brunco 190

Hi first time poster, excellent site. I have a brunco 190 wood/coal furnace hooked into my duct work. I have had it aroung 10 years and have always burnt wood. I want to burn coal now. Should I get anthricite or bituminus coal. Anything I should do different with a coal fire over my usual routine for wood. I understand I need a small wood fire then add in coal slowly. Any help and insite is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance..

What is the size & shape of the firebox? What does it have for grates? It would help a lot if you could post some pics of the firebox.

Hi I am at work as we speak but I was just reading the manual online at brunks website and it says I can burn bituminus or anthracite coal. there are shaker grates on the bottom and fire brick up about a foot or so on the sides.

grizzly2c wrote:I want to burn coal now. Should I get anthracite or bituminous coal. Anything I should do different with a coal fire over my usual routine for wood.

Whether you decide on anthracite or bituminous coal is a personal decision; either one will keep your house warmer for longer periods of time then wood did. Your final choice may come down to what's available in your area and cost. That being said you need to understand the characteristics of each coal. For example, Bituminous coal is less expensive but produces smoke and soot on initial light up and reloading; if you are in a city that may be a bothersome for the neighbors. Anthracite burns cleaner but is more expensive. I suggest you do a search (upper right corner) and get to understand each coal better before you make your decision. Searching the topic "using Bituminous coal" brought up a ton of postings. As for your routine for burning coal that is going to vary depending on the coal you decide to use so hold off on that thought until you make your decision. Good luck, Lisa

My first furnace was a Brunco 190. It was a great wood burner and could put out the heat to the point of burning the paint of the jacket. But as for coal, the design sucks!

What I mean is there is so many things that you are fighting to keep it running smoothly. The secondary Vee baffle would collect a lot of ash and smother the fire. The ash door does not have a draft control to provide primary air for burning anthracite coal. It will burn bit coal. The combustion blower fan is set to 50/50 split the air over and under the fire. The firebox is very large and would consume a lot of coal, but being so large, in order to keep it firing hot enough without extinguishing, I had to burn more coal than was needed. I don't think I reached 50% efficiency.

Wood gave the best results. Bit coal was a close second, but was very hungry and had a ton of ash to get similar results as wood. Anthracite would have been ideal, but once again, air draft setting made it difficult to burn and you needed more coal than was needed to attempt to maintain the fire, then it went out because not enough smooth primary air from the non-existent ash door control.

My overall experience with the Brunco 190 was that is was one heavy duty, very well made stove, just very, very, inefficient. There are much better coal burners for a lot less money. I switched to a Clayton after I sold my Brunco and I used half the fuel with more heat through the house. Figure?

thanks folks for the replies, I am out in the country so smell or smoke isnt an issue. i may just try a little anthrisite to experiment. The cost of a ton is 220.00 I may just get 1/2 ton to try. thanks very much

I have a Brunco 120, I'm pretty new to burning coal but I bought 2 tons of bituminous coal ( the pieces are about the size of baseballs or alittle bigger). I found that the best settings for me is to, open the flap on the induction blower alittle bit more then I normally keep it for burning wood and I set the spinner on the feed door one half turn open from fully closed, any more then that and it will puff smoke out of the feed door. with these settings I've been getting good burn times and it keeps the house nice and warm. If you want to try the anthracite coal I would suggest just getting maybe a couple hundred pounds of it at first to see how it burns for you. From a lot of what I've been reading, the brunco furnaces don't seem to burn anthracite very well. I hope this can help

appreciate the response wojo, I borrowed a 5 gallon bucket from a coworker yesterday to try and it didnt do well. It was nut anthracite. it would glow red but no heat it would gradually drop tempuntil the blower shut down. I was just sitting here debating in my mind what to do. I have to go and get him coal tomorrow to replace what i borrowed. I thought maybe I would try a little bit coalbut dont want the smell or all the soot associated with it. I have burned wood for 10 years or so and burn rather hot fires to keep things clean. Not sure what to do. another thought was to take my ash door off and get another door made with a spinner on it for air intake threw the bottom so it comes up threw the fire. just not sure..

A five gallon bucket won't do the job. Anthracite coal has to cover the entire firebox to a depth of a minimum of 4-6",, 10" would be better.. You cannot have any gaps in the coal bed where air can get around the fire. All air must come through the bed of coals..

