Hot Air Jacket vs AnthraKing!

In this environment you either evolve or die. Anthraking is an evolution and I can't wait to get one fired up. Oil is a goner (at least for me on my budget), firewood getting scarce as will pellets be when people wake up and try to fill their oil tanks. In NYS you can't truck firewood more than 50 miles or the DEC will fine you big time. Solar, wind, geothermal.... stop it I will bust a rib laughing... hi Fred, I hope you are still digging fella - 8" in a day was a poor effort . The major problem facing most people in the NE is energy - OK, you NEPA boys will be OK. There will be more major population shifts from ME, NH and upper NYS. It's simple no energy, no industry, no jobs but in Berwick there are better and better stoves. Let's pray our stove makers make it BIG time. I have a local ag business than has to run under cover all year down the road from me. They are going (or have already gone) bankrupt due to heating costs (HO). I can buy them, heat with anthracite and make money and turn things around. As I said evolve or die. There must be a thousand businesses around here in that situation. In Berwick they have the American spirit we need to follow.

As Fred says - when you feel like dying - don't.

Good value is always great but the capital cost of a stove (any of them) is such a small part of a complex equation. Simply put, I hope my AnthraKing will save me burning 1000 gall of HO from Sept to May. So if oil stays where it is the capital cost of buying and installing is paid in one year. So whether the stove cost me $3500 or $3200 does not matter as long as you can scrape up the cash of course. So for MY APPLICATION (and no the CapsLock key is not stuck) the AnthraKing is King. Key points - efficiency, controlabiity through the coal trol (I hated 104F spring days even with the windowstats going) and cheap and quick to install. Most importantly with the brilliantly integrated squirel cage fan it quietly delivers the heat where I need it. Sorry hydronics boys, with copper at $4 a pound I am not listening, this is the one for me. Of course, a real bitchen winter has the habit of changing a lot of our views on a lot of things. - we will see. Spring could come and see me wimpering back to the board for guidance on the installation of a hydronic system. I'm installed and ready to go - so let's bring it on, just not yet a while - summer at last is fun.

Mark, seems like you have a good situation. I am on a steep hill and the oil furnace is in a 1870 deep sub basement where the oil CH goes (I think they used to hide slaves there -and you think I am joking) .Two problems, one I would have to run coal down there either manually or have a hopper system and that happens to be every tough for me logistically. You would need to widen the stairs and with 18" walls that would be tough. Second, I even can't imagine even getting the ashes out in the winter with one bad leg and being 66. However, in the old garage on the first floor half way down the hill I can easily handle things with Bobcats, Caterpillars etc. The house is Victorian with 6x8" hand hewn on 8" centers insulated with horse hair. So the AnthraKing is backed into a 5 ton A/C system that feeds the ground floor. It's already there with an extra 14" air intake now ( you need 14" for best air flow at 1800cfm (quiet) , all bought and paid for. So I installed the AnthraKing in two hours start to finish (powervent). As I rebuilt the house I opened up everywhere for convection heating and the Pocos last winter did very well - NO HO burned and I was toasty warm. Lastly, a total hydronic system in a 7000' house would be a EFM 700 or 900 hence 8x12 or 12x12 flu. This does not work on my 55' beautiful brick chimney and a block chimney would look like a pigs ear. So you see I always preface the statements with MY APPLICATION. The cost would be astronomic, I looked into it and it would screw up the living arrangements. This system works incredibly well and anyway I do not believe in coupled systems there is no logic in it FOR ME but that is another long post. Hey, you guys anybody from this board is welcome to come over for a beer (Fred, that's one beer only) and critique my install. I always love to learn.

Reminds me of any bureaucratic organization. The University of Nebraska started a good service about 50 years ago testing real (not manufacturer imagined) tractor performance output. It grew and grew and became more and more expensive with less and less testing and now the cost is astronomic. So nobody bothers except Deere and the administration has to find a new way to pay for the lear jet.Deere pays for it my making any Deere tractor more than a few years old obsolete and so you can't get parts and you need a new tractor. I don't expect you to comment Dave.