Introducing... my Glenwood No. 6 Base Heater

Welcome to the forum bluefire.
I could add that , if you have to leave an anthracite burning stove for all day long, it is probably more safe than a wood stove. Wood stoves have high heat peaks but ant burning has a steady heat output. You can easily have the same temp. for 12 Hrs on a load.
Lots have ant stoves in living rooms with no problem at all with dust. I find ant burning cleaner than my 20 Yrs+ of wood burning.
Find a good Glen. and you will understand why it is so fun to burn anthracite.

Excellent and encouraging info. Some years ago I used wood in our prior home, stove was a Vermont Castings Vigilant which went with the sale. These have the option of a "coal conversion kit" which I notice gets mixed reviews. What I am sensing is that a stove should be specifically engineered for coal as it seems very particular as to draft patterns. Plus these Victorian stoves are so sharp-looking they literally send a chill down your spine, with me at least. I will check tomorrow with a dealer as to current availability. I get on line several times a week but not necessarily each day so forgive me if I sometimes take a day or two to respond. Will advise as to how I make out locating a stove. Thanks.

Thanks nortcan I just mentioned to wsherrick that I also burned wood for awhile. I no longer have the time for cutting & splitting so coal seems very worth checking out. I'm very disillusioned with National Grid's performance during our two recent outages (S.E. Mass.) not to mention the price of oil so it's time to explore alternatives, & coal seems most logical. Will post how my I make out as far as locating a stove goes. Thank you for the info!

Actually the VC VigII makes a pretty good coal burner if done correctly. If you look at Nortcan's video's, you will see what the strengths and (repairable) shortcomings of the stove are and how to turn it into a very good coal stove.

If you want to go with an antique (Who could blame you!) then certainly check out member Stovehospital for whatever you might need. Emery can answer your questions and either has or can find the stove or range that you need. His site is antiquestovehospital.com. Also there are members like Meatball with an Oakland baseburner for sale in the classified section. Excellent stove and a nice deal too.

lobsterman wrote:Thanks. It is hard to capture the blue flames in there, but believe me it is very blue in there.

That's a beautiful thing there lobsterman after you Steve and Rick going on about the glennwood I may have to get one for the addition !
Once again a ting of beauty

dlj wrote:[Lobsterman,

I don't have the grate over the exhaust either. I'm not sure what it does. Maybe it was an option? I think it must help coal or wood from dropping down into the back baffles. I can't see any other function. The back elbow is a non-issue. Nice to have, the original has a sort of manual "baro" in it. I never used it...

The ring around the firepot however, is another issue. It also helps keep the sheet metal in that region from burning out. I can't really tell from your photos if the ceramic liner goes high enough to cover this or not. Looks like maybe not... The second problem is that without it being in place, the air flow doesn't work quite right. Many years ago, before I had figured out how all the bits and parts went together, I didn't have my ring in place. I would get some smell of the fire while running the stove. Now that was when I was only running wood, don't know about coal. But I'd just feel safer closing up the holes without having that ring in place. Once I figured out the ring and got it in place, no more smell...

I'd go over the joints with a fine tooth comb. One spot that is problematic is the joint right on the back of the stove where the back base burner flat top plate bolts to the stove body. That seal breaks easily. I've had to re-do mine just about every year. Now, maybe that's just my particular stove, I don't know. But I know on mine that's a seal I have to stay on top of. I've actually toyed with ideas of how to improve the original design.

Just my 2 cents worth...

dj

DJ- I'm a lurker and blossoming vintage stove addict who finally joined forum. Question: you say you have a problem with the joint where the baseburner back bolts to stove body. You also say the grate over the exhaust is missing. Are these issues related? In other words, what should be bolted together is the cast baseburner, the stove sheetmetal jacket, a rectangular piece of cast that matches rectangular shape of grate (place around exhaust opening on inside of stove), then the grate itself. So...the sheet metal of the stove jacket is firmly sandwiched/bolted between the cast iron of the backburner and the grate frame and grate ...i would think different expansion rates of jacket and cast would not matter due to it all being sandwiched together with 8 bolts.
I'm curious though... the grate has 8 holes matched with the 8 holes of the rectangular frame, jacket and cast baseburner assembly. However, on the frame that the grate sits over, there are 2 ears that fit in two slots of the grate and cotter pin in place holding grate.
Theory : maybe this all is geared for wood/coal flexibility. In other words, if using just coal-you need no grate. Just use frame to make the inside piece of "bread" for the stove jacket sandwich. If using wood, you can bolt on the grate/frame for this inside piece of "bread". However, if you indicate that you want to switch back and forth from wood to coal, you can just cotter pin the grate to the frame instead of bolting it and disturbing the whole assembly to remove grate. The problem with this theory is why would you want to remove grate? I can see you wanting to keep wood/bark/etc out of backburner assembly...but why would you remove it for coal? I don't know....but you can either bolt this grate in place or cotter pin it without the need for bolts...or both....I'm stumped.