Bit coal will burn more like wood, you can toss a bucket on the fire, and it will burn with air from above and the sides. it won't burn as well as it can this way,but it will burn.. Anthracite will just go out.

I'm sure it would take 4-5 buckets of coal to cover the grates and make a coal bed deep enough to burn correctly..

Greg L

I have the same furnace but in a 120.This is my second year burning coal. First off do your self a favor and put a draft spinner or flap on the ash pan door.. The first year I had my stove the only air that my stove got was from the blower thats mounted between the feed and ash pan doors. Needless to say it was a tuff getting the thing to burn coal well. By the way I burn hard coal. Since I put a flap on the ash door my furnace has improved greatly. I have very little if any unburnt coal and I get long burn times ..12 to 15 hours on a load. I have a ranch house and it's been nice and warm this winter. I As far as the V shaped plate above the fire box shake it back and forth a few time every week or so and you should be able to keep the fly ash from building up to much. Good luck

thanks ls and ssettle, I think what I am going to do is take the door off after the season and get another complete door built with a spinner on it so the air comes up threw the bottom. thanks again.

Hey gang. I have a Brunco 190 as well in my workshop. This year is my first attempt at burning coal and I am amazed with how challenging this is proving to be. The Brunco burns wood great, and puts out lots of heat with minimal smoke and no draft problems EVER using this fuel.

My Brunco is a forced air system, with a switch on the induction fan so I can run it forced or natural draw. No spinner on the ash door.

A local supplier who burns in his shop and is a Brunco fan recommended Kentucky bit coal. Nice big chunks (some as big as a volley ball). I broke this up into smaller pieces, no bigger than the size of a lemon, to start experimenting.

Here's my experience:

I started a wood fire, and got the chimney and unit up to good operating temperature (around 400 degrees). Let the fire burn down to a nice bed of coals, and added a small shovel full of coal, evenly distributed on the bed. Started burning right away, and drafting well. So far so good. Let that burn about 15-20 minutes, then added another shovel full. Going great. Temp is climbed up to 500-550, but didn't get hotter than that so I left the blower wide open to help make sure the coal was completely ignited.

Let that go for another 20 minutes or so until it seemed the coal was burning good. The next step is where it goes bad. I added more coal to fill in the bed, to the top of the fire brick. This was about 4" depth worth of new coal.

It smokes like crazy, which I expected, but apparently the draft can't keep up and a ton of smoke is getting out. Through the spinner, and through the chimney seams, neither of which I've had a problem with to this point. I opened the ash door a crack to help the draft, and while this did help reduce the smoke, it's still coming in. I'm talking billows of smoke. Right now, I'm thankful this is my workshop and not my house! I opened up the bay doors to the shop to let things air out while I continue to fiddle with it, thinking that I just need to keep it burning until the coal gets going and the smoke reduces. Wrong.... Plus, through this whole part of the process, the furnace temperature plummets until the chimney temp is below 100 and the blower fan stops. It was over 500 before adding the 3rd round of coal.

I made every adjustment I could think of with no improvement. Forced air multiplied the problem, so I turned it off. The best scenario I could create was to leave the ash door open, turn off the forced air and leave the induction flap full open, and close the door spinner. This all but stopped the smoke from coming in, but the temp stayed very low... Below 100 on the flue, and practically no heat coming off the furnace. I left it that way overnight.

This morning, the coal was still red hot, and had burned down considerably with minimal ash. The smoking had stopped. This would be fine, but there was practically no heat. I raked it a bit and tried adding a little coal. Smoke like crazy again, and since the flue was so relatively cold I'm assuming the draft was even worse. I abandoned ship earlier this time, scooping out the coal and closing everything down.

Totally frustrated. If i can get this to work, the advantage is I can keep the shop warm consistently. Right now, burning wood, it needs filled every 4 hours or so which is impractical for me as I'm not in the shop every day and I have no interest in filling it in the middle of the night. The shop is insulated, but large, so it takes a long time to warm up from dead cold. Often, by the time it warms up, I'm done doing what I was in there for anyway. Coal should allow me to keep the edge off in the shop so its nice and warm when I'm ready to use it with only a couple tendings a day, which is why I'm even going to the trouble.

Any advice would be appreciated!