Pea Coal Vs. Chestnut Coal Vs. Stove Coal

Being my first season of burning Pea into the heart of the winter I find it's excellant for spring,fall temps for me. Even into some winter type temps. When the temps get down to well below freezing say 10 deg. + or - Nut is easier to get burning hotter quicker.
Also I am not sure but the only way to get the Pea going as hot would be to open the manual pipe damper I have. Where the Nut will heat the house fine with my MPD closed and the bottom intakes open and the Pea doesn't seem to want to give those kinds of temps even with the bottom intake open wide. Again I won't know for sure but this is what I've been expiernceing.
Sometimes I've been mixing them and this produces nice results. But with the temps down to 7 deg. now with a 30mph wind I'm burning Nut. Last week we had balmy temps into the 40's low 50's I threw on Pea for a few days. I don't like the idea of leaving my MPD open much. I see the heat is going right up the chimney.
My stove is in a full open basement 2 story Cape of 2K sq.ft. the MarkIII and Nut had no trouble last season heating the house with temps 30 below F.

The finer coal will only allow so much air through and consequently only so much combustion. With the larger sizes the air whistles through and more oxygen is extracted for combustion hence higher heat. I've noticed the same thing and am planning on ordering all three sizes next year. I was disappointed last night it got down into the lower twenties and with the stove at 450 F the heatpump was coming on for brief intervals several times an hour. I guess it was spreading the heat out better. If I had it at 550F I'll bet we would have a different story. At 450 with fine coal my draft is 3/4 open. I'll bet at 3/4 with nut coal it will go to over 600F. I just called DS Machine and Amos said that he would not be afraid to go over 600F with this stove.

couple words of caution if your planning on going as far as stove coal. first you can REALLY crank the temp if youre not careful on stove. Second... in just the reverse stove being so big can put itself out because in depth in your coalstove it might be only a layer or two (at the most)thick and doesnt "nest" itself well enough to keep itself going, so when burning really large coal you wanna make sure youve got plenty in there and really watch your air so you dont overfire it. you'll see what I mean if you spend any real time with stove coal.
I have switched to nut because the stove here for the last few years was REALLY dirty and filled all the airspace with "fines" (rice size down to dust) and then didnt breath well like it should putting itself out. check out the stove youre buying before you have it delivered and ask if its "clean" or has a lot of fines in it. it can be a REAL hassle if it does. all coal has some fines but if excessive in large chunk it will be hard to burn. it's almost as if the coal yards werent even sorting the stove the last few years. we were getting everything from lotsa fines to bigger than grapefruit size all mixed together! now this year I checked and it's back to fairly uniform 2 to 3 in. and pretty clean. At least for now they said! to the franco burner who posted... I think youre fears are right that stove might be a little big for a franco if youre using the hopper. not familiar with all the franco's but a friend has the ornate biggie rectangle porcelain cast one, and he's never get stove to burn in that well unless he yanked all the guts out and just shoveled it in!
Happy burning.
PS my stove calls for pea and smaller, but I have been burning nut for years in it. nut is great. I used to throw out way too much pea in the ashpan!

i have been burning nut in my clayton 1600 successfully for 2 seasons now . BUT i was wondering if stove size coal would make more heat ???? thank you in advance for any info Tommy

try a bag you may need to put alot more in to get good results good luck

As I understand it, it won't make more heat but it will produce that heat faster. Apparently, all coal produces the same amount of BTUs when burned but how that heat is distributed over the burn is decided by the size of the coal. Larger pieces of coal, like stove, allow more air to move up and through the fire more freely causing the fire to burn hotter for a shorter period of time. Pea coal fills in those air pockets, slowing down the air flow and lengthening the burn, producing a slower fire and heating over a longer period of time. You may want to mix the stove coal with the pea to get the best burn. That's what I do with nut and pea coal and I get a better burn out of it. This year I discovered you don't really have to mix them either; I just put in a layer of the nut and then top it off with the pea. That's enough to give me the burn I want. This year I am using some Reading nut that is almost stove size and blending the two is working very well. As suggested you may want to get a couple of bags of both and try it over a week or so.

