aroth said: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.
The fact that you had a Vig II coal stove (I'm assuming it was a recent model) helps me. I will probably look further into coal for one of the three stoves, but some of the issues you addressed answered a lot of my questions. Thanks for posting.