smokey coal in multi stove.

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leoibb

Member
Hearth Supporter
Dec 29, 2010
84
uk
just a question regarding coal. if most the gasses off wood are burned in a modern stove so no smoke, then could the same not happen with smokey coal? all the smoke gets burned in the process?
 
Wonder if a cat would get extra hot from coal gas?
Prolly not good..but I admit I thought about trying a little...but I'm sure my stove does not allow for it.
 
Stuff probably won't burn at all. Non-cat or cats stoves don't have the provision for air under the coal to burn it in the first place.
 
would the smoke just not ignite as secondaries? the there would be plenty heat to make it happen
 
Adding air at high temperatures to the volatile gasses (smoke) coming off coal will definitely burn/ignite/explode depending on the state of the air flow before you introduced the air in the first place. Bituminous or sub-bituminous coal will burn in a modern stove, but not burn very well. It will also be hard to achieve a consistent temperature, create a ton of ash that the stove isn't necessarily built to handle (meaning you will be shoveling a lot of hot ash when it's not convenient), and not to mention forbidden by all wood only stoves in production now.

However, I have burnt sub-bituminous coal in a wood stove before (not my blaze king) and it did OK. the biggest problem was since there was no way to get rid of the ash out of the fire bed (shaker grate in a normal coal stove takes care of this), I would have to do a very tedious and dirty ash removal process every 30 hours or so. Also, unless the stove is top-loading, a wood stove will not hold enough coal to even get you warm. Coal stoves are designed to be deep rather than North/South-East/West long, so they hold a lot of coal below the loading door.

I see you're in UK - so you've got access to a lot of different multi-fuel stoves (jealous). My suggestion would be to find one that is deep but also long so you could fit a decent size log as well as a good bed of coal.
 
yes i am up leeds way the stove in question is or does have a coal grate so i was asking about coals due to the smokey house coal is far cheaper to buy and assuming it burned the smoke in the secondaries then there would be no smoke or am i hopin too much lol?
 
Well the stuff I burn is not "low-smoke" anthracite. Bituminous, sub-bituminous, lignite, etc are definitely considered the more "smokey" fuels of the coal family. I'm assuming what you're referring to is one of these "lesser" grades of coal. When I first load my coal in the stove, and then for about an hour afterword, there definitely is visible smoke out of the stack. However, my stove does not have secondaries, only a baffle at the top. After about an hour of burning, all you can see is the heat signature out the stack. If you weren't looking carefully, you couldn't even tell it was burning - also no undesirable "sulfur" smell after that first hour of burn-off. Hope that helps a bit. I'd just get a little of the "smokey house coal" and give it a try. Why not?
 
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