I danced with the devil today..

[Lloyd the redneck]

Well now it's starting to be in the 20's. I don't have jack for wood yet. I was thinking about buying a corn stove but just haven't been that motivated to do so. Anyways. My neighbors have big coal boilers (ones a 700k the other 200k) and I work on there semis and they said come get some and try it. So I did today. First day off in about 9 weeks thank the lord. Anyways. It's stoker coal and from what I read I need lump. Well I tried it. I have a daka wood/coal stove in the shop, it's a old bird hand me down from the neighbor. Seems to burn ok in there. Still dosent throw as much heat as I think it should but I also haven't dumped a whole lot in at once. The insert in the house I found a coal basket for and loaded her up and had not great results. I wound up with half a 5 gal bucket in it and it made heat but just not a ton. I still have a good pile left I'm going to continue to experiment with in the shop but I think the house is a no go. So I guess I can't put it off anymore. Time to sharpen the chains and build a new splitter. Also the wife wants nothing to do with coal. At all. Atleast in the house. Well that's my experience. If anyone has any tips or feels like issuing a good scolding let er rip

 

[webby3650]

Was it anthracite or bituminous coal?

 

[bholler]

Well now it's starting to be in the 20's. I don't have jack for wood yet. I was thinking about buying a corn stove but just haven't been that motivated to do so. Anyways. My neighbors have big coal boilers (ones a 700k the other 200k) and I work on there semis and they said come get some and try it. So I did today. First day off in about 9 weeks thank the lord. Anyways. It's stoker coal and from what I read I need lump. Well I tried it. I have a daka wood/coal stove in the shop, it's a old bird hand me down from the neighbor. Seems to burn ok in there. Still dosent throw as much heat as I think it should but I also haven't dumped a whole lot in at once. The insert in the house I found a coal basket for and loaded her up and had not great results. I wound up with half a 5 gal bucket in it and it made heat but just not a ton. I still have a good pile left I'm going to continue to experiment with in the shop but I think the house is a no go. So I guess I can't put it off anymore. Time to sharpen the chains and build a new splitter. Also the wife wants nothing to do with coal. At all. Atleast in the house. Well that's my experience. If anyone has any tips or feels like issuing a good scolding let er rip

Do you have a barometric damper? Did you measure the draft? Some of the daka stoves were pretty good coal stoves. Much better than they are at burning wood. But you need to know how to do it properly. You also need the right size coal. Doing it wrong could be deadly.

 

[Lloyd the redneck]

Lignite coal! And no I didn't measure draft. I had a good hot wood fire and put coal on top of the coal bed in the daka and put coal in the basket on top of the coal bed in the insert. Figuring on a good warmed up chimney and hot stove it should draw. I read bad things about cold chimneys and coal.

 

[bholler]

Lignite coal! And no I didn't measure draft. I had a good hot wood fire and put coal on top of the coal bed in the daka and put coal in the basket on top of the coal bed in the insert. Figuring on a good warmed up chimney and hot stove it should draw. I read bad things about cold chimneys and coal.

Ok but you need the right draft. Too much and you can melt down the stove too little and you can die from co poisoning. You are messing around with something that you have no clue about and it can end very badly. Do you have a barometric damper? Do you have a draft gauge?

 

[Lloyd the redneck]

I have lots of clues about it. I sell and service waste oil heaters , I have a draft gauge and I never use it. I can tune a oil burner by sound alone. If you have a hot chimney it draws. So long as you don't have a cold air inversion.

 

[bholler]

I have lots of clues about it. I sell and service waste oil heaters , I have a draft gauge and I never use it. I can tune a oil burner by sound alone. If you have a hot chimney it draws. So long as you don't have a cold air inversion.

Ok you obviously know more about burning coal than me because you work on waste oil burners. Apparently that tells you more about coal than setting up and servicing as many coal burners as I do. Maybe you should teach us all about it.

 

[Sodbuster]

Well now it's starting to be in the 20's. I don't have jack for wood yet. I was thinking about buying a corn stove but just haven't been that motivated to do so. Anyways. My neighbors have big coal boilers (ones a 700k the other 200k) and I work on there semis and they said come get some and try it. So I did today. First day off in about 9 weeks thank the lord. Anyways. It's stoker coal and from what I read I need lump. Well I tried it. I have a daka wood/coal stove in the shop, it's a old bird hand me down from the neighbor. Seems to burn ok in there. Still dosent throw as much heat as I think it should but I also haven't dumped a whole lot in at once. The insert in the house I found a coal basket for and loaded her up and had not great results. I wound up with half a 5 gal bucket in it and it made heat but just not a ton. I still have a good pile left I'm going to continue to experiment with in the shop but I think the house is a no go. So I guess I can't put it off anymore. Time to sharpen the chains and build a new splitter. Also the wife wants nothing to do with coal. At all. Atleast in the house. Well that's my experience. If anyone has any tips or feels like issuing a good scolding let er rip

I'll bite, and it might end up being a scold, but what is the primary heat source in your house right now? What was the original source of HVAC?

 

[kennyp2339]

I personally don't think trying to burn coal in a wood stove is a great idea, the whole setup with how air enters a stove with wood (front air wash on the glass ect) is totally different then a true coal stoker. Also the metal is heavier duty so if you get the right conditions you can and will damage the wood stove leaving you with nothing when you get a good wood supply going. Also the chimney setup needs to be stainless heavy wall or an all fuel class a chimney because coal gasses are caustic.
I would go through the motions of cutting up pallets and buying compressed wood blocks before messing with coal. Just my 2 cents, if you do decide to keep testing, please make sure you have a couple co detectors that are in good working condition.

 

[Lloyd the redneck]

I'll bite, and it might end up being a scold, but what is the primary heat source in your house right now? What was the original source of HVAC?

Fuel oil boiler. Works great. Just $$$

 

[Sodbuster]

Fuel oil boiler. Works great. Just $$$[/QUOTE

OK, it sounds to me like you work a crap ton of hours, got behind, and have no wood for this winter. Fortunately for you fuel oil, while not being cheap, is off it's highs. If your wife doesn't want coal in the house and has made that abundantly clear, you'd be a wise man not to force her to use it. As I see it, you can find Ash to cut and try to get a few weeks cut at a time, or just bite the bullet and pay the oil man this winter, using this winter to cut next years supply. Or you could buy seasoned wood (good luck) for this winter, but i think your savings over Fuel Oil would be negligible. Just my $.02

 

[Lloyd the redneck]

Yeah, my neighbor/buddy is the fuel/propane man he said its 2.49 delivered. Last time I bought oil was .93 delivered. Once freeze up comes I'll have more time. However then I have to get busy and do my service calls but they can get done whenever. I've also been trolling the pellet side learning about corn. I have around 30k bu in my yard thats pretty cheep. But I need to buy a stove