Re-Install 1980 Godin Large Round or Go New?

Hey Cliff-

I found this bookmark today. Maybe helpful to you.

http://www.drolet.ca/replacement-parts.aspx

Thanks Cap. Everything has been working pretty well with the setup as is, but it's good info to have.

Cap wrote:Hey Cliff-

I found this bookmark today. Maybe helpful to you.

http://www.drolet.ca/replacement-parts.aspx

Glad the stove is working well for you. I burned coal in mine for the first time (for me) this evening and it works well. I was able to obtain some coal from someone who had it in their basement from a previous owner/furnace. I don't know if it's anthracite or bituminous--how can you tell by looking? In any case, it burns nicely and I'm looking forward to some more burns. I will get a CO monitor tomorrow; I'll be more comfortable with overnight burns.

Glad the stove is working for you. We have been _loving_ it during the past week since the day temps have been in the 40s and 30s at night. Now that I am getting used to it, I can get a 12+ hour burn out of about 1/2 of a 6 gallon bucket, keeping the house easily about 72* most of the time. We do get the "bridging" that is discussed in other godin threads where after I shake it down, the hot coals are "stuck" above the door. I go in through the top with a long metal rod and poke down to get the bridge to collapse and then complete the shake down.

I've calculated that I should get about 100 6-gal buckets of coal out of the two tons I had delivered and I'm burning about a bucket per day, so I should get to mid Feb on this load. I will probably need another ton to finish out the season.

I don't know about the anthracite vs. bituminous question, but I'm sure a quick search of this site could get you an answer.

Thanks, I think I found my answer to the bituminous or anthracite question. I have to knock it with a hammer to find out (anthracite shatters, bituminous crumbles). I'll do that tomorrow. Not cold enough for a fire today. Last year most of my burning was in January and February.

Julie wrote:Thanks, I think I found my answer to the bituminous or anthracite question. I have to knock it with a hammer to find out (anthracite shatters, bituminous crumbles). I'll do that tomorrow. Not cold enough for a fire today. Last year most of my burning was in January and February.

It is very easy to tell Bituminous coal from Anthracite by the way it burns. Bituminous lights quickly and produces long, bright yellow, smoky flames after it gets going. Anthracite sits in the stove and begins to glow red just like charcoal and when first ignited produces a blue flame similar to the color of natural gas. Anthracite also produces no visible smoke at all.

I didn't pay much attention to the color when I burned the coal the other night, but I don't think it was blue and it did seem to ignite pretty fast (I added it to very hot wood coals). The stove has a very small mica window, and it's not terribly clean. Since it was night, I didn't go outside to see if smoke was pouring out my chimney, but the next cold day, I will do that test. In the meantime, I will do the hammer test after work today.

If anyone knows where to get anthracite in central Virginia, let me know! Thanks for all the great information. I've learned alot here.

Julie...
Check out the Virginia community there is probably some coal resources listed there, if not the other Virginian's would be able to help.

Welcome to the forum.

Thanks for the welcome. I will check out the Virginia community. Today is finally cold enough to burn in daytime hours (30s all day), so I fired up the stove...and my coal is definitely bituminous (bummer!). The smoke coming out of my chimney is yellow and thick, and it's pretty stinky. The coal burns bright orange and fires up quickly. Luckily most of my neighbors are away at work, so they won't complain about it today, but I'll likely stick with wood until I can get some anthracite, which I'm finding is quite tricky around here since it's mined up north.

This coal was free, and it heats my house, so I'm not complaining too much. But luckily I have less than a garbage-can full, so I'm not stuck with a big load of coal that I don't want to burn. I'm enjoying the warmth inside, but I'm no doubt responsible for an acrid stench in the neighborhood! Oh well, I'll keep looking.

Update to my previous post: After a few hours, my stove is hot (500) and there is no smoke visible from the chimney. The yellow smoke was just at the beginning of the burn. My house is comfy and the heatpump does not have to work (burning alot worse coal than what I've got in my stove). And I don't have to add logs every hour since I'm burning coal, which lasts alot longer than wood .

Hey all,

Just wanted to give you an update on how the stove has been working. It sure has been cold over the past few weeks (well teens, which is cold for LI), so we're really getting a chance to see how much heat she gives. My normal feeding schedules is to clean out the stove and re-load up to about 2/3 of the height (a couple inches below the flu outlet) in the morning (around 6am). That squashes the temp in the stove from about 250 on the stack down to 100-ish and it can take a couple of hours for the temp to come back up, but then it will stay there all day with the air control set about 1 turn out. Then I come home and add about another 6 inches of coal around 4 pm. Finally, I'll clean it out again and reload somewhere between 8 and 10 pm for the night. We have been running like this for over a month straight and it is very easy to manage and control the heat.

My clean out procedure has changed a bit. Like others I realized that using the "shaking grate" to get rid of the ashes is just too loud and inefficient. Even with poking from the top, I found that I was leaving a lot of ash which made it easier to loose the burn when it got low. My new procedure is to shake down with the grate just a few times, then I open the door, lower the swing-down grate, and shovel out the firebox. Since the coal "bridges", I can clear the entire space with a few shovels before the embers drop down. I know this has the potential to be dangerous, but I hold the ash pan in front of the lowered grate so if the embers did start to come out, I would just catch them. I've done this at least 40 times now and have never had a problem. Once I get the space clean, I close the grate and the door, then open the lid, scrape around the edges of the hot embers so they drop down. At this point I'll usually have a nice base of 3+ inches to add the fresh load to. Good for another 10-12 hours depending on burn speed and fill level.

So there you have it. We love this stove... it had been heating our older small drafty house for the entire winter so far without having our oil-fired forced hot air kicking on at all. Well worth the investment in the chimney pipe and the hassle of getting the permit... which we now have in hand.

Have a nice winter (just snowed 12" here) and stay warm,
Scott

AWESOME!...dont get any better than that.

Good method for you, nice installation , you made a very nice base for the nice stove you have Stay warm.
nortcan