Coal Vs. Wood

Hello.

I am trying to heat a 4100 house built in 1876 that we are in the process of redoing (mostly done). I heat with oil hot water baseboard with domestic HW (mostly a backup due to cost of oil), wood stove (Harman SL-200) and a Harman Pellet P61. The P61 is great and I burn 4 ton a year (give or take) and the SL-200 is nothing but trouble. Year 1 was amazing and each year since (4th season now) nothing but trouble, the dealer has been out many times, fixing the after burn unit, damper etc... at a cost to me of course. Harman will not talk to me and push me to the dealer with no fix at all. I'm not burning more wood than ever (over 6 cord).

I'm thinking about going to coal, but do not want to mess with my baseboard and was thinking about replacing the SL-200 with a coal stove that would be directly in our finished side of the house.

What should I consider before doing this?
Mess?
Which stove?

Currently I pipe into a SS lined Chimney that is about 20' high or more, but has a very good draft for the wood stove.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Scott

Put in a coal stoker boiler or a combo wood/coal boiler, might be easier and then you can heat the whole house. You can run parallel with your existing boiler.

Welcome!

You can't even compare coal to any form of wood. Coal throws out more heat, for a much longer period. Plus, there are no creosote buildup concerns. I think you'd be very happy with the switch. Depending on where you live, bagged coal almost always ends up cheaper in the long haul than wood pellets. Coal is no more messy than a wood stove, in my opinion.

You could go with a coal boiler & eliminate all your other stoves, or you could just buy a coal stove to replace the wood one. Seeing that your familiar with Harman, here's a link to their stoves: http://www.harmanstoves.com/products/products.asp ... oal-stoves

Although you had bad luck with the SL, I;ve never heard a complaint about any of their stoves or boilers burning coal on this board.

Edit for boiler link: http://www.harmanstoves.com/products/category.asp ... al-heating

The problem that I have is only 1 chimney that I can connect to in the basement, which is used by the oil furnace, unless I can pipe them both into the same chimney? I would think not.

Which is why I was thinking of replacing the woodstove that is in the house, but maybe its not the best idea???

Can the SF-250 run open air like a woodstove can? meaning not connected to the hot water.

You could power vent the oil furnace out a side wall or something and hook your coal boiler into your chimney. Since your oil furnace wouldn't be running anyway, but ready if needed.

Boilers don't run like a standard FREE air Stoves. You have to have water in them. They do give off some heat, but normally insulated to keep the water warm.

OK so the SF-250 would not work as a free standing unit, but would need to be in the basement and connected to the hot water system.

I spend the following on heat:
$2,000 oil
$1,200 wood pellets
$1,400 (prices vary for wood)

I know I can do better. The SF-250 would not be large enough for my house 4,100 sq ft of old drafty house.

I was hoping to eliminate the wood stove due to the problems and get something less expensive.

How hard is it to hook up a coal furnace into an existing system? I am somewhat handy, but better at construction than heating units (obviously look how much I'm spending a year )

The SF250 is a free standing unit, with 120,000 BTUs, I guess it depends on the layout of your house and where you would put the stove in a central location. ?
It's hard to say if it would be enough for that size of a house.

A coal boiler definitely would be better to heat all the rooms easy since you already have it piped. Whats you current boiler rated? Plus you can keep all the coal in the basement near your boiler if you have enough room, or build a small coal bin near a window or door (for bulk loading).

Even if you figure about 6 ton at $250/ton = $1500

It's mostly piped, I have a few rooms without since it has a wood stove in it or near it, but that would be easy to fix. I would need to check the current furnace ratings, but it was new 7 years ago and was the largest unit they put in a house before.

The room that a free standing unit is almost central in the house. If the wood stove worked correctly 1800 sq ft would be a peace of cake to cover, but the opposite end of the house (kitchen and kids toy room) would not get the heat very well at all, but I could use the oil furnace for those two rooms only.

But I do like the idea of bulk loading or having it all in the basement. I'm thinking more like 8-10 tons a year, but that is still cheaper a lot cheaper.

