Coal vs. Pellet

[Rob78]

I currently have an alaska coal stove which heats my house really well. I only have the stove on medium and it heats both first and second floor. My wife does not like the ashes. How do pellets heat compared to coal? Any info about pellets would help. I never saw a pellet stove run. Thanks

 

[Peterfield]

I used both coal and wood before switching to pellets. Hands down, using a pellet stove is far less ashy and easier to operate than coal or wood stoves. Less dust, less bugs (wood) and none of that fine ash (coal) that no matter how careful you are gets on everything. I hesitated for a couple of years before making the switch to pellets and wish I had done it sooner.

 

[Rob78]

Thanks! How is the heat output compared to coal. From what I have been reading it's not close but I would like what you have to say.

 

[bogieb]

If you lose power, the pellet stove won't run (unless you have a generator, and then you have to be sure to have the correct type of genny, or a power inverter, for some pellet stoves).

You will still get dust (fines) from emptying bags of pellets into the hopper. The better the pellets ($$$), the less "fines" you will probably have. However, I don't think fines are as bad as coal dust either.

I have never used coal, but I believe that it burns longer than pellets (ie, 40# bag of coal lasts longer than 40# bag of pellets). That may not seem like a big deal, but do you have room to store proportionally more pellets? (hopefully someone can chime in with the approximate proportions)

The coal stove radiates heat. The pellet stove has to push heat out via fans. I know when I had a wood stove, it heated with a "deeper" heat than my pellet stoves do.

Pellet stoves have moving parts as well as electricals - that means things can break.

Sounds like I don't like pellet stoves, but I love mine. They are better than the woodstove in my previous house - except for that thing about needing electricity - but I rarely lose power here, and when I do, it isn't for long (unlike my last house).

 

[Rob78]

Wow, alot of information. I highly appreciate that. As far as the electricity goes my coal stove is a self feeder with combustion fans, blowers and runs off a thermostat. So I do use up some power and my stove won't run without power. Just weighing my option to see what's the better way to go

 

[DneprDave]

I used to have a stove that had a convertible grate it burned coal and wood, I burned mostly coal, It had a pretty good ash pan, coal didn't seem messier than wood ash. What stopped my coal burning was the availability of coal, the county I lived in prohibited coal sales.

You would have to burn a lot of pellets to make up for the heat energy in coal.

 

[scotthershall]

While I have no experience with burning coal (other than my parents having a coal stove in their first home and using it during the oil shocks of the early 80s), I did research the possibility when considering an alternative heat source for my home. A few things stuck out... coal has by far more BTUs by volume than pellets. And coal can pretty much be stored anywhere, even out in the open, while pellets need to be kept dry. So, as others have mentioned above, you'll need to consider the area you'd need to store more pellets and possibly in a different location than you're using for your coal supply. And coal seemed to be pretty cheap in your area. It's harder to get in other areas. If I lived in NEPA, I may have ended up on the coal side of the decision making process.

You probably already tried this but... would a HEPA air filter or two cut down on the dust/ash? Another idea... if the coal dust/ash ends up settling on floors then getting stirred up as you walk through, perhaps a robot vacuum like a Roomba would help. I used to have this problem with pet fur and general household dust. Having the Roomba run daily made a huge difference. Might not work as well with coal dust/ash though...

 

[alternativeheat]

Sounds like you have a coal stoker stove. Very similar experience to pellets ( put fuel in a hopper, it self feeds, the ash goes in a pan, heat radiates and gets pushed out of vents). I burned coal for more than 35 years but with a hand fired unit where you shake the ash down. I dumped ash twice a day from the coal stove. I dump ash once a month from the Harman P61a pellet stove. You will need a stove in the P61 or even P68 class to try and compare heat output. Coal is hotter, many stoker coal stoves producing 85,000 btu or more when cranked and a P61 61,000, P68 68,000. That correlates, if you are running the coal at half way, to the pellets will be about 2/3 of the way if to think logically. But it doesn't really work like that with a Harman, because you set it and forget it and it throttles itself up and down as required by the room temp setting.. There will times that the fire is so low it looks to be going out and other times it's up to the heat exchanger as needed. This to satisfy both stack temps, internal stoves temp and how that relates to room temp.

Hand fired coal stoves have a heating curve that you probably don't experience with the stoker and you won't with a room temp probe on a pellet stove either. You will use more fuel and the fuel is a bit more expensive though. I can't compare the dust, because I shook my coal stove down with doors shut and burning, so the ash went up the flue. Pellet dust is more about the dumping of the pellets in the hopper than about ash dust, I learned to not open the bag so wide with pellets and pour less robustly. I also use an evaporative humidifier with filters in it that pulls a lot of dust from our air. But when I wasn't careful about how I poured pellets into the hopper we were getting more dust on things than with coal . Not now, we are back to even.

On another note, coal is under environmentalist attack, pellets are their friendly fuel. So where is that future headed ? Around here coal is scarce, especially the pea and granulated coals a stoker uses, so we bought a Harman P61A pellet stove to replace our trusty old hand fired coal stove. It heats our house awesome. If we had access to good stable coal supplies we might have bought coal a stoker though.

