Coal stoves

[RoyJackson]

Anyone heat their house by coal?

I was in West Virginia a weekend back and noticed (in the houses for sale ads) a number of homes have coal stoves rather then wood stoves.

If you have a coal stove, how do you like it? Advantages (I know coal is relatively cheap)? Disadvantages?

 

[Dutch445]

I just moved out of my house of 8 years this past weekend that
was heated by coal.
The stove was in the basement, it was just a hand fired Harman
Mark III stove which required me to load and shake the grates
to clear out the ash twice a day. Once a day I had to remove the
ash try from the bottom of the stove to dump them. (i used
a 55 gal steel drum)

we heated the ranch house with this setup quite comfortably,
and economically. there is a very nice oil boiler in the house,
but that is used in the spring/fall when it's not cold enough
to keep the stove running efficiently. (usually burned coal from
thanksgiving thru easter). i use a nominal amount of fuel oil, and
maybe have had the tank filled 3 times in the 8 years I lived there.

one of the biggest advantages is the constant, even heat that
the coal produces. even my handfed stays at operating temp for
12-18 hrs or longer if needed without having to be there to tend
the fire.
the only disadvantage i could see was my time, total 20 mins a day,
and downstairs where the stove was you get some dust, which is
fly ash. there is really no coal dust to speak of with the coal I was
buying.

in a typical year I would burn 4-5 ton of coal, that ranges from $220 to
$250 per ton, cheap heat. with the mild winter this year i didn't burn 3 ton. (stove is
shut down because we moved out this past weekend)

There are a lot of people around here (upstate NY) that burn
coal, it is very popular and the stoves comes in many styles,
from furnaces, to automatic feed stokers like a pellet stove,
to the hand fired that I had. I am hoping to find a suitable
appliance for my new house, just don't have a masonry chimney
so it isn't just an easy install.

coal burners even have their own forum here in the Northeast,
Northeastern Pennsylvania Community Forums, Home of the Anthracite and Bituminous Coal Forums
that is full of experienced burners and useful information on all the
different manufacturer stoves and setups.

 

[Car Doc]

I wish we had the choice too but coal is not readily available in my area or I would w/o a doubt supplement my wood and propane heating, my shop heater burns wood and coal if I want it too.

We do have coal fired power plants in the state (that are a constant battle with the "greeny" bureaucrats) but not close enough to me to make buying any worthwhile if I had the mind to do so.

 

[Sterff]

We used to have a combination wood/coal stove. I would start the fire on wood and then add coal when it was hotter. Before I would go to bed Id load the stove up with coal and wood, and it would still be going in the morning. On my fireplace I could empty the ashes out the bottom so it was pretty common to have the fireplace going for a month without the fire going out. I would buy a ton of coal each year and use it with my usual wood.

I now have a plain wood stove and burn wood only. The coal was good for heat I just didn't like paying for it (my wood is free). With the coal stove I could keep the basement at 80* on a 20* day.

 

[JDgreen227]

Interesting that Roy would start this thread, makes me wish I had stopped this morning on my way home to take a picture of the billboard about 5 miles south of us. There is a local concrete casting company that sells coal in the winter months and their billboard (actually a portable lighted roadfront sign) said something about heating for less using coal. I remember helping my Grandmother shovel coal into her furnace back in the middle '60's but aside from that have never even thought about using coal for heating. Interesting thread, Roy !!

 

[wjmst]

My Dad has a coal stove, a Hitzer, but now that he is retired he uses the wood stove.

The things I remember about the coal stove are:

1. It was always HOT! It would be great when the temperature is below 20 out. But on those days when you just wanted to take the chill out of the house, well it would sweat you out!

2. It was always messy. He always burnt hard coal, nut size I believe. He had a coal bin in the basement and it broke apart the one time and coal dust was everywhere. Thick black dust. Always a film of the black dust on everything.

3. A few times a month he would get a clinker, a half burnt piece of coal, that gets stuck in the grate and would have to let the stove cool to usually get it out.

4. The ashes contain some harmful element that is not good for your garden. I forget what it is off the top of my head.

I have a pellet stove in my house, but would have gone with a coal stove if it wasn't so dusty and dirty. Coal doesn't go bad (and eventually will turn into diamonds!). It is readily available here in PA and there is still lots of it left and technology to mine even more of it.

I read about a guy who has an outdoor coal furnace that has a hopper that will hold a ton of coal. Not much maintenance expect empty the ashes.

 

[Car Doc]

I just remembered my dad telling me a story about when he was a kid them having to scrounge coal from along the rail road tracks to help heat and cook they were dirt poor.

I can just imagine the woosies these days crying out loud over that situation.

 

[jbooth]

I burned coal while working in a coal fired generating station in Wyoming. We bought the coal from the plant where I worked at $2.50 a ton. We whined a lot when they started charging $5.00 a ton. I also had wood heat but it was about 70 miles to the nearest pine tree. The pine burned about like gunpowder. Wyoming was the coldest climate I have lived in but with the coal at the rate I was paying in the late 70's it was the cheapest heating I have ever experienced.
My stove was an old down drafter "Warm Morning" that was given to me. The stove was set up in my uninsulated 2 car garage and the heat was blown into the house. The coal stove also kept the snow melted off the roof since my garage was uninsulated. Still have the stove and wish I still had access to coal. Neighbors would probably complain about the odor of the coal smoke.

