Thinking of switching to a coal stove...

I have an old Shenandoah stove that burns wood and coal in my basement. The stove has a cast iron shaker grate that has smaller holes in it than a wood grate so that the small chunks don't fall through to the ash pan. If I load up 40 or so pounds of coal in it I can get 12 hour burns on a medium draft setting before reloading it. On one particular cold snap I was able to keep it burning 24 / 7 for a few weeks without issue. The shaker grate and ash pan allow you to remove the ash without shutting the stove down for cleaning. You don't want the coal to burn with a flame it is more of a smolder that is providing the heat.
In the winter time the sand and gravel yards stock coal for sale by the ton and the hardware stores will ususally have it in a 35 - 50 pound sacks although this route is more expensive. iirc last year I payed 230 for a ton. When I bring it home I have it loaded in my trailer and that way I can park the trailer in my shop until I use it. I don't getting it wet really matters unless you are trying to start the fire in begining. You will want gloves and it is great fun to tease the kids about what they are getting for Christmas
Coal is definatley a cheap alternative to oil or propane.

Great advice on the anthricite. Cost is more than soft coal but it has more BTU's , burns much cleaner and not much ash left over.
I had considered it at one time and was amazed by some of the newer coal stoves.

Todays coal stoves can be fully automatic "stokers". They have a hopper just like pellet stoves. You purchase the coal in a "pea" form. It comes slightly sprayed with an oil mist so it doesn't dust while loading.

Set and forget. Automatic damper/temp control.

Leisure Line is a good choice. http://www.leisurelinestoves.com/

I have both a wood burning insert upstairs and a wood/coal stove downstairs in the family room. For "normal" winter days (high mid-40s, lows in the 20s) the wood insert is enough to keep us warm. During the cold spells (highs at or below freezing) I light the downstairs stove. If it is going to be a short cold spell I burn wood in both. If they are predicting several days of sub-freezing temperatures I use coal downstairs. That stove is a radiant, hand fired stove rated at 38,000 btu's. I usually run it in the 15 to 20,000 range unless it is really cold outside. When it is burning coal I tend it twice a day and easily get 12 hour burns.

While coal is a great, low maintenance burn it does take a little while to get up to temperature and/or cool down again. Once it is going it takes very little effort to keep it going.

I store 2 tons of coal in an outside bin. It has a cover to keep the rain/snow off but the coal is a little wet to keep the dust down. Burning at 20K btu's per hour uses about 40 lbs of coal a day. To give you some scale a 5 gallon bucket holds about 40 pounds of coal. I keep a couple of full buckets in the house so I don't have to trudge through the snow every day to get it.

KaptJaq

I burn stove or chesnut in a hand fired Harman coal stove. I also burn pellets upstairs, but coal provides about 60% of our heat for the winter. Coal is $160 per ton, picked up at the breaker, so you literally can't find a cheaper fuel per BTU. Burning coal is the perfect 24 hour a day heat source for the winter, and hand fired stoves don't require eletricity to run.

I burned coal. Reading anthracite, red ash. There is also a white ash. The red ash is a bit dirtier, and a little cheaper, but easier to burn.

I had a baker coal stove, the challenger. My brother still uses it, it's probably close to 15 years old.

http://www.bakerstoves.com/stoves.htm

There is a learning curve to burning coal, it ain't like burning wood.

The process was like this, assuming I already had a coal fire going, open the air all the way, allow coal bed to heat up good, shovel a bit of coal on top, allow that to catch a bit. Then shake it until a few fine embers begin to fall into the ashpan, then slowly load 'er up the whole way, cut the air back to where you want it set.

Cold days were a 12 hour burn, warmer days, like 30 degrees or better I could get a 24 hour burn out of it.

I won't burn coal again indoors. Too much fine black dust gets on everything.

I have an automatic stoker/boiler in the furnace room section of my finished basement. I store the coal above and behind the stove outside in a sheltered bin and the coal runs down through a 4" PVC pipe thru the cement floor and out the basement wall right into the hopper of the stoker. That way i dont have to handle the coal after its in the bin(no black dust) nor load the hopper. This stove also heats my hot water. The price of coal is so cheap compared to oil i paid for the stoker the very first year i installed it in 2002.
That said i also have a harman TL-300 wood stove i use in spring and fall which is far more romantic and beautiful while burning than any coal stove.

I grew up burning coal.
It is very convenient, less work than wood.
I don't burn it for two reasons;
I get my wood for free. I seldom get coal for free.
Coal is a fossil fuel, wood is renewable.

Burned coal when I was a kid, my parents heated with it for 10+ years, after oil went to 12 cents a gallon, in this house.


We had a pot belly in the apartment, a HUGE cook stove down stairs ( where the 30 will end up some day, maybe), and a pot belly up on the main level. House was screaming at 76 or so with leaky windows, no insulation, etc. House shored up since.


That being said, when I pulled up the wall to wall, there was nothing but black dust. I'm never having carpeting again.