 

[Pete Zahria]

I have had:
Wood stove
Coal stove
Pellet stove.

Reader's Digest version...
Pellet stove will not give you the intense heat that a wood or coal stove will.
As mentioned by a few above.
Wood is a lot of work...
Coal is a lot less work, but dirtier in the house, and has a learning curve.
(hand fired, not the stokers so much)
Pellets are cleaner, and easier than either.
The dust is just that... dust... not the obnoxious black coal dust.

Now if you crank a P68 up, you will not want to stand in front of it.
But you will be chewing up some fuel....

Recap:
I wish I had known about coal, before spending so many years with wood.
But..
I'm glad I switched to pellets,
because it is so much easier and cleaner...Than either...
As mentioned above... you can go a month before emptying an ash pan on some stoves.
Not every day, rain/sleet/snow with a HF coal stove.

Dan

 

[Peterfield]

Thanks! How is the heat output compared to coal. From what I have been reading it's not close but I would like what you have to say.

BTU-wise, coal is king. Having said that, thenpellet stove primarily provides convective heat versus radiant heat. The convection process helps spread the heat more evenly and generally, you won't get blown out of the room that the stove is one yet the heat will penetrate further into the other rooms, YMMV. Heck, you can put your hand on most parts of a pellet stove without getting burned.

 

[bogieb]

Heck, you can put your hand on most parts of a pellet stove without getting burned.

Well, I think that depends on the stove. Both my stoves get too hot to touch for more than a second except the pedestal and hopper. The top isn't hot enough to boil water, but very hot to the touch - and I don't even run my stoves very hard most of the time. None of my cats have ever thought about getting on top of one of my stoves when they are running (I know other's have shown cats on top of their stoves).

 

[alternativeheat]

FWIW, you're not putting your hands on any part of a P61 or other all steel P series stove, but the hopper or door handles, and you won't find any cats on top of it either, except maybe in the summer. A coal stoker with blower and a P series Harman compared with that coal stoker should be somewhat similar in how they heat the house, with more head room going to coal ( faster recovery should you walk into a cold house), maybe a little more radiant heat too. On average, it was figured out here by some smarter guys than myself, that most folks running pellets stoves aren't using more than about 30,000btu to heat their houses. A P61 is capable of 61,000btu for instance, but it will rarely if if ever run at full bore 24/7 ( if it did you wouldn't be wanting to pay for the pellets it consumed anyway). Mine is idling right now and it's 72 deg in the house. Over a winter I average 2 bags per day of pellets, yet a P61 is capable of chewing down around 5-6, that's a lot of heat capability in reserve then. I almost touched on 4 bags one time a couple of years ago ( one 24 hour period). This time of year I use about 2/3-1 bag per day. We basically keep the house at 72-73 deg. and it's not the tightest house in the world by far.

I used to burn 40-50lb of coal per day, maybe 60 on some cold days. But burned some oil too over a winter because the coal stove had no blower. With the pellet stove oil is still an option but I don't have to use it.

It is true of many cast iron pellet stoves or the new futuristic cabinet style pellet stoves, that they are touchable in many cases. That is not the case with an all steel Harman P stove and probably some other all steel stoves as well.. I imagine, for instance, that you wouldn't want to be laying hands on a St Croix Prescott while it's under way.

 

[alternativeheat]

To the OP: You should know that while we are saying that there is less ash with pellets than coal, there is still ash. Where you shake down a coal stove and have to deal with that ash pan regularly ( usually daily), with pellets you need to deal pretty regularly with brushing down ash from inside the stove and into the ash pan. It's just a fine ash and it takes a lot of it to fill an ash pan. There is generally a weekly cleaning ritual going on. Some stoves are more complicated as to how you accomplish this than others. A P series Harman is certainly on the easy side. But if for instance , your "NY wife" is thinking of a stove that is clean inside or doesn't require ash dumping , then you better buy a gas fired stove ( they do make them).

 

[DneprDave]

Oooo, Can you get gas pellets!?

 

[Peterfield]

FWIW, you're not putting your hands on any part of a P61 or other all steel P series stove, but the hopper or door handles, and you won't find any cats on top of it either, except maybe in the summer. A coal stoker with blower and a P series Harman compared with that coal stoker should be somewhat similar in how they heat the house, with more head room going to coal ( faster recovery should you walk into a cold house), maybe a little more radiant heat too. On average, it was figured out here by some smarter guys than myself, that most folks running pellets stoves aren't using more than about 30,000btu to heat their houses. A P61 is capable of 61,000btu for instance, but it will rarely if if ever run at full bore 24/7 ( if it did you wouldn't be wanting to pay for the pellets it consumed anyway). Mine is idling right now and it's 72 deg in the house. Over a winter I average 2 bags per day of pellets, yet a P61 is capable of chewing down around 5-6, that's a lot of heat capability in reserve then. I almost touched on 4 bags one time a couple of years ago ( one 24 hour period). This time of year I use about 2/3-1 bag per day. We basically keep the house at 72-73 deg. and it's not the tightest house in the world by far.