pma wrote:DJ- I'm a lurker and blossoming vintage stove addict who finally joined forum. Question: you say you have a problem with the joint where the baseburner back bolts to stove body. You also say the grate over the exhaust is missing. Are these issues related? In other words, what should be bolted together is the cast baseburner, the stove sheetmetal jacket, a rectangular piece of cast that matches rectangular shape of grate (place around exhaust opening on inside of stove), then the grate itself. So...the sheet metal of the stove jacket is firmly sandwiched/bolted between the cast iron of the backburner and the grate frame and grate ...i would think different expansion rates of jacket and cast would not matter due to it all being sandwiched together with 8 bolts.
I'm curious though... the grate has 8 holes matched with the 8 holes of the rectangular frame, jacket and cast baseburner assembly. However, on the frame that the grate sits over, there are 2 ears that fit in two slots of the grate and cotter pin in place holding grate.
Theory : maybe this all is geared for wood/coal flexibility. In other words, if using just coal-you need no grate. Just use frame to make the inside piece of "bread" for the stove jacket sandwich. If using wood, you can bolt on the grate/frame for this inside piece of "bread". However, if you indicate that you want to switch back and forth from wood to coal, you can just cotter pin the grate to the frame instead of bolting it and disturbing the whole assembly to remove grate. The problem with this theory is why would you want to remove grate? I can see you wanting to keep wood/bark/etc out of backburner assembly...but why would you remove it for coal? I don't know....but you can either bolt this grate in place or cotter pin it without the need for bolts...or both....I'm stumped.

pma,

Perhaps the other way around from what you've described - perhaps you'd put the grate over the back for burning coal and take it out for wood. I never had problems burning wood with things falling down the back but I do from time to time get coal stuck in there and can't close the valve. I then have to open the top plate in the back and clear out the obstruction. I don't remember ever having that with wood... Why one might want to take it out for wood is to get as much space inside the stove to stuff it with wood when running overnight without tending. If that grate is anything but flush in the back, you would have some additional limit to both filling and allowing the wood to slide down while burning.

It might also have just been an option for either...

I don't see that missing this grate has anything to do with the seal on the back. There is a backing plate on the inside of the stove,as you point out, with the 8 through bolts. Seems the grate hangs off that plate so I don't see any additional support benefit...

dj

dlj wrote:pma,

Perhaps the other way around from what you've described - perhaps you'd put the grate over the back for burning coal and take it out for wood. I never had problems burning wood with things falling down the back but I do from time to time get coal stuck in there and can't close the valve. I then have to open the top plate in the back and clear out the obstruction. I don't remember ever having that with wood... Why one might want to take it out for wood is to get as much space inside the stove to stuff it with wood when running overnight without tending. If that grate is anything but flush in the back, you would have some additional limit to both filling and allowing the wood to slide down while burning.

It might also have just been an option for either...

I don't see that missing this grate has anything to do with the seal on the back. There is a backing plate on the inside of the stove,as you point out, with the 8 through bolts. Seems the grate hangs off that plate so I don't see any additional support benefit...

dj

-didn't realize coal falling into backburner backpipe would be a problem-you may be right about coal related grate function.
Don't think grate would be an obstruction to wood though- it's pretty flush. In fact the two tabs on your backing plate that the grate sits onto (assume you have these tabs) stick out further than the grate itself. I'm still baffled that you can bolt grate to backplate/jacket/backpipe AND/or cotter pin it securely in place onto the two tabs of the backing plate....seems reduntant


- I didn't know if you were missing the backing plate along with the grate or not. Some of these stove pics here...forget which ones, are showing stove backpipe just bolted to jacket with no backing plate....in which case, I could see sealing problems.

pma wrote:-didn't realize coal falling into backburner backpipe would be a problem-you may be right about coal related grate function.
Don't think grate would be an obstruction to wood though- it's pretty flush. In fact the two tabs on your backing plate that the grate sits onto (assume you have these tabs) stick out further than the grate itself. I'm still baffled that you can bolt grate to backplate/jacket/backpipe AND/or cotter pin it securely in place onto the two tabs of the backing plate....seems reduntant

- I didn't know if you were missing the backing plate along with the grate or not. Some of these stove pics here...forget which ones, are showing stove backpipe just bolted to jacket with no backing plate....in which case, I could see sealing problems.

pma,

Sounds more and more like the grate in the back was an option. I do have the tabs.

I don't think I'd spend much time thinking about the redundancy, that was much more common back then. Especially if the back grate was an option. Certainly if I didn't have the backing plate, that could be part of the seal problem. My backing plate is original in cast iron. It's in quite good shape. I took it apart last year and did a re-seal on that back joint and then bolted it back together. I was surprised at how good a condition my backing plate was in - I was expecting much worse... I mean, the stove is about 100 years old and that location takes a lot of heat...

dj

Welcome to the forum pma. Bout time you signed up!

lobsterman wrote:Here she is, cleaned up a bit, back together sitting in the kitchen.

I am envious, that is the kind of stove I was looking for! Congratulations, it is a beautiful stove!

12 degrees this morning and no power since Friday evening the No. 6 is a workhorse now!

12 degrees this morning and no power since Friday evening the No. 6 is a workhorse now!

lobsterman wrote:12 degrees this morning and no power since Friday evening the No. 6 is a workhorse now!

Now that is cold out your way! We get it all the time, but not on the Cape... Hope your #6 is kicking out the heat. Mine sure is - running about 525 on the side therometer, 175 on the chimney pipe and keeping the house at about 73 right now.. Hope you get your power back soon.

dj

Yep, I ran her pretty good, not crazy hot, about 50 lbs a day, shaking twice and topping off between shakes, around 400 or so. Primaries mostly open, MPD fully closed, burn rate then dominated by ash build up on the grates, i.e. how aggressively I shake and perhaps to some extent the quality of the coal. Hey its black and it burns! Power back now and 45 degrees forecast for tomorrow so bringing her back down to a gentle purr. Gotta love the No. 6. Best part is drying out the gear.