brunco 150 spinner door pics

grizzly2c · By: **grizzly2c** On: Sun Mar 07, 2010 9:44 pm

appreciate the help guys. I just finished my process of reloading. I shookit down then added 1 5 gallon bucket, i want to see how far that takes me. I am still deciding if this will save me money or not. I paid .11 cets per lb. lets say 1 and a half 5 gallon bckets per day. lets say the bucket weighs 40 lbs. That is 60 lbs per day. that is 6.60 perday and 198 per month. It just seems I could run my electric furnace for around this price per month.. What do you guys think.. I may have to wait till next winter and just start off burning ant coal and actually see what my electric bill says.. Thanks very much..

jmbabl81 · By: **jmbabl81** On: Mon Jan 24, 2011 12:31 pm

I also have a brunco 150. The tag says its from 1984. The Draft blower only blows air under my grate. The purpose of the blower is to control the fire and heat output. Now I will admit the 120 line voltage thermostat sucks!! Also my chimney runs thru the center of my house and i installed a 25 foot chimney liner with a ceramic wool blanket. Your chimney is everything when heating with wood or coal. I am posting some pics of how I am burning blashcak nut in my furnace. Also I rewired my draft blower to a 24v to 120volt switching relay so I could use a digital thermostat. Usually I shake and load once a day. Around 6 pm I will shake the crap out of the fire until hot coals fall into the ash pan. Then I will turn up my thermostat to kick on the draft blower. Then throw a whole coal bucket or about 1/2 a 5 gal. bucket in and spread it evenly. Leaving the smoke chamber rod out I will let it go until I see the dancing blue flames. After that I add another coal bucket of coal and pile it 2-3 inchs higher than the firebrick just in the center. The edges are maybe 1 inch lower than the top of the fire brick. Once I got blue flames again I close the smoke rod and turn the thermastat back to what the boss (wife) wants. Then of course I get to dump the ash. Good to go for 24 hours. Hope this helps and I will tell you keep trying. It is a science that takes a lot of practice to perfect.

jmbabl81 · By: **jmbabl81** On: Mon Jan 24, 2011 12:43 pm

grizzly2c wrote:
ohiocoalburner wrote:70 pounds a day is alot of coal! You are heating more sq.ft than I am and I try to keep the house a bit cooler than 79. I can see how you think this isn't economical. Can you adjust your temperature on the blower control for your stove? See what it is set at. Maybe you can cut the draft down a little and just reduce the on/off temps for the blower a bit. You won't want to go too low or it will seem like it's blowing cool air through the duct work. Also do you have the draft fan totally closed off so that no air can get through it? Maybe you can run the stove a little cooler by just using the spinners on the ash door to more precisely control the amount of draft. It is probably going to take some trial and error to get the best performance with the least amount of coal. BTW, your correct, try to keep the coal filled close to the top of the firebrick.

Yes the circ fan has a high and low setting.. I have the combustion blower shut off and the flap totally shut just using the spinners on the ash door.. I have them open maybe 1/4 inch.. I will just keep at it and see what happens.. I think if I could get away with 1 5 gal. bucket / day I would be happy.. That is what you use correct.. and that will keep yours close to the firebrick after shaking?? what is your procedure from no fire at all to say like a 48 hour period. I would be curious to see what you do maybe I can learn something.. thanks and appreciate it..

I used to have a similar problem. search for my post in this thread. I only use the draft blower. Thats how you control the heat output. If you have spinners in the ash door your chimney now determines how hot and how much coal you burn. With that set up you better have a baro or your asking for an out of control coal fire.

jmbabl81 · By: **jmbabl81** On: Mon Jan 24, 2011 12:51 pm

ohiocoalburner wrote:Trial and error sounds like the best plan. Actually that is half the fun of burning anthracite, playing around with the stove until you get it right! I'm sure you will find a happy medium between coal use and temperature. The ash pan spinners will give you alot better draft control than I have using only the combustion fan damper. To be honest, since I got the stove running well this year I have made very few changes to it other than just tweaking the amount of draft to compensate for outside temperature. I just shake it twice a day and add coal I really have no special procedure for the first 48 hours either, it is no different than starting any other stove. I use match lite charcoal with a small amount of coal sprinkled on it. I get a good, strong fire going with the charcoal and look for yelllow flames from the coal. A lot of draft will help keep everything moving along. I add more coal and when I see it start burning add some more. Keep going until your up to the top of the firebrick, then cut the draft down to where your going to want it to run at. Shouldn't take more than an hour from start to finish.

It sounds like you have made a great amount of progress so far, much more than the first time I tried to burn anthracite in mine. I had used my Brunco for around 15 years with wood and a little bituminous coal (Which was a smokey,smelly mess!), but had friends tell me about the virtues of anthracite. I tried several times to burn it in the Brunco with absolutely zero luck. I was firmly convinced that the stove just would not burn anthracite no matter what Brunco said. After some of my children grew up and left home, I had less of a need to heat the downstairs of my house so I bought a Hitzer 503 insert for my fireplace to heat just the upstairs area. I got a few years coal burning under my belt with the Hitzer and really enjoyed using it, but this year one of my kids needed to move back in with us. I started looking at another stove to replace the Brunco, but thought I would give the Brunco one more try on anthracite (I'm really just cheap and didn't want to spend the money on a new stove). To my suprise it worked fine! I have been using it all winter and am planning on using it from now on, or at least until my daughter decides to move out again. A little experience and help from this wonderful forum (which I didn't know about the last time I tried) and you should be able to get back spending time with your wife in no time.

"The ash pan spinners will give you alot better draft control than I have using only the combustion fan damper." How does that control the draft? You might as well crack open the ashpan door. The brunco's design flaw is their pre historic thermastat that takes forever to turn on and off. The draft blower should be turning on and off to keep the fire where you need it. This is why I install the switching relay so I control the fire with a digital thermostat. With spinners in the ashpan door and the huge firebox be prepared to buy a lot of coal.

mudnut · By: **mudnut** On: Tue Nov 20, 2012 4:56 pm

Forgive me for necroposting...

I've ready this thread twice, and wondered what grizzly's outcome was. I also have a 150, currently burning wood, lots of wood, more than I thought I would and it's not even that cold here yet. I've decided to make the leap to coal, picking up 10 bags of Anth this weekend. I was going to have the ash door drilled for spinners but after reading the last post above I think I'll try just using the under grate blower to see how that works for me.

Any other advice from Brunco 150 owners?

brunco 150 spinner door pics

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