Just Moved and Want to Get a Stove.

Our new abode has a heat pump, and the wife runs cold. I want to get a stoker stove but am concerned about that man, and the cap and trade (tax) bill. Is coal pricing going to go thru the roof if it passes. Maybe pellets would be cheaper,but with everyone jumping on that band wagon are you even going to find wood pellets? Anyway I'm thinking of a alaska channingIII.Any thoughts ? Help!

Hi and welcome to the forum. I've seen the Alaska products and they do look well built. Here was a few pictures I took when I was looking at one. I think the biggest thing you need to determine before you purchase any stove is what is your indented use or expectation of what you want to accomplish with it. I've read a few of your other posts and I'm unclear as to what you want to do yet. Do you want just a stove or do you want a furnace?

I was impressed with the look and the design of the Channing and I think it will be a good performer. But, when I read that you may want to duct the heat into your duct work, I don't know if any stove will satisfy you.

Thanks for the pics. It helps to look at how something is made. As for as as the other posts there old from when we had a big 3 story oil burning house. our new place is single story on a crawl space heat pump. Stove must go in living room.

Well, if that is the case, I think it will do very well for you. From what I understand about the Alaska Channing is that it has an unique clean glass air system incorporated into the design. I have not been able to observe this in operation, but after studying some of the design, it looks as it should work fairly well. In my opinion, I think the Channing is one of the best looking anthracite stoker stoves on the market and it's size seems just right. I think you will be pleased with one. I wouldn't mind owning one too.

I have a direct vent model in my home and love it. Just make sure to paint the inside of whatever stove you buy. Use a good high temp paint.

plumb-r wrote:Our new abode has a heat pump, and the wife runs cold. I want to get a stoker stove but am concerned about that man, and the cap and trade (tax) bill. Is coal pricing going to go thru the roof if it passes. Maybe pellets would be cheaper,but with everyone jumping on that band wagon are you even going to find wood pellets? Anyway I'm thinking of a alaska channingIII.Any thoughts ? Help!

Do a topic search of the forum. Richard, the mayor, has addressed this subject in the recent past. If I remember correctly, he feels that while you may see a coal price increase due to the cost of processing (salaries, mining costs, etc.) you won't see a huge increase.

Have you done a fuel cost comparison for either fuel? How many BTUs do you need to heat the square footage you are talking about? How many BTUs does your heat pump put out? What is the estimated cost per BTU on each solid fuel appliance? Find that out and you're decision should be easy. If the cost of fuel does go up it’s going up across the board. Coal is the least expensive in the long run when you compare BTUs and its less effort once you learn how it burns. Will the Alaska Channing III produce enough BTUS to do the job? Could you go a size smaller for less cash outlay? Will the pellet stove produce the needed BTUs? There are free fuel cost comparison programs on line.

Coal is easy to get and store, doesn't attract vermin and is cleaner (no smoke) to burn. You won't even know it's there most of the time. With the stoker you're talking about you only have to check it every couple of days. For my money coal is the only way to go; even when we didn't know beans about burning coal we were saving money on our heating bill. Now that we have enough knowledge to be dangerous we are saving about 50% on our previous years' natural gas bills. I don't think you'll find that with pellets. Good Luck, Lisa

Cap and trade may certainly effect the cost but indirectly. People will be seeking alternatives and one of those alternatives will be coal. Ironic isn't it?

For the last 30 years the cost has kept pace with inflation, right now it's about the same as it was a last year at the breaker.

Time will tell....

Maybe pellets would be cheaper

Depends but right now pellets are selling for about $300 per ton? Delivery rates for coal start around $160+ and around $130+ at the breaker. You need about 1.4 ton of pellets for one ton of coal so locally it's not even in the ballpark. You'd need about $450 in pellets. The cost of the coal would need to triple and that's not going to happen.

Thank you for all the feed back. Everyone provided much needed insight. I had been leaning coal any how, this info helped alot. Thanks!

As it turns out, a co-worker of mine brought in a sales folder from a well known pellet stove manufacturer for us 'coalies' to look at earlier this week. It didn't take long to realize that even the biggest and best of their stoves put out a maximum of about 50,000 BTU. Compare that to coal stokers, the range is roughly 45,000-145,000 BTU!

As an newbie Alaska Channing II owner (of 6 months), my experience has been to run the stove about 40%-60% of 'full speed ahead' and my house was sufficiently heated for the waning months of winter. Compare that to running a pellet stove at 'full speed ahead' to get the same amount of heat. Here in Western Massachusetts, it didn't get much colder than 15 or so since I fired it up. But if you have a pellet stove and it's already running to the max at 20, you'll have to kick heat pump to stay warm!

And, as has been mentioned above, the price of coal will more closely reflect production and transportation costs rather than 'what the market will bear' pricing that is my impression of oil, gas, and pellets.

FWIW, I'd rather run my stove at half-throttle as it's certainly less maintenance. LIke the chicken rotisserie comercial says..."set it and forget it"....except to top off the coal and empty the ashes daily.

plumb-r wrote:Maybe pellets would be cheaper,but with everyone jumping on that band wagon are you even going to find wood pellets?

They will never, ever be cheaper to heat with, ever. Even if you find them what happens when they go bad? About the only thing that will take out anthracite is a well designed firebox. Stored in your basement, your house could burn to the ground and you would still have your coal to heat it with.