A challenge to anthracite stove makers

http://nepacrossroads.com/about18967.html

Francob, here you are. Look on this thread and look at the interior of this base burner. Here in the view from the top of the stove you can see the internally suspended fire pot. the outer circle at the top of the fire pot which looks like a grate is a register for the exhaust gasses to be pulled downward around the outer perimeter of the fire pot on their way down to the base heating chamber. The gasses finially exit upward through the back pipe in the rear.
These stoves hold the firebed temperature above the iginition point of fixed carbon for the entire combustion cycle. These stoves burn the fuel totally until there is nothing and I mean nothing left, and this is aided by the gas recirculation feature which allows a partial return of exhaust gas to enter under the grate to be reburned.

I have a VC Vigilant II and it burns great and almost heats the whole house (3000sf). I have it in my living room so i wanted sometime fairly good looking. I am thinking about building a new home (smaller) and would put a coal stove in the basement with vents to the rooms. I am open to other stoves but would be hard pressed not to go with the Vigilant II because it works so well, easy to clean.

I have told my son if he gets a home i would buy him a coal stove, not a Vigilant II, just to try a different stove that i read about on this forum. I also told him if wasn't as good we would sell it and get a Vigilant II. I would try a older baseburner or any stove that worked well. The looks wouldn't matter in the basement.

franco b wrote:

wsherrick wrote:http://nepacrossroads.com/about18967.html

Francob, here you are. Look on this thread and look at the interior of this base burner. Here in the view from the top of the stove you can see the internally suspended fire pot. the outer circle at the top of the fire pot which looks like a grate is a register for the exhaust gasses to be pulled downward around the outer perimeter of the fire pot on their way down to the base heating chamber. The gasses finally exit upward through the back pipe in the rear.
These stoves hold the firebed temperature above the ignition point of fixed carbon for the entire combustion cycle. These stoves burn the fuel totally until there is nothing and I mean nothing left, and this is aided by the gas recirculation feature which allows a partial return of exhaust gas to enter under the grate to be reburned.

Very interesting indeed. If the gasses are exhausted down around the fire pot then the only heat the upper barrel of the stove will receive is radiant heat from the fire when in base burner mode. Is this correct? If this is so then it leads to the next question which is what part of a coal fire gives off the most heat? The flue gas or the radiant energy of the fire? I wonder what the proportions are.

I guess it would depend on how strong the down draft is. The exhaust gas in my stove doesn't go straight to the exhaust opening when it is in base burner mode. I've watched it carefully, the flames go upward and sort of twirl around like a blue dust devil. I believe the agitation from the hot blast ring has something to do with the circular motion of the flames. If the stove is in direct draft you see a definite horizontal movement toward the exhaust opening. At any rate we'll find out next winter because I plan to either have the Andes restored and running or have a Glenwood No 111 up in the living room. I think it will be fun and informative to test various versions of base burners. My little parlor stove will earn a well deserved rest for a while. It will be another excuse to collect stoves and write about how well they perform.

franco b wrote:So many stoves, so few chimneys. This winter I have had four different stoves running. Two upstairs and two downstairs.

So, when are we going to get some in depth information about these stoves for the data base.

franco b wrote:So many stoves, so few chimneys. This winter I have had four different stoves running. Two upstairs and two downstairs.

Franco, I would be very happy to see all these stoves. Like everybody here, we like photos...
Thanks

I am not sure about the other stove makers, but we have enough of a challenge just keeping up with rising steel prices. Whatever stove you are thinking of buying don't wait till the fall. Our steel went up about 40% in the past couple months . I am sure everyone will be feeling it sooner or later.

Flyer5 wrote:I am not sure about the other stove makers, but we have enough of a challenge just keeping up with rising steel prices. Whatever stove you are thinking of buying don't wait till the fall. Our steel went up about 40% in the past couple months . I am sure everyone will be feeling it sooner or later.

The BRAND NEW stove I'm waiting for does't exist now. This answer is my personnal one only.
nortcan

Flyer5 wrote:.......... Our steel went up about 40% in the past couple months . I am sure everyone will be feeling it sooner or later.

I can believe that. Looking at parts for Japanese motorcycles the other day ....... as of last year bearing prices were up 40% .... now I think they've gone up AT LEAST another 50%!


Bad time to be restoring bikes .... Glad I did the RD last year!

So the antique stoves will become the best buy option.

franco b wrote:Here are the four stoves.

After William and Nortcan have shown us so many clever stoves the question I have is why did they die out in favor of very ordinary designs? My own thought is that with their complications, maybe they required too much effort on the part of average buyers who just wanted something to dump fuel in and not have to think about cleaning complex flue passages and special settings. Price might also have been too high. Also by the 1920s the fashion seemed to shift to convector style stoves. I installed a stove in a friends 1793 house. There were openings for four stoves in the one chimney, two upstairs and two downstairs. I had to seal three of these. Maybe stoves with extended flue passages would not draft well with four on one chimney. What are your thoughts?

The answer to the historical question is fairly easy. American Architectural history is a great interest of mine. I used to consult people about old houses. The modern world we live in now began to take shape in the 1870's and by the 1920's had fully arrived. Almost every major appliance we have now was commercially available by the mid 1920's. The only things left out still was home air conditioning which came in the 40's, microwaves which came in the 70's and home computers which came in the 80's. Central heating was commonly available to the very wealthy by 1880 and the norm by 1920. The parlor stove by 1925 was old fashioned as even low to moderate priced suburban homes all had central heat of some kind. A grand Base Burner which you still could get then was no longer a status symbol or example of modernity. Anthracite coal was always a fuel for the better off and by the 20's the better off was burning it in the basement. This left the market in the rural and small towns where the brave new world hadn't quite reached yet. Those people burned bituminous and stoves that were priced for them were what was left to sell. Of course rural and small town people wanted to be up to date too so stoves that looked like radios or victrolas sold. These stoves were made for bituminous and were low priced thus the brilliantly designed, beautiful oak stoves, base burners and their golden era came to an end.
The fuel crisis of the 70's brought back a resurgance of the wood stove industry without respect or knowledge of what was already done decades before and the 1970's concept of, "cheap heat," is what we have as a standard of practice in stove building today. A wood stove with some grates and some bricks thrown in it became a, "coal stove."

I challenge anthracite stove makers to make functional, good looking stoves designed for bituminous coal!