I used to burn 40-50lb of coal per day, maybe 60 on some cold days. But burned some oil too over a winter because the coal stove had no blower. With the pellet stove oil is still an option but I don't have to use it.

It is true of many cast iron pellet stoves or the new futuristic cabinet style pellet stoves, that they are touchable in many cases. That is not the case with an all steel Harman P stove and probably some other all steel stoves as well.. I imagine, for instance, that you wouldn't want to be laying hands on a St Croix Prescott while it's under way.

I had meant the convective stoves. P-Series and some others definitely radiate and their surfaces are too hot to the touch.

 

[alternativeheat]

Oooo, Can you get gas pellets!?

I'll let you do the search, you will find them under the label Beano.

 

[bogieb]

I'll let you do the search, you will find them under the label Beano.

 

[Pete Zahria]

A coal stoker with blower and a P series Harman compared with that coal stoker should be somewhat similar in how they heat the house,

yup...
Absolutely.
But if you need more heat, or less, quickly the pellet stove will win out.
A lot more user friendly... just turn a dial.
Coal is pretty slow to react to air changes.
(unless you open the ash door... then you can melt kryptonite)


Dan

 

[bogieb]

yup...
(unless you open the ash door... then you can melt kryptonite)

Dan

So that is the trick - I have some kryptonite I was looking to melt

 

[alternativeheat]

So that is the trick - I have some kryptonite I was looking to melt

I left the ash pan door open on my coal stove one time . I went to the basement and got involved in some wood working project. The stove had been slow picking up after a refill, well an hour later I came up to the smell of really hot metal and instantly thought oh crap. I went into the living room and there was the stove ash door wide open, the front top of the stove glowing red, the stack glowing red. I managed to lean in from the side and get the door shut but couldn't latch it from the expansion, I propped the stainless poker I had at the time against it to hold it mostly shut and then flipped the damper closed. The stove throttled back to a normal burn in a half hour or so and the door latched fine. Oh ya, coal is some hot stuff if let loose, there is nothing like it and no smoke etc. It ( anthracite) burns very clean. I believe that a dull red glowing steel represents something like 650-700 degrees.

 

[bogieb]

I left the ash pan door open on my coal stove one time . I went to the basement and got involved in some wood working project. The stove had been slow picking up after a refill, well an hour later I came up to the smell of really hot metal and instantly thought oh crap. I went into the living room and there was the stove ash door wide open, the front top of the stove glowing red, the stack glowing red. I managed to lean in from the side and get the door shut but couldn't latch it from the expansion, I propped the stainless poker I had at the time against it to hold it mostly shut and then flipped the damper closed. The stove throttled back to a normal burn in a half hour or so and the door latched fine. Oh ya, coal is some hot stuff if let loose, there is nothing like it and no smoke etc. It ( anthracite) burns very clean. I believe that a dull red glowing steel represents something like 650-700 degrees.

Wood stoves will do the same thing. Well, I never forgot for long enough to find out if the metal would glow (it did stink!), or to crack the soapstone, or to expand the metal enough that I couldn't latch the ash door - but it was roaring pretty good. I shut that puppy right down because it was roaring so badly I had to figure out if I had a chimney fire. I didn't - but did scare the bejeebers out of myself!

 

[Rob78]

A lot of replies stating the harman p series will heat on part with my coal. I am assuming that is using quite a bit more fuel as compared to coal? Thanks for the replies

 

[alternativeheat]

A lot of replies stating the Harman p series will heat on part with my coal. I am assuming that is using quite a bit more fuel as compared to coal? Thanks for the replies

I think in my reply I stated that it would be a similar experience based on the fact that you have the convection blower ( P stoves have a convection blower) and it ( your coal stove) radiates heat as well, as does the P series stoves. So the stoves are similar in that respect. The coal is hotter, more BTU per lb, so yes you would use a bit less coal under similar conditions. Coal is an awesome heat if you have it locally etc. Here we do not have the coal locally that a stoker would feed on.

Another difference is you can water mist coal to keep dust down and it burns just fine. In fact you can store it out doors and shovel a bucket full out of the snow banking and it will burn just fine. You don't want pellets anywhere near water, they puff all up and then break back down into the saw dust they are made from rendering it useless ( although my P61 has burned it's share of those pellets too, mixed in with good ones, many stoves would just choke out on them)..

 

[alternativeheat]

Rob78, which Alaskan stove do you own anyway ? We can compare specs, I noticed that one of their stoves is only 40,000 btu for instance. We want to compare apples to apples here. A Harman P43 is 43000 btu . So in this case, a P61 would have more capacity, more output potential.

 

[Pete Zahria]

Wood stoves will do the same thing

Yes they will get VERY hot... but a coal fire with under air is a forge...
a lot hotter...
Like alternative... I've had mine hot enough so that the magnet thermo on the side fell off...
And the smell of hot metal is usually what "wakes" you up to the fact
that you really messed up!!