Need Coal Stove Advice

My opinion is you would be better off connecting whatever coal device you choose into the duct system and use the blower from the propane furnace to distribute it. The heat will not get lost in the ducts. With a well insulated new home and a well tended coal device, your ppropane bill should be limited to whatever else you use propane for.
Is your water heater propane also?. Then consider a coal boiler with water to air heat exchanger for your heat and a domestic water coil or indirect water heater for your domestic water.
If you don't go the boiler route, get a furnace or stove designed to connect to your duct system. It's nice to disappoint the oil or gas man.

By the way, in most areas, it's a violation of fire code to cut openings in the basement ceiling to the first floor to let heat up unless you install fire damper type registers.

I'll ditto that. Anything you do with coal in your basement will improve it and the first floor. Your homes feel will change considerably. You want a furnace or better, say goodbye to propane. But a stove will warm the basement and first floor very well too. How comfortable/amount of work/ costs, are you looking for?

Like coalkirk, I prefer the "total home" solution. If you have a big hot water demand than the furnace/boiler is an absolute. Furnaces can be had w/hot water coils. A stoker boiler is the cats meow as it can store a significant amount of heat for a while. This makes heating with coal easier in the warmer months.

I had your problem. Note: Past tense!!! When I wrote the propane company a check for $800 last March, I made a decision to do something, radical if necessary, to keep from going broke writing checks for propane while trying to keep warm. I'm heating a 4000 sq ft colonial in southern New Hampshire. My existing FHA propane system made sense in 1999 when I built the house; and, propane was approximately $0.50 per gallon. At $2.00+ per gallon, I had to take action.

After looking a pellet stoves, furnaces, and boilers, I came to my senses and decided to go coal. Especially after "Googling" the keyword COAL and discovering this forum. This forum is a wealth of knowledge on heating with coal; and, all the technical issues a "newbie" coal burner will run into. Thanks again all you coal burners out there!!

I weighed the choice of going with a coal FHA furnace; or, a coal boiler. The furnace route requires duct work to integrate your cold air return and hot air supply. The boiler route requires a significant amount of plumbing and a heat exchanger integrated into your existing air plenum. I found going the coal furnace route made more sense; because, a coal boiler would cost roughly $2000.00 more and the installation would have been expensive too---significantly more expensive than what I spent on duct work.

I also ran into problems finding a professional installer willing to take on this type of job. I drew up some pretty good drawings/scetches of what I wanted to accomplish; and, every time the installers would scoff at the coal approach and try to sell me a new higher efficiency oil/propane furnace to "save money."

Fortunately, I found a great coal stove dealer who really helped me out with excellent advice. I ended up with a Keystoker Koker with domestic hot water coil. I luckily found a duct work/sheet metal guy who was looking for some "moonlighting" work. Now I'm stocked with 8.4 tons of rice coal, the Koker has the blue flames dancing, and I'm sitting in my warm basement in a tee shirt. Come on winter---give me your best shot! I'm ready!!

I think you are definitely better off to atp into the your duct work. A boiler with a water air heat exchanger or a stove or furnace with a hot air jacket, like a leisure line hyfire I or II or Alaska 140. I saw a hyfire II with a jacket on it yesterday and to say the least it is impressive. With the Hyfire the coaltrol can control the fan on your existing furnace as well. Leisure line also offer a 10 " or 12" duct top option which has an option for aninline duct fan

Hello devilmatman. welcome to the forum The replies above are all good, and I would say that if you want to go the best way first, with price not an issue, I'd go with a coal boiler, use the hot water to run Pex under your main floor, creating a warm great-room above. This should eliminate the cold feet. The put in a water/air heat exchanger in your ductwork for heating the rest of the house. The boiler would also heat your domestic hot water, eliminating your propane bill except for cooking, clothes dryer, and summer domestic hot water.

Trying to heat an open floor plan, especially a two story one with hot air is a recipe for expensive heat bills. Heating the floor of this room will greatly reduce the cost, and increase comfort. I'm a big fan of radiant floor heating. IT WORKS.

However you may not want to go 'whole-hog' right now. So let me ask a few questions.
You mention stove direct vented, do you have a chimney??
Is the basement finished with a finished ceiling, or is it open floor joists?
Are you handy with projects like plumbing and ductwork??

