HURRY! OPEN THE DOORS AND TURN ON THE FAN!

What you have is some good WV bituminous coal. The size is good and by the "free-burning" look of things the coal is decent. Two problems: 1. The stove is not a great bituminous stove, but will probably burn it just fine. 2. this is most important, with that much smoke coming out of the stove into the house you have a serious draft/flow issue that irrelevent to the type (anthracite or bituminous) coal that you are burning, if it were anthracite, you would simply be getting invisible CO in the house every time you load it instead of visible smoke.

Your chimney is either too short, too small, or obstructed. if you have ANY type of chimney cap, especially with mesh in it REMOVE IT. if you have a chimney that is low or lower than the highest point of your home, extend it. if your stove has less than an 8" diameter connecting pipe between the stove and the flue, use an 8" pipe all the way to the chimney and reduce it to the size of the flue exit of the stove with a reducer immediately after the stove - this will increase maximum flow capacity to help prevent smoke and CO escaping during reloading, but it will not fix the problem if the issue is a small (6" or less) flue or a flue that is too short or a flue with any kind of cap on it. If you have any more questions feel free to ask, but it will help us make reccomendations if you have detailed pics of the connecting pipe, the chimney diameter and the chimney outside of the home.

Also, you don't want an extremely hot coalbed before you refuel with bituminous coal, in a stove like that designed for anthracite, it will simply cause the coal to release it's volitiles far to quickly while you're reloading it.

That is definately bit coal,not anthracite.

Anthracite burns with a blue or blue-white flame.. with no smoke or maybe a tiny amount of white steam for a few seconds..

Bituminous smokes like a smoke bomb or tear-gas cartridge. If you add a piece of Bituminous coal on top of a bed of hot coals, the Bit coal
will smoke like crazy.. it will burn with an orange-red flame with a thick sooty smoke.

What you describe and what you show in the photos does not look like or sound like Anthracite coal..

Bit coal WILL eventually burn off all the volitiles [this is the smoke and red sooty flames] once the volitiles have burnt off, then the remaining coal
will burn relatively smoke free, and look and act more like anthracite coal..

So it's not unlikely that you did have a few loads of this coal burn fairly smoke free, after it burnt off the volitiles.

Hope this helps..
Greg L

The "Red Ash" also called Douglas or Douglas Red Ash is a seam of bituminous coal mined in Southern West Virginia.

ok. i cleaned the stove really well with a shop vac and wire brush. here are pics of my coal. when i drop it from a height of 4 feet it does not crack. its shiny. its hard. is this bituminous?

do you start your wood fire under the coal grate as i've been doing? or on the grate and then add coal on top?

LsFarm wrote:Anthracite burns with a blue or blue-white flame.. with no smoke or maybe a tiny amount of white steam for a few seconds..

Bituminous smokes like a smoke bomb or tear-gas cartridge. If you add a piece of Bituminous coal on top of a bed of hot coals, the Bit coal
will smoke like crazy.. it will burn with an orange-red flame with a thick sooty smoke.

What you describe and what you show in the photos does not look like or sound like Anthracite coal..

Bit coal WILL eventually burn off all the volitiles [this is the smoke and red sooty flames] once the volitiles have burnt off, then the remaining coal
will burn relatively smoke free, and look and act more like anthracite coal..

So it's not unlikely that you did have a few loads of this coal burn fairly smoke free, after it burnt off the volitiles.

Hope this helps..
Greg L

just saw this post.
that does help. thanks.

Berlin wrote: if your stove has less than an 8" diameter connecting pipe between the stove and the flue, use an 8" pipe all the way to the chimney and reduce it to the size of the flue exit of the stove with a reducer immediately after the stove - this will increase maximum flow capacity to help prevent smoke and CO escaping during reloading, but it will not fix the problem if the issue is a small (6" or less) flue or a flue that is too short or a flue with any kind of cap on it. If you have any more questions feel free to ask, but it will help us make reccomendations if you have detailed pics of the connecting pipe, the chimney diameter and the chimney outside of the home.

Also, you don't want an extremely hot coalbed before you refuel with bituminous coal, in a stove like that designed for anthracite, it will simply cause the coal to release it's volitiles far to quickly while you're reloading it.

the flue attachment is 6" or less. the chimney is the highest point of the house. here are some pics. i am confused about what you said about reducing it to the size of the flue exit of the stove with a reducer immediately after the stove. is this what i have now?

thanks.

Hmmm, you say you live in Charlotte North Carolina.....whats the temperature there now. I don't see any snow on your roof picture. If it's above 40 degrees your going to have one tuff time getting things to work the way they do up north. Even up north keeping a fire going at 40 degrees is a challenge at best.

I'm not familiar with your type stove, but in mine I start the wood fire on the grates and add anthracite coal on top of the wood fire. I would think bit coal would be the same.

Although it will depend on your stove/chimney setup and draft, I don't have any trouble starting or keeping a fire above 40*. We hit 46* today at one point and the coal fire has been cooking along very well.

You have Godin stove with a metric approx 4.25" outlet flanged up to 6". It appears you live in a one story home so your chimney is quite short? Is this correct? It also appears you have a 8" clay flue. It is really hard to keep a good draft burning coal with this arrangement. Wood would easily draft but coal requires more strict guidelines.

Coal burns cooler thus the draft decreases not allowing the smoke to rise. A narrower flue the entire length would help. Cold outside temps help too. Below 35F.

yes, you have a reducer before the stove now. with that size flue outlet on the stove and with that short of a chimney (ranch house, low pitch on the roof, stack height from thimble to exit is probably close to 10' this is not enough) you will never be able to generate the flow needed to keep fumes out of the house with any coal or wood. with bituminous coal you do NOT want to reduce the size of the chimney - 6" is barely adequate and 8" is really what's necessary. the stove is designed for use with more draft than your chimney will generate. and yes you DO have bituminous coal, as many have mentioned there is no question about that.

Btw, thanks for the pics, this helps explain things as we can see your setup and I was not familiar with that particular stove.

Solutions - 1. extend the chimney another 5' minimum (may be impractical due to the height of the house and aesthetics) 2. Knock out that thimble and replace with larger thimble that will allow a 7 or 8" flue pipe to be extended all the way to the flue thus keeping interior dimensions around 7" minimum. 3. Use a different stove, that's an anthracite stove and will not burn bituminous coal well with such small flue outlets and passages - I was initially wrong about the stove, It will NEVER burn bit coal well now that I see the small flue outlets and passages. 4. put the stove closer to the thimble and have as little connecting pipe as possible between the stack and the stove.

Until you are willing to do these things you will continue having smoke, soot, and CO in the home.

There appears to be gaps around the stove pipe where it enters the thimble in wall. Could be affecting the draft.

I would suggest investing in a different stove. While that is a nice looking stove, I think it is not the best choice for what you have for a chimney and economical fuel. Also, you will have a very rough time (near impossible) getting Bit coal to burn in that stove. Good Anthracite coal and make sure what you have for a chimney is in the best shape it can be and it would probably work fine. Although Anthracite coal down there is probably pretty expensive.

thanks for all the info. now i am looking for supplies. i was hoping to install the flue liner myself. is this do-able?

what are you installing a flue liner for? This is NOT going to solve your problem, look to my post above for possible solutions - flue liner will make it WORSE. What you have is a lack of capacity and draft because your chimney is too short and your stove has an excessively small flue outlet. Get a different stove and raise the height of your chimney a few feet, then use at least an 8" connecting pipe all the way between the flue and your different stove. that stove will not burn bituminous properly with it's small flue outlet.