It is my understanding that the new coal stoves are way more efficient. If I were in PA, I'd consider it.

Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:

Burned coal when I was a kid, my parents heated with it for 10+ years, after oil went to 12 cents a gallon, in this house.


We had a pot belly in the apartment, a HUGE cook stove down stairs ( where the 30 will end up some day, maybe), and a pot belly up on the main level. House was screaming at 76 or so with leaky windows, no insulation, etc. House shored up since.


That being said, when I pulled up the wall to wall, there was nothing but black dust. I'm never having carpeting again.


It is my understanding that the new coal stoves are way more efficient. If I were in PA, I'd consider it.

Click to expand...

I'm in PA and I'm not using coal because I have no place to store it. I do not have a basement. If I had a basement I might have given it a try. Never really priced out the cost of coal.

BrowningBAR said:

Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:

Burned coal when I was a kid, my parents heated with it for 10+ years, after oil went to 12 cents a gallon, in this house.


We had a pot belly in the apartment, a HUGE cook stove down stairs ( where the 30 will end up some day, maybe), and a pot belly up on the main level. House was screaming at 76 or so with leaky windows, no insulation, etc. House shored up since.


That being said, when I pulled up the wall to wall, there was nothing but black dust. I'm never having carpeting again.


It is my understanding that the new coal stoves are way more efficient. If I were in PA, I'd consider it.

Click to expand...

I'm in PA and I'm not using coal because I have no place to store it. I do not have a basement. If I had a basement I might have given it a try. Never really priced out the cost of coal.

Click to expand...

BR, it just needs a bin, some thing with a cover for the elements. The comments on a few 5 gallon buckets is on the money. We had a coal bin, that I filled every weekend, holidays, Sundays,etc. We had enough inside for1 week, at least.

Shoot, you might want to consider one of these. It's an awesome heat.

Dare I say better than wood. But at a very high cost.

Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:

BrowningBAR said:

Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:

Burned coal when I was a kid, my parents heated with it for 10+ years, after oil went to 12 cents a gallon, in this house.


We had a pot belly in the apartment, a HUGE cook stove down stairs ( where the 30 will end up some day, maybe), and a pot belly up on the main level. House was screaming at 76 or so with leaky windows, no insulation, etc. House shored up since.


That being said, when I pulled up the wall to wall, there was nothing but black dust. I'm never having carpeting again.


It is my understanding that the new coal stoves are way more efficient. If I were in PA, I'd consider it.

Click to expand...

I'm in PA and I'm not using coal because I have no place to store it. I do not have a basement. If I had a basement I might have given it a try. Never really priced out the cost of coal.

Click to expand...

BR, it just needs a bin, some thing with a cover for the elements. The comments on a few 5 gallon buckets is on the money. We had a coal bin, that I filled every weekend, holidays, Sundays,etc. We had enough inside for1 week, at least.

Shoot, you might want to consider one of these. It's an awesome heat.

Dare I say better than wood. But at a very high cost.

Click to expand...

I'd still need a covered area for it, wouldn't I? I know coal doesn't "go bad" if it's wet, but isn't it a pain to use when it's wet?? How many tons would I go though If I converted one stove to coal? (used 24/7 when winter weather dictates)

BR, it just needs a bin, some thing with a cover for the elements. The comments on a few 5 gallon buckets is on the money. We had a coal bin, that I filled every weekend, holidays, Sundays,etc. We had enough inside for1 week, at least.

Shoot, you might want to consider one of these. It's an awesome heat.

Dare I say better than wood. But at a very high cost.[/quote]


I'd still need a covered area for it, wouldn't I? I know coal doesn't "go bad" if it's wet, but isn't it a pain to use when it's wet?? How many tons would I go though If I converted one stove to coal? (used 24/7 when winter weather dictates)[/quote]

BR, we had maybe a 8' X 12 ' area, surrounded by 3 ' high plywood, tarped it, and brought it in as needed. It worked.

BUT it was very dusty !

I had an Alaska Stoker stove (burned pea coal or rice coal, I forget which) when I moved in here. It would burn more than a day on a load of coal. It used electricity to shuffle coal from the hopper onto the burn screen and also to blow air through the coal to make it burn properly. I switched to wood because I didn't enjoy the coal experience (there isn't much exercise, outdoors, self-sufficiency, etc. in coal burning like there is in wood burning), and because I didn't have a good way to get coal by the truckload (no place to store it and the stove was in the corner of the house least accessible to a coal delivery truck). Coal by the bag was not cheaper than electric heat, or at least not much. The stove heated like crazy, in fact it was much more heat than the basement needed, and heat doesn't move very well from the basement upstairs. I sold my used coal stoker stove for $1000.

Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:

BR, we had maybe a 8' X 12 ' area, surrounded by 3 ' high plywood, tarped it, and brought it in as needed. It worked.

BUT it was very dusty !

Click to expand...

