Bituminous Burn Times?

For any hand-fired bit burners here, a question: How long of a burn time do you get after a typical load of bituminous? I asked the question here: Superior Quality

Thanks

when i was firing my hand-fired stove i'd generally load it two to three times/day... depending on heating load, i'd dump in anywhere from 1gallon/load to 3 gallons/load of bit coal. unless you have close neighbors, with a proper setup firing bit coal is not bad at all, it has less ash, higher btu, and lower cost than anthracite. most issues with bit coal come from trying to make a poor setup work, then getting frustrated with it - what do you expect w/ a piss poor setup? if you have a decent setup it will be perfectly enjoyable. having said all that there is one other thing; firing bit coal in any hand fired appliance will produce little "soot balls" that will occasionally float to the ground behind your home where the prevailing winds blow,they don't harm anything, and all it takes is the spring rain or a hose to wash off whatever they left a black mark on, but it might bother someone nonetheless. I would not reccomend hand-firing bitty coal with close neighbors unless you know them well and are ok with a little smell/soot; regardless of it being a nice or shitty neighborhood, if your neighbors are bitchy (don't burn solid fuels themselves) it's best not to use bit coal unless you have a stoker, then noone will know you are heating with coal.

Good info Berlin--thanks.

So, burn times are similar, or perhaps a little less (load "two or three times a day"), than anthracite. Those soot balls you describe--except for the color, not unlike the fly ash that was on my deck all winter when I looked closely.

having played with both; burn times are more or less the same with one exception. If you think you can get anthracite to smoulder for long amounts of time... wait till you try bit coal. i've had a stovefull of coal last over 9 days with the air shut off.

WOW!

If I don't shake ashes out and shut off all the air the stove stays hot for days, the ashes seem to slow the rate of combustion and insulate the burning coal keeping it hot so it doesn't go out til the coal is completely burned...and my stoves aren't airtight!

Bump

I recently got my hands on a few hundred lbs. of some Kentucky lump coal. I loaded it in the stove on top of anthracite. It took a day and a half to burn all the anthracite out so that I could get a proper study. With nothing but Kentucky lump in my Mark III needing a new gasket, all I can say is WOW! I added about 1 basketball sized lump on one side of the stove at a time alternating sides, I got medium amounts of smoke. (much more smoke from Pa. bit.) Allowing an hour before closing the manual damper halfway to burn off the volitiles, I got steady 12 hr. burns out of it. After two days of nothing but Ky. lump I finally had to dump the ashes. This is unheard of with Jeddo, Hudson, Summit, or even Superior. I kept the stack temp @ around 200 Degrees. The glass only partially sooted up I was still able to view the fire after three days of burning. As a result of the test, my conclusion is, if I can get my hands on a few tons, I will stop burning anthracite. Or at least until my neighbors complain.

That eastern KY coal is some very good stuff. I've had numerous people switch to KY lump after trying it - even people who've been burning anthracite for years and even at the same price.

It is easier to burn than anthracite. Although wear gloves when handling, it's dirty. Ky. lump burns more like wood than coal. very little air from underneath, lots from the slit in the glass. My only issue is that I have a 6" chimney and may have soot issues.

Duengeon master wrote:if I can get my hands on a few tons, I will stop burning anthracite.

Cool.

I'm currently burning bituminous coal in my Clayton. I also can get very long burn times. It is not unusual for me to get 12 to 36 hour burns very easily. It is easy to burn, much like wood with long smolder time. With the proper draft settings, I get very little, if any, smoke coming out of the chimney. The things that I don't like about it is that it is very dirty, makes a lot of soot in the chimney, and each batch that I get has varied in quality.

I personally like to burn anthracite over bituminous coal. After this last batch of bituminous coal, I think that it may be my last time buying bituminous coal. The cost savings to me is not worth the added cleaning. Anthracite is so much nicer and so much cleaner to use for home heating.

Now after the wonderful experience of burning anthracite coal in a totally awesome, constant burning, highly efficient, easy to operate, appliance, the Coal Chubby, I doubt that I will go back to bituminous coal. I'm spoiled now and wish they made a furnace.

I now am a believer that the correct coal burning appliance for the type of coal that you plan to burn will make burning which ever coal you choose to burn either a pleasure or a pain, determine how much fuel you burn, and how much heat you receive from the fuel it was designed to burn.

So my conclusion is, spend the money for the appliance that you need to burn the fuel that you plan to burn. This will be a much more efficient and a pleasure to operate.

My burn time with Hitzer 354 is roughly as follows:
Cold: -10F windy, 10-12 hours
Moderate: 10-25F 12-14 hours
Spring-Fall 30-60F up to 5 days

my bit in a Hitzer 55 FA, inefficient chimney set up, but Im gettin 8-10 hrs I have to go poke it around w a piece of rebar every now n again bc I have a lot of fines If they are the lumps I try to separate the big lumps and bust them down to fist size then Ill throw a shovel full of egg size down to fines on top of that seems to work ok that way

I burn sub bit in my norseman. I'm heating about 1800 sq ft. I load twice a day. Morning and night. I put in anywhere from 15-35lbs per loading depending on how cold it is. I rake all burning coal to the front and then put fresh coal in the back. I use lump size and will put in pieces as large as a football to as small as an egg. I've loaded the stove and banked it really well and have had it last for 4 or 5 days with the air shut off. I was gone once for 9 days and came home and still had embers to get it going again. It wasn't producing much heat anymore, but it was still there. Like others have said, it just seems to smolder along nice and slow. I've found that with my stove, if I bank it, I get less smoke and longer burns.