I think you can put in a radiant/convective stove, and gain a lot. But to get whole house comfort you will need to tie into your ductwork. You can with a little thought and innovation make most stoker stoves that have distribution fans act like a small furnace. OR you can go ahead and buy a coal furnace.

If you are a do-it-yourselfer, I'd look around for a good used stove or boiler, or a radiant/convective stoker. If you buy a stove at a good price you could use it for this season, get a feel for what is working or not working for you, and sell the stove if it doesn't fill your needs.

Just some food for thought.

Greg L

Gentlemen,

Thanks for the replies. It is tough, as I am sure everyone knows, to make a decision that will cut down on your heating bills, make your winter life more comfortable, and achieve all of that at an expense that you can handle.
Our basement is not finished (open floor joists). We do not have a chimney other than the one that was installed with our LP insert fireplace (located in the great room). I wouldn't think we would be able to tap into that chimney.
As far as being handy, I do have a couple of friends that are known for being jack of all trades. In this case, I would work along side of them. If we go with a radiant-convective stoker, I understand we would be able to use our existing ductwork but what about the blower on my current LP furnace? Greg, you mentioned going with a coal boiler and then running Pex under the first floor - any idea, off the top of your head, how expensive this route would be? Is a boiler in the same neighborhood as a radiant stove etc. Thanks for everything - just trying to learn as I go and make the best informed decision to reach our objective.

Eric
Western NY

Hello Eric, do a google search for 'radiant floor heating' I'm not up on current prices for pex, mounting plates and insulation. But it is the 'cadilac' of home heating. There is nothing like having warm feet, and NOT having the air in the upper 1/3 of the room's airspace so hot your hair is crisp and your lips chapped. This is how I characterize hot air heat.

I love radiant floor heat so much that it is what I use to heat my 40'x60' shop/toybox. I burried plastic tubing in the concrete floor when I poured it, and keep the shop floor at about 45-50*, it is amazing how comfortable the place is to work in. Warm feet=warm body.

Betwwn the joists, under the floor heating usually uses pex tubing to conduct the hot water, and an aluminum radiant shield to spread out the radiant heat over a larger area, and to direct [radiate] the heat at the underside of the subflooring. Then you insulate the space beween the joists with a radiant layer facing up, into the space, again to trap the heat up against the underside of the subfloor.

I have a good friend who took out his wood burning furnace, that was built into his original ductwork, installed a wood burning gasification boiler in an outbuilding. He put in the between the joists radiant like I described under his first level floor. Then for the basement floor, he poured a new 2" concrete floor over the old with burried pex tubing. He tells me about how much his family LOVES the new heat system so much, they all walk around barefoot during the winter, where before they had to wear insulated 'inhouse' shoes all the time.

If you can't find enough to keep yourself busy reading for hours or days from a google search, PM me with your email address and I may still have some old info stashed on this 'puter that I can send you.

OK, that was for the super-duper hot water heated floor..

You can't really use the big fan from your hot air ductwork and propane furnace. It moves too much air too fast. Some fans have several speed settings, and if your's has this and you can slow it down enough, then you may be able to get creative with ductwork, stove enclosures, and make a coal stove into a supplemental ducted heat source.

If you try to move too much air too fast over too small of a heat source, you will get only luke-warm air. This luke-warm air feels cool to the body because of the cooling effect of a breeze or moving air. If you slow down the air flow rate, the air can get warmer as it passes over the heat source slower, and the cooling effect of the moving air is also reduced.

You may be able to find some interesting info on LeisureLine's website, they make some larger stoker heaters that lend themselves to ductwork systems. http://www.leisurelinestoves.com

If you are creative you can make ductwork for any stove. But I'd not expect to completely replace your current heat system Only supplement it. During a subzero night with a strong wind, you will probably still burn some propane. Unless you went with the whole-hog coal boiler treatment.

Can you install a masonry chimney on your house, so that you can go with a boiler system, or a regular draft coal burning appliance? If a direct vent or powered vent system is the only option, this may limit your choices some.

Hope this rambling reply helps

Greg L.

I don't know how far western ny you are, but in Ovid there is a dealer called Holden Coal. They probably have a Hyfire II and a heat jacket in stock, and would probably install it for you.