 

[djohns3]

My uncle used coal and had a bunch of relatives over and my brother and I decided to stoke up the coal fired pot belly stove in a 100 year old farm house and we got that thing going red hot and then when my dad and everyone got done throwing red hot pieces of coal out into the yard to keep from burning the house down, my brother and I got some red hot rear ends!!!!

It is very good heat though

 

[Dutch445]

one can buy bulk coal, probably the cheapest, and keep it in a bin. i had
chosen to either bag my own at the distributor, or buy pre bagged.
with the pre-bagged i bought the past 2 years, there was little to
no dust, as the coal was probably bagged a little wet to keep
the dust down. now the fly ash, (which is a white dust) does get
around the basement, and because i move the air upstairs we get
a little more dust there than in summer, but it isn't anything
i would call "dirty". i know people with wood stoves complain
about the mess the wood pile makes also.

i really like the thought of an add on furnace in my new home,
which has a forced air propane furnace. (thank god it's been
mild this winter). but then again, a stove down in my basement
would tend to warm up the basement also which we plan on using
for living space as it is all petitioned off into rooms.

 

[JDgreen227]

I am thinking that some of the advantages of coal over wood is that you would pretty much get a uniform BTU from coal, and no worries about rot nor insect infestation. May be a stupid question, but does anybody know if coal does absorb moisture, and can you burn wet coal without a problem?

 

[RoyJackson]

I am thinking that some of the advantages of coal over wood is that you would pretty much get a uniform BTU from coal, and no worries about rot nor insect infestation. May be a stupid question, but does anybody know if coal does absorb moisture, and can you burn wet coal without a problem?

One thing I think I'd like about it is no creosote build up in the chimney...no chance of a chimney fire.

 

[Sterff]

One thing I think I'd like about it is no creosote build up in the chimney...no chance of a chimney fire.

That's not always true. Our neighbor had a chimney fire and he burns coal. Clean your chimney once a year and it shouldn't be an issue.

 

[wamsutta]

We got a harmon stoker coal stove this fall. It works great. At medium setting I put two bags of rice coal in the hopper once a day. And empty the ashes at the same time. Ten minutes all together. It is adjustible and even ahs a thermostat. Will put out up to 85000btu. It heats my 1500 sf basement with field stone foundation to 70 we will burn 5 ton this season

 

[bearcreek paul]

Wet coal burns fine and it keeps the dust down.I usually pick it up right from the breaker and shovel the coal into my bin wet.
When I was young coal was all we had.In the kitchen we had a combination gas and coal stove.The cellar had the old octopus furnace filled it at night and dampened it down good until the next day.
My wife and I switched back to coal 12 years ago with a Harmon mark 3.The hand fired was nice but was constant work,shake down and load in the morning and evening.
We switched to a Keystoker about 5 or 6 years ago now just fill it up and empty the ash pan once a day when its cold.When it warms up to the high forties every 2 or 3 days and we are heating a 3400 sq ft home with just coal.
12 years ago coal was 80$ a ton last week it ranged from 170 to 190 a ton locally.This year I might only do 5 or 6 tons and I burn from sept to june so even with the price increase it's still a lot cheaper than oil or propane.
If you don't mind a little work and have a place to put the ashes I'd say go for it.
Oh and my wife likes the house warm with oil that wasn't going to happen with coal constant 72 and shorts.
Here is a picture of the stoker burning I ducted to the 1st and 2nd floor.

 

[Dutch445]

i think that's one advantage of the stoker stoves, you can dial
them down to an idle easier than that mark III. it wants to burn
hot, and with warm days the draft lessens and it's harder to keep
that firebox happy

 

[JDgreen227]

For those who burn bulk coal, how does it get to your house? I remember that my grandma had a bulkhead in a room of her basement and a truck would dump a load using a chute through a window into the room.

 

[RoyJackson]

For those who burn bulk coal, how does it get to your house? I remember that my grandma had a bulkhead in a room of her basement and a truck would dump a load using a chute through a window into the room.

That's what I remember too...

From what I've read, one can buy coal by the bag (50lbs, I believe) or in bulk.

 

[JDgreen227]

That's what I remember too...

From what I've read, one can buy coal by the bag (50lbs, I believe) or in bulk.

I am thinking the bagged coal would cost a lot more per pound than the bulk stuff. If you go to the home center store and buy a 3 cubic foot bag of hardwood mulch, it's a couple of bucks per bag. Yet if you go to a landscape supply place and have a bulk yard of mulch dumped into your truck or trailer the cost per cubic foot is a lot less. I may be wrong about the coal though.

 

[RoyJackson]

I am thinking the bagged coal would cost a lot more per pound than the bulk stuff. If you go to the home center store and buy a 3 cubic foot bag of hardwood mulch, it's a couple of bucks per bag. Yet if you go to a landscape supply place and have a bulk yard of mulch dumped into your truck or trailer the cost per cubic foot is a lot less. I may be wrong about the coal though.

No doubt...
It would depend if you used coal as a primary form of heating or just supplementing another form of heat.
When I was looking at house in WV, the coal stoves I saw were similar to wood stove...not big furnaces (like our grandparents had).
Supposedly (!!!!!), the bagged coal was cleaner to handle (probably washed) and less dust then the bulk stuff.

A couple of the houses used pellet stoves, BTW. We passed a company that produces those.