The SF-250 was about $3,500 does that sound right? What would a boiler cost that would be large enough? Might be hard to answer that, but ballpark.

As far as the coal vs wood , I would say coal wins all the time, at least for me. More heat , less work, longer burn times , more heat per $ .My stove is in my living room and when burning wood I am always bringing wood in from outside but when burning coal I go downstaires and fill my coal coal bucket up once a day atmost. The only kind of edge that I would give to wood is if someone gives it to you for free or you have a ton of time on your hands and cut your own supply. I do burn some wood in the early and late season to take the chill out. That would be wood I get for free. I have a $250 Hearthmate that I got off of Craigslist that burns both, It burns wood extremly well because you have the bottom ash vents and door that you can realy give air to the fire to get it going.

The 6 ton estimate is 'light' in my opinion. You have lots of heating sources right now, and if one device would have to satisfy that demand, you would be looking at 9 to 10 tons.....if you don't tighten up the old timer. I don't feel comfortable telling you an AA 130, and AHS 130 or a EFM 520 will satisfy the demand. You are going to suck down a few BTU's on a below zero day, and the smaller stokers might not satisfy the demand. I don't like to see anything running at 'capacity' all the time either, so a 260 AA or AHS, and EFM 700 or a Keystoker KA 8 or a 10 (if you find one) would let you sit back and be comfortable while remaining affordable. Don't underestimate the power of Mother Nature!

run both the oil and coal together in the basement and go with a stoker boiler. there is no saftey issue with running both in the same flue.

I would retain at least one source of heat that does not require electricity to run. I love my coal stove.

i don't even have another source of heat. left the propane fireplace unit hooked up just for back up or if we needed more heat if it got really cold. well, needless to say we ripped it out of the living room to make more room, lol. it is a hand fed, so no electric needed, only for the forced air blower fans, which if the power goes out you still have heat, just no blower. burn wood in late fall and early spring just to kill the chill. then coal takes the center stage. you will love coal

whistlenut wrote:The 6 ton estimate is 'light' in my opinion. You have lots of heating sources right now, and if one device would have to satisfy that demand, you would be looking at 9 to 10 tons.....if you don't tighten up the old timer. I don't feel comfortable telling you an AA 130, and AHS 130 or a EFM 520 will satisfy the demand. You are going to suck down a few BTU's on a below zero day, and the smaller stokers might not satisfy the demand. I don't like to see anything running at 'capacity' all the time either, so a 260 AA or AHS, and EFM 700 or a Keystoker KA 8 or a 10 (if you find one) would let you sit back and be comfortable while remaining affordable. Don't underestimate the power of Mother Nature!

I agree and would rather go a bit larger than necessary. Is EFM the name brand? I'm new to coal so I'm sorry for the silly questions that might seem obvious to others.

How hard is it to tie a coal system into an existing system? Could I have the water line go into the coal and out but yet feed that into the oil? That way the hot water is hitting the oil furnace and not needing to turn on to heat it, but would if for some reason the coal went out or had a problem? Does that make any sense?

The Efm , AAH and others have there own manufatures place on the site. Should find info there. I burned wood for ten years or so. Had huge Nashua burner in the basement. Heated the basement very hot. Helped dry it up nice too. (Heat rises) Had nice warm wood floors. Left the basement door open. The stover had blower with duct work boots that attached to the top sides , both sides. You could point them any way you wanted with a 6" 90 in the boot. Heated the whole house , 2,400 , 2 floors. When it would get in low teens , single didgits , I had fire the oil boiler up to help. I would burn about 6 to 8 cords a year. Lucky I was clearing the property for pond and pasture. So I had plenty of wood. I never split one pc.. I would put a 12" to 14" X 20" long or so in and couple small ones on each side. I could get a good 10 hours. If it was hard maple , could go 12 hours easy. But is so much work dropping trees (I dropped the whole tree , stump to), cutting the small limbs off , cutting the tree up , burnings the brush. Put all the wood in the basement. Alot of work. Now I suckup some coal. Fill the hopper , empty the ashes once a day. Nice , and alot warmer. 75 in the house. , almost all rooms.