MaintenanceMan
Minister of Fire
So practically speaking though, coal does typically get longer burn times? are longer overnight burns more typical with coal than they are with wood?
Another reason I love coal!
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Being a anthracite burner I will give you my experinces with a Hitzer 50-93 coal stove.
In bitter cold weather I can keep the stove at a steady 400-450 range for 12 hours almost constant before tending.
On days its in the 30's I can easily get 24 hrs between tending.
I have a larger house in NH with 30+ windows.
I have gone away and it stayed lit for 3.5 days till I got back.
Of course the heat was minimal at that point.
In bitter cold weather I can keep the stove at a steady 400-450 range for 12 hours almost constant before tending.
On days its in the 30's I can easily get 24 hrs between tending.
I have a larger house in NH with 30+ windows.
I have gone away and it stayed lit for 3.5 days till I got back.
Of course the heat was minimal at that point.
Being a anthracite burner I will give you my experinces with a Hitzer 50-93 coal stove.
In bitter cold weather I can keep the stove at a steady 400-450 range for 12 hours almost constant before tending.
On days its in the 30's I can easily get 24 hrs between tending.
I have a larger house in NH with 30+ windows.
I have gone away and it stayed lit for 3.5 days till I got back.
Of course the heat was minimal at that point.
In bitter cold weather I can keep the stove at a steady 400-450 range for 12 hours almost constant before tending.
On days its in the 30's I can easily get 24 hrs between tending.
I have a larger house in NH with 30+ windows.
I have gone away and it stayed lit for 3.5 days till I got back.
Of course the heat was minimal at that point.
Again that all depends on the stoves the fuel and the heat output levels. I would say in general yes coal will give you an edge on burn time but if you are comparing an average hand fired coal stove to a big cat stove then no you wont see longer burn times.
Yes. When it was cold and I was burning coal. I could go to bed with a stove at 650 degrees and wake up with a stove doing exactly the same thing, 8-9 hours later. I'll let those with cat stoves chime in and say, but I don't know that there's any other wood burning tech that can do that. Cutting the air back a bit, I maintained 450-500 degree temps over a 12 hour day. I liked the fact that coal was a bit more "set-and-forget" than wood was. Once I got dialed in, there were periods of 4-5 days that I didn't touch the air controls at all. I just let the stove cruise at 1 turn open, shake, reload, and toss the ashes 3 times per day. I feel as though a better design would allow for less tending. However, I had to do this because ash would build up on the parts of the grates that didn't shake, and I needed a pretty vigorous fire to deal with all of the poking I had to do to clear the ash.
This is what pulls me to the cat stoves, and what I will probably get here in a year or two. All of the advantages that I see in burning coal are present in cat stoves, plus I have access to as much wood as I can cut. Unfortunately, though, there's no Woodstock or Blaze King stove installed in my basement at present.
I am fine with loading my stove 3 times a day it works well for me that way. I could use a bigger stove for more btus but i really done need more burn time
I describe myself as a "fiddler". I'd be fine with messing with my stove every two hours during the times that I am at home or awake.Sometimes though, I like to sleep for 9-10 hours, and sometimes I work late. I think that some of the larger cat stoves currently on the market could keep up with my heating needs. My stove, with wood, cannot, even though it seems to be as efficient as other pre-EPA stoves that I've had experience with.
Now I plan to insulate and I have a lot of room for improvement there, and I won't need so much heat. I can also then burn the cat stove lower with no problem.
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