US Hot Blast Furnace 1557

Hello All. I have been reading this site for some time but just joined today. I had a Franco Belge years ago and loved it. I have a question about a stove I am thinking of buying. Its a US Stove Hot Blast Furnace 1557. I read where it says to use "bituminous" coal. I live in CT and anthracite is plentiful, but bituminous is hard to find. I called US stove and they said you can burn anthracite in it. The also said it would be "harder" to burn, and of course burn hotter. I saw from a past post that some of you have this stove. Can you tell me what you are burning in it, and any problems/suggestions. Would anthracite burn ok in it or should I look for something else? Any info would be great. Thanks!

Hello Coal nut. Welcome to the forum. Do you really need a furnace?? or would a stove do the job?? How big is your house, how well insulated, windows etc??

I would recommend a stoker stove if one can be made to work for you, a hand load stove, or furnace is not as easy to live with as a stoker.

It seems from the comments on the forum about the 'HotBlast' furnaces, they take a lot of coal to make their heat.

If you have hot air heating and want to hook into the duct work. I'd recommend using a boiler with a water-to-air heat exchanger in the ductwork. This system is much easier to control during warm spells and will provide more even heat.

Take a look through the forum under hand load stoves, there are several threads on the furnace you are looking at.

I modeled my boiler after a similar boiler and furnace design. The firebox is a compromise for burning wood and coal. If you plan on burning mostly coal, then I'd recommend a furnace/boiler or stove designed for coal, not wood. I've spent a lot of time and effort getting around the compromises in the design.

Hope this helps. Greg L

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I plan on using it to heat my whole house. Its a split level with one large room on the upper floor. That room has a gas stove in it, so its not totally necessary to have the coal stove heat that area. I currently have electic heat (hasent been on in years). Has above average insulation. Most windows are new with the exception of a few. House with the basement is approx 2500sf. I dont want anything that would burn wood as I already have a med size woodstove upstairs. It would be strictly used for coal. I was hoping for something to keep the basement as well as the main floor warm. I may indeed take another look at stokers. Thanks for the advice.

Oh yeah, im officially "coal nut" now. I guess "coal man" was taken!

If you want to burn just coal, then stay away from those furnaces. I can produce a hell of alot more heat with wood, than coal. I am currently burning anthracite and I can't keep the house over 71 degrees, and its 28 outside. It was 9 degrees this morning, woke up at 5 shook it down added a few shovels of coal and the house dropped to 68. They aren't good coal burners. They may burn soft coal better, but hard coal isn't something thats easy to burn in these.

You can forget bituminous, CT-DEP only approves anthracite in CT. The dealers simply cannot sell bituminous in this state. Unless of course you bring your own in, but that would probably cost more or as much as anthracite as you have to travel further to get it. You would be much better off with the anthracite anyway, more heat and a lot less trouble in the long run. The stoker is definitely the way to go, low maintenance, even heat and a lot less work. They also tend to be cleaner to operate. They cost a little more, but with the savings involved here, it is hardly a concern.
I'm close, PM your # if you want to chat about this stuff.

Coalman is our fearless leader, and we only have one of those, sorry. 8)

With a 2500 sqft split level, good insulation and windows, I think you would be happy with just about any of the 90K btu stokers available.

The really nice thing about the stokers is the control. You can vary the heat output in a hand load stove, boiler or furnace only so much. I'd say that the output can be varried by 30-50%. You need a full coalbed to burn properly, so you can only reduce the air to the fire so much and still have it burn.

But with most stokers, you can vary the output from 5K all the way up to 90K BTU, that's a huge amount of control.

Take a look at ebay, there have been a lot of stoves for sale lately, at pretty good prices. You may have to replace some door gaskets, paint some rusty spots or maybe replace the glass in the door, but usually you save more than 50% off of new price.

Hope this helps, Greg L
Check your PM's
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Lsfarm has the right idea. I have burnt everything from wood to pellets to cherry pits to coal. With the Alaska stoker I have now I am able to burn it with daytime highs in the 70's. Which we have had this winter. With pellets and wood you had to let it go out and you had to make sure you were home to light it when the sun goes down. Now with my stoker I set the temp on the thermostat and it is like one of those set it and forget it ovens. Just fill it once a day and take out the ashes. About five minuts is all it takes compared to an hour babysitting wood or a hand fired unit waiting to cut the draft back and closing the damper after loading it up. Based on your square footage you are right on the size border line. If it were me I would opt for Alaska's model 140 or Leisure Line's Hyfire 1 or 2. Those models are twin stoker units and would allow you to heat your entire house. I always tell people to make sure they buy a stove that is big enough to meet there needs. I know with the first stove I ever bought I later wished I had bought the next bigger model.