Do you keep a stove log so you can keep track of the results of your coal usage? I find it very helpful so I'm not reinventing the wheel every time something changes on the stove or I do something different. Just a thought, Lisa

Fran654 wrote:i have been burning nut in my clayton 1600 successfully for 2 seasons now . BUT i was wondering if stove size coal would make more heat ???? thank you in advance for any info Tommy

It give you more heat in the sense that the larger chunk needs more heat to light off and stay lit. And that requires air flow.

I'm burning stove coal now in my Mk I. It's fine when the weather is cold like it is now, but way too hot for early and late in the season.

I'm getting 12 hours easy out of it. More really, but I tend the stove twice a day.

Based on some threads here, I tried "capping" the stove like Lisa described. My first load of chestnut this year has a bunch of "fines" in it that I sifted out so I have a bucket of pea and smaller that I use to sprinkle two shovels full on top when I go to bed. It does cut down on air flow, but less airflow means less heat. It's not an issue at night when everyone is in bed. It's a tad chilly when I get up in the morning but not too bad and once the sun comes up, it's fine.

It does seem to cut down on use a bit so I can't complain much.

Yes, stove will give you more heat. I used to burn stove size when it got real cold when I had the hand fired boiler.

I just bought 2 tons of stove coal that came from the South Tamaqua Pocket. It is an extremely clean load and the lumps are reasonably uniform in size. The big Glenwood Base Burner just loves it. It fires right up and I don't notice any difference in burn times or consumption from the nut coal I have. The parlor stove on the other hand seems to like the nut size coal to start out with from a cold start and then the stove size burns fine in it.
One thing I did notice though is that stove size requires a hotter starting fire than the nut does. I guess the larger pieces need to absorb more heat to ignite.

since i break my own coal its hard to tell.i run a mix of stove nut and pea. the stove runs at 400 for 12 hours no problem.
i have burned stove size straight once before and noticed that it does burn hotter,just not as long.different strokes for different folks iguess. i stick with what works for me,next best thing for me would be to go down under and get it myself. i dont think the wife would like that though.

Love the Pea. For years I used only Nut and it would get too hot in the house on those mild days. Pea simmers down so nice.
Found out when it gets real cold here (0 deg. f ) best to use Nut. Easier to keep burning hotter. Typical NE temp changes got me hopping. One week it's below zero next is in the 30's ...Been grabbing a bag on nut here next Pea and back and forth. Mix em up in the tote for those inbetween times..Pea will be a staple here as well as Nut. Next year I'll buy 2 pallets Nut 2 pallets Pea.
Don't think I have to have Stove. Nut burns real nice for my size house and needs.

captcaper wrote:Love the Pea. For years I used only Nut and it would get too hot in the house on those mild days. Pea simmers down so nice.
Found out when it gets real cold here (0 deg. f ) best to use Nut. Easier to keep burning hotter. Typical NE temp changes got me hopping. One week it's below zero next is in the 30's ...Been grabbing a bag on nut here next Pea and back and forth. Mix em up in the tote for those inbetween times..Pea will be a staple here as well as Nut. Next year I'll buy 2 pallets Nut 2 pallets Pea.
Don't think I have to have Stove. Nut burns real nice for my size house and needs.

I tried the 'stove' and didn't really care for it im my MIII.
If I had to pick one, it would be nut. For sure.
my 'brother' has 3 Harmans, and he only uses nut...

I'm heading to PA this weekend and thinking about picking up some stove coal to try in my Mark III. My wife likes the house a little warmer so I told her I'd give it a try. Right now I'm really liking nut.

I have a 1600 and I burn stove coal in mine and it burns great.="Fran654"]i have been burning nut in my clayton 1600 successfully for 2 seasons now . BUT i was wondering if stove size coal would make more heat ???? thank you in advance for any info Tommy[/quote]

I burn Reading bagged nut coal & find that I get a decent mix of stove size coal & nut. My LCC loves it !! When I load I make sure all the large pieces are spread evenly thru-out the bed.