suggestions please. suggestions please.Hint #1: Also buy a chimney
Can you still burn coal? I thought they still had restrictions on burning wood?
As long as combustion air is piped in from the outside, it should work well.
Messy
We heated a 1900 sq ft farmhouse this winter on coal. It cost us about 180 to 200 a month. Only problem was getting the heat to the back bedrooms. We have Harmon coal insert in the fireplace. We figure it saved us 200 a month at the very least over burning the fuel oil.
Think Thermal Mass.
http://www.leisurelinestoves.com/
http://www.oldhouseweb.com/Product_Stories/Chimneys_and_Stoves/_Coal__Stoves_.shtml
Take yer walks on the tracks and bring home the coal......:o)
you may want to consider if you will need electric to operate the thing.With my wood stove I dont sweat power outages in winter.I just figured if I need electric its not really a back up system.
i am venting out through the wall and up cause i don't wanna put a hole in the roof... i plan on getting inlet air from same. i upped the attic to 70R last november and it made a hell of a difference as i only burned one tank of fuel(275gal) and it was below zero couple days.
from what i've seen coal is a LOT less mess and hassle than wood and corn burners smell...
who makes a the best stoves and what dimension/size is best?
is it better to have a littler larger than i need and keep it half full??? thx...
Had to get up and shovel coal when I was little,watch for those clinkers;)
Buy a pellet stove, heat the house for $220.00 a year.
Pour in a 40 Lb. bag, set the thermostat and walk away.
Don’t forget to buy your carbon credits for all the pollution you are about to spew into the atmosphere.
Glad to help. Anthracite coal burns better than the softer coal with less smoke.
Be prepaired for all that black ash and soot that runs down your roof and onto your facia board. The stack will turn black as well as anything around.
Blacksmith coal which is larger in chunks has lots of clinkers in it. Then, when you fire, it sometimes backfires which results in some of that nice black smoke venting into your house.
It is cheap, burns hot and long, and is extremely dirty. Coal needs lots of air to burn.
First, talk to your coal broker. Coal should be priced by the BTUs, so ask about the BTUs per pound, combustion temperature, ash content, ash fusion temperature, washed or not, and moisture content. An ash fusion temperature above the combustion temperature leaves ash, while the other case leaves clinkers. A coal fired utility might like a high ash fusion temperature - so they can blow the ash out of the boiler - but you might prefer to deal with clinkers and minimize the fly ash. Also, there are multiple sizes to deal with: mine run, steam, stoker, nut, or lump, to name a few. Steam or mine run would likely freeze in the winter from the moisture content. For handling with a Mexican Backhoe, stoker or nut would be your choice. Stoker, sized from about 3/8" to 5/8", is designed to feed via an auger (run by an electric motor) from a bunker into the stove. For your needs, that is probably overkill, but you may find a Stoker-matic free for the taking somewhere. Lump, say from baseball to basketball size, lends itself to hand picking, but is easy to load in some stoves. From the same seam, a ton of mine run would have more ash and moisture, and consequently less BTUs, than a ton of washed nut coal.
Locally, a couple thousand miles from upstate NY, I can find coal varying from about 10.5k BTU to over 12k BTU per pound. The temperatures the higher BTU coal reach make anything but cast iron go limp. Unless you can ensure your supply will remain consistent "forever" you should only consider cast iron for the stove and the grate. If you plan to use the stove with wood for extended periods talk to somebody about how to address the stove pipe installation. Most coal fires are started on top of a wood fire and the higher temperature of the coal takes care of the creosote precipitating out of the cooler wood smoke. How you tinker with your damper also can impact creosote formation. If you burn wood regularly for a few months and then switch to coal the resulting high temperatures of the exhaust could ignite the built-up creosote. This would not be good.
Suggestions? Move to Tampa.
Thanks you. I do the same and even as I’m typing there is a load of good Pennsylvania anthracite burning in my Massachusetts home. It’s also good to know that when the power goes out in the area I won’t be without long burning heat.
thx again all...