I would stay away from the US stove products. They are not designed to burn anthracite. I have have had nothing but problems with mine and am pulling it out. I'm installing aHitzer 82 FA. The US Stove is junk as far as I'm concerned. I wish I ahd found this post before I bought. It would have saved me alot of work. I talked to the guys at reading coal and the design is not suited for burning anthracite coal. Starting with the feed door damper, grates, and not a good fire box design.

coal nut do yourself a favor and say awy from the US Stove. Read the posts. I think you'll find not to many people that are real happy with there stove.

Hope this helps Don

PS Next week I will be a happy anthracite burner wiht my new Hitzer

Well after reading the responses, I think I have ruled out the US HotBlast. I originally wanted a stoker stove and not a furnace type because the unit is going into a somewhat finished basement. I really didnt like the look of a furnace down there, but the US furnace didnt look as bad to me as some of the others. I really like the Leisure Line Poccono and Hi fire, as well as the Harman Magnum, and even Keystoker isnt too bad. But I am afraid they wouldnt have enough CFM's to move the heat upstairs. From what I recall the Magnum has a very small blower, and the Leisure Line about 525 and Keystoker can be ordered with somewhere around 500 cfm. I had thought about putting a "booster" fan in the ductwork to help it along, but never saw any capable of handeling the heat.

I have been running a Hyfire1 in my 40x60 shop with minimal insulation and 16' ceilings, I have to say I'm impressed.

I think with a heat collector 'bonnet' connecting to your ductwork you can get some serious heat out of the Hyfire1 or 2.


Greg L

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How does that hot air jacket work. I see it on their website and understand how the heat would transfer, but how is the air moved? Just with the fan on the stove, or is there another fan installed with the jacket? If so, where is it mounted?

On the Hyfire 1 as it comes from LeisureLine, there are two distribution blowers on the back of the stove. They move air up the back, and over the top as well as through the two front vents. They move a lot of air.

If I was going to put a bonnet on this unit, I'd disconnect the two blowers, and put a duct fan above the bonnet or in the ducts above the stove. The duct fan would draw air through the bonnet and off the sides of the stove as well as off the back and top.

The sides of the stove are very hot. They only radiate heat to the room.. If the side 'arms' of the bonnet dropped down each side of the stove, creating a heating chamber, then a lot of this heat would get into the ducts.

You can use the two factory blowers to push hot air into a duct, but they wouldn't be washing heat off the sides, only the back and top of the stove. This might be a good thing if you want the heat the room that the unit is in as well as distribute hot air through ducts.

I ran the Hyfire with both burners for a few hours, and raised the temp in my big shop by 10*, a lot more than expected. I have it idling with only the smaller 40K burner running, and I'm keeping the shop at a comfortable temp on only 40# of coal per day. And the stack temps are low, meaning the stove sends most of the heat into the room, not up the chimney.

Hope this makes sense.

Greg L

Are you sure you need to tie into the ductwork?

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Another stove you could bget would be the Alaska 140 it has a hot air jacket built in with a 1550 cfm blower already on board. You can add a thermostat to the unit as well. It comes standard with one 85K burner and the option for a second 85K burner. The Hyfire would do the same job with the optional hot air jacket and the 14" duct fan option Leisure Line offers. Both these stoves are high quality and you should make a decision based on which stove is more readilly availiable in your area. As far as customer service from the factory I think those two manufactures are the best. Plus both these manufacturers feeder systems are much less in the way of maintanence than other makes ie, less moving parts.

My good friend has a Hot Blast and he burns 95% coal ( bituminous) in his and has for years with zero problems. He recently put a very large addition on his house and needed a bigger coal furnace. He did not hesitate to go buy another Hot Blast, although I could not tell you the model numbers.

I have read alot of threads on here about coal not burning or furnaces/stoves not producing heat, producing heat to quickly, making klinkers etc... I believe it all boils down to the quality of coal burned and just as important the method in which it is burned. Coal quality is REALLY important when burning bituminous coal. I burn only Bit coal and I have had coal that burns down to just a fine ash and coal that will just produce nothing but klinkers. I have also learned how to burn Bit coal to where one boiler full will last me 10-14 hours. When I first started burning coal I could not make good heat or get it to burn for an extended period of time...
My point is this, If a furnace is having an issue burning Bit coal it is probably 50% coal quality, 25% burning technique and possibly 25% furnacr issues ( fire box design)
This is just my opinion and ONLY based on my experience burning bituminous coal. As far as Anthracite, i will leave that up to the guys that burn it and know how to burn it correctly.