have a bypass around the grate (right behind door) to allow enough oxygen to the top
of the fire. Some European stoves have glass in small strips that allow air between the glass. It doesn't take much. So a fire closed down will be a glowing red mass, and the more air you give it, the more blue flames until they engulf the entire inside of stove rolling against glass to the top. That's max BTU.

When shaking you'll find the handle moves freely when lots of ash needs to be removed. Once down to coal, it gets "crunchy' and you stop as soon as red coals start to drop. You get the feel of each grate system an dhow violent you need to be with it. Short quick strokes clean the grate, long slow strokes can jam pieces between grates or start to dump the fire through. You want a loose fitting handle to knock the ash off making noise as you move back and forth, not a fluid motion. When you make a handle for large steam equipment, you want it to move a few inches before moving the grates so you can make them jump a bit as you rock violently. Tame that down to miniature movements, but a "bump of the grate" in a small fire box of a stove.

RULE #1 Empty ash daily if it needs it or not ! The intake air all comes up though the grate and keeps the iron grates cool. An ash build up to the bottom of grate is the biggest stove killer. Grates will sag, melt, and deform until they can't be shaken properly. They are not cheap. This happens on big thick grates in locomotives and ships as well. It's not inferior grates. They melt.

When you allow the stove to go out in spring, with regular shaking an established fire with a stove full will take 2 to 3 days to burn out. Plan accordingly. You'll be opening windows in the winter until you get the hang of how much fire you need. A coal stove is slower to respond than wood and you won't be putting all your summer clothes away.

I should mention, Rule #2; Never poke a coal fire from the top !

You only burn wood in a coal stove (or preferably another wood stove in the building) before and after coal is needed during the season when only a nightly fire is needed. Once you need the fire going all day, it's time to start the coal.

You "can" burn wood in any coal stove, but you can't get the glowing coal pile to accumulate since loading knocks the coals through the grate and they go out in the ash pan. Wood needs to burn slow on the bottom in an inch of ash, not raised on a grate where it gets lots of air. The misconception of burning on a grate in a fireplace is due to needing lots of heat with wood raised up for lots of air to warm a massive amount of hearth and chimney. People then think they need that in a stove. Cook stoves need the extra air up through a wood fire for oven heating, and a quick stove top temp, so the best grates are designed to pack ash and not clean themselves much. My Kitchen Queen burns on a non- movable grate made of 5/8 steel rods about 3/8 inch apart. Coals stay on top and we have a couple inches deep left in the morning to reload on. It's one of the few I've been happy with burning wood on a grate that becomes "solid" after a few hours. Or you can clean it off by stirring from the top for cooking and early morning quick starts. Remove lid and your cooking over fire box in 10 minutes or less.