Is the dust from the burning or the transporting and moving it around?

BrowningBAR said:

Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:

BR, it just needs a bin, some thing with a cover for the elements. The comments on a few 5 gallon buckets is on the money. We had a coal bin, that I filled every weekend, holidays, Sundays,etc. We had enough inside for1 week, at least.

Shoot, you might want to consider one of these. It's an awesome heat.

Dare I say better than wood. But at a very high cost.

Click to expand...

I'd still need a covered area for it, wouldn't I? I know coal doesn't "go bad" if it's wet, but isn't it a pain to use when it's wet?? How many tons would I go though If I converted one stove to coal? (used 24/7 when winter weather dictates)

Click to expand...

BR, we had maybe a 8' X 12 ' area, surrounded by 3 ' high plywood, tarped it, and brought it in as needed. It worked.

BUT it was very dusty ![/quote]


Is the dust from the burning or the transporting and moving it around?[/quote]

It's from the after burn, the shaking. But again, I think the new stoves are more air tight.

Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:

It's from the after burn, the shaking. But again, I think the new stoves are more air tight.

Click to expand...

Hmmm... It would be pretty sweet to replace the old Vigilant with a new coal burning version. Might have to price it out to see what it would cost to burn the coal equivalent of about 3 cords of wood.

26 million BTUs per ton vs 15.3 million BTUs per cord. That means I would need about 2 tons of coal for one stove.

BrowningBAR said:

Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:

BR, we had maybe a 8' X 12 ' area, surrounded by 3 ' high plywood, tarped it, and brought it in as needed. It worked.

BUT it was very dusty !

Click to expand...

Is the dust from the burning or the transporting and moving it around?

Click to expand...

Im very familiar with the dust issue. It can be minimized with some forethought. My coal moves directly from the bin to the hopper very slowly,no dust. WHen i change the ash pan i use a hose with a fine stream of water to moisten the ashes, then when i shovel them into a garbage bag they are damp,again do dust. I have this stove for 9 years and no dust of any kind either black coal dust nor white ash dust.
If you must carry it in a bucket you could moisten it first .

BrowningBAR said:

Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:

BrowningBAR said:

I'm in PA and I'm not using coal because I have no place to store it. I do not have a basement. If I had a basement I might have given it a try. Never really priced out the cost of coal.

Click to expand...

BR, it just needs a bin, some thing with a cover for the elements. The comments on a few 5 gallon buckets is on the money. We had a coal bin, that I filled every weekend, holidays, Sundays,etc. We had enough inside for1 week, at least.
Shoot, you might want to consider one of these. It's an awesome heat.
Dare I say better than wood. But at a very high cost.

Click to expand...

I'd still need a covered area for it, wouldn't I? I know coal doesn't "go bad" if it's wet, but isn't it a pain to use when it's wet?? How many tons would I go though If I converted one stove to coal? (used 24/7 when winter weather dictates)

Click to expand...

I use about 5 ton a year. It replaces about 4 tanks+(1000+ Gals) of oil. For a leaky 3000SF 100 Yr old partially insulated house. keep at 75 Deg all winter.

Dad srill burns his alaska stoker. Great heat, usually its burning on low and its great.

Wet coal is better for dust, not real sure how starting wet coal would be a problem, we store outside uncovered to keep it wet. Freezing blocks can be the only downside, but bucket inside remedies this.

Coal ash is casutic, liner should be 316 ss.

Browning if you dont mind running elec. For burning a stoker only gets feed once a day on high, 40lbs, and once every day and a half two days on low. Sure would help running the other stoves.
Wait dont you already store like 8 cords? Coal dont take up that much room..

I live in Blair Co., PA and burnt coal for about 10 years until this fall. After installing a wood stove 18 months ago, we sold our coal stove and bought a second wood stove. Our coal stove was in our basement and would provide enough heat for the basement and the upstairs bedrooms. We used about one 5 gallon bucket of hard nut coal every day. I built a coal bin out of 4x8 plywood which held almost 3 ton. I punched a hole through the wall of our basement entry way and had a local welder make a steel shoot to fill buckets. The entry way was outside of our living area but protected from the weather. I dumped the ash along the side of our road. We paid over $200 a ton for hard coal and used 3 to 4 ton per year. We filled the stove in the morning and it would burn all day. We would add coal after work and at bedtime. Coal provides nice heat but we got tired of the dust and dirt in the house. We like having a wood stove for the spring and fall when we want a small fire or low heat all day. A coal fire takes longer to get burning and burns best if you load it up. If the coal burns out or the fire dies down, it can take a while to get a hot fire built up. Take a look at the self feeding stokers. On the positive side, if you burn coal, you don't have to cut, split and stack more wood. I paid $550 for a tri axel of logs. The load will last for more than a year but I had to spend time, energy and money to cut, split and stack the wood. For now at least, I'd rather spend time cutting, splitting and stacking wood than dealing with the dirt from coal.