Pea vs Nut???

hi. is it possible to burn nut coal in a Saey stove designed to burn pea? I could pull out the bigger chunks to burn in my harman mark 1. I cannot easily get pea in my area, (southern N.H.) and would like to get a second stove before winter. There's a Saey Hanover on Ebay that looks interesting.

I did a search on ebay for that stove for sale, and couldn't find it. Most stoker stoves must have correctly sized coal or the stoker will jamb and possibly break.

I don't think you want to try to use nut coal. I would think that if you ordered rice coal you could get it.

You could sift nut coal through a mesh with the right size holes, but this would get very 'old' very fast. I've tried sifting coal. It doesn't work all that well. The reason is the irregular shapes of the coal pieces.

If you have a mesh with say a 3/4" x3/4" holes, you would think that nothing over 3/4" could get through right? Well you will find all kinds of pieces over 1 1/2" long but small enough around to get through the mesh. Pieces shaped like a pickle or a finger. These would jamb a stoker.

What you will have to do is hand inspect each bucket of coal before using it in the stove. Not a fun thing to have to do.

I'd call all your coal suppliers, ask them about getting rice coal, and also check on going to a coal bagging site and buying bagged rice coal. You have lots of choices.

Can you supply a link to that stove? So someone here can give better advice about it??

Hope this helps, Greg L

.

Thanks for the advice. One more question, could i load a stroker stove by hand, the same way i load my mark 1? Ebay item # is 230059007538

I looked at the photos of the stove on ebay, and I don't think burning pea coal would work anyway. The slots in the grates are pretty wide, and I think pea would just fall through into the ash pan. I see no reason that you couldn't burn nut or even stove size coal in this stove.

I don't see any form of hopper in the photos, maybe it is not installed, but a hopper is not actually a stoker. It is more of a big funnel feeding into the firebox. So If you got a chunk of coal that was too big in the hopper, it wouldn't break anything. It would just block a spot in the hopper's exit.

Right now the price is right on this stove, but I personally have some concerns about it.

First is that the seller states that a baffle plate is warped. That is another way to say OVERHEATED!! So I would be concerned that other parts have been overheated.

Next looking at the photos, I don't see a separate, devoted air intake providing air to the area under the fire. I only see the sliding air slots just below the front loading door. Unless there is some kind of air duct behind this slotted air intake, I don't think it will burn coal well at all.

And I also don't see any method to shake the grate to get the coal ash into the ash pan. You would have to use a metal poker with an 'L' bent on the end to rake through the coals and ash. This is necessary to keep the grate from clogging with ash.

If the price stays dirt cheap, you can install a 'spinner' type air intake in the front of the ash door to provide air under a coal fire. And of course you can get by without a shaker grate.

I think this is a better wood burner than a coal burner, but if you are handy and can fix it, it may be a bargain.

If you can, I would inspect it before purchase .

Greg L

thanks again for advice. think I'll hold off and wait for the next bargin. sounds like this could be trouble

If it is nearby and you can actually look at it that could eliminate a lot of concerns.

Buying without inspecting is like buying a car off of a used car lot at night in a snow storm!

Greg L

Actually, the Saey Hannover I and Hannover II are both good performers with pea coal. Using nut coal will burn faster and could be the reason for the reported warpage. My hopper is a bit deformed since it sits right in the fire, but the rear diverter is straight on mine. I don't have my manual nearby but can look up Saey's coal recommendations for you tonight.

The Saey Hannover's have a rear, bi-metal thermostatically controlled air inlet on the right-rear which keeps the stove's temperature the same and even adjusts a little for room temperature. The front inlet is a secondary air inlet that helps with windy days when the draft may get out of hand (even with a hydrostatic damper).

Inside the ash-door opening are 3 slots for using the flat "knife" tool to get the ashes and clinkers to loosen up and drop through the grates. On the rear left, there's a vertical extendible arm which the universl tool fits to shake down the ashes (but I just use my gloves). I shake it down about once every 8-12 hours. I use the knife if I can't see the glow in the ash-pan and shake it again before and after adding coal.

The Hannover I holds about 25 pounds on the grate and another 25 in the hopper and burns all day at mid-temperature settings or less. I've had a full hopper and the coal on the grates go for up to 36 hours in warmer weather. It's a really nice stove in my opinion and I have no doubt it can put out the advertized 60,000 BTUs on the high setting.

Parts are still available, though fairly expensive (aren't they all). Right now I've got a plate heat exchanger on top of the stove with a circulator to an 80 gallon electric heater (not connected to power), but I'm seriously considering cutting a couple of holes in it for better water heating with an internal coil wrapped around the hopper.

I go through about 25-30 pounds a day of pea (bags) in moderate weather and up to 50 pounds in the coldest weather. The coal we get around here has a lot of ash so I empty the bin every day or one full 50 pound bag of coal.

Apparently Greg wasn't aware this was a hand fired stove... hold onto your seat moving thread. The information he posted above would be relevant to stokers...

According to my Saey Hannover and Bremen I and II manual, either pea or chestnut coal may be used. Avoid stove-coal because it may be too hot and rice or buckwheat coal because it will fall, unburnt, through the grates.

Hello,
We have a Saey Hanover I coal stove that we bought 2nd hand about 9 years ago...believe it or not, we have ALWAYS use nut coal. I called the distrbiutor in central PA (aBierlygroup.com) and they were surprised that we burn nut coal in the stove...they said "you must have a very good draft"... we do....

Hope this helps...

I'm surprised too. My buddy was calling me 3 times a day for a week when he tried burning nut in his Saey .... not sure the model #, but it refused to burn with any other coal but nut coal.