What Type of Stoker in a New House

I'm begining the process of building a new house. I'm leaning towards using a coal stoker as a supplemental heat source that I will tie into my cold air return. The house will be aobut 2300 sqft excluding the basement. I'm looking at the leisure hyfire or pocono. Does anyone have any experience with these or suggest other models? I'm OK heating the basement and allowing the heat to rise and heat the floor on the first level. I know its hard to estimate but could anyone give me an idea on how much coal I might burn in a typical winter if I keep the house at 68/69?

Thanks for the input.
Xpress23

As far as the coal usage, you'd have to tell us where you are so that someone in the area could provide their usage and describe what they are heating.

Even so, each house will perform differently, but it should get you an estimate within a ton or two.

Regarding your choice of a furnace, I am sure the consensus here will be to design in a coal boiler as your primary heat and have oil or propane as your backup.

How far along are you in the building process? Have you already committed to the home design and heating system?

xpress23 wrote:I know its hard to estimate but could anyone give me an idea on how much coal I might burn in a typical winter if I keep the house at 68/69?

That is impossible to answer. A 2300 sq. ft house full of windows will have more heat loss than one with less glass, wind exposure makes a huge difference, and naturally... latitude.

titleist1 wrote:Regarding your choice of a furnace, I am sure the consensus here will be to design in a coal boiler as your primary heat and have oil or propane as your backup.

If I was building a new home, it would absolutely have a coal boiler with radiant heat in the basement floor, bathrooms, and probably copper-fin baseboard in the rest of the house...but that's just me.

You can install a stove like you've already mentioned, a coal-burning furnace such as those offered by Keystoker (they make them duel fuel as well), or Leisure Line. The Anthraking offered by Leisure Line is relatively new to the market, but it sure looks like an impressive machine.

Another option is to install a coal boiler with a water to air heat exchanger in your main ductwork. The advantage of this setup is that you can produce your domestic hot water with the boiler, and add hydronic zones if you want. There is another thread running with some information this topic, happy reading: Need Some Advice on Funaces

i live in southeast pa and have a Harman magnum located in finished basement,last winter I heated approximately 27,000 sq. ft to 68-70 deg. upstairs temp. and used 3 1/2 tons of rice

Every heating situation is different, different insulation/heat loss factors, windows, size, stoves, location, etc....
one cannot tell you the exact amount of coal usage. What works for one for the same size house, may not work for someone else, may be more, may be less. Typically, most on here run between the 2-4 ton ranges on a basic install in the 1500-2500 sq. ft. range.

Any of the main companies have stoves/furnaces that can tie into your ductwork.

2-4 ton on average sounds really good to me. At roughly $200 a ton this seems like a much cheaper option then anything else out there.

Xpress23

bigstick6017555 wrote:i live in southeast pa and have a Harman magnum located in finished basement,last winter I heated approximately 27,000 sq. ft to 68-70 deg. upstairs temp. and used 3 1/2 tons of rice

27,000 sq ft.......Good Grief man, are you heating Al Gore's mansion or what!!!???

xpress23 wrote:2-4 ton on average sounds really good to me. At roughly $200 a ton this seems like a much cheaper option then anything else out there.

Xpress23

I am in the north east corner of MD in a 2800 sqft house (give or take a few ft) depending on the severity of the winter between 2 and 3 ton here, I am also burning a propane furnace in early fall and late spring along with burning some wood when burning coal would cook us out. House has good doors & windows, not great insulation in the attic, good insulation and house wrap and felt paper on exterior walls, basement where the stove is located is unfinished and uninsulated.

Do yourself a big favor and install an anthracite stoker boiler; regardless, of your heating system. As Rob (AKA markviii) stated: radiant heat is probably the best, baseboard FHW a close second, with FHA coming in last place... Here's a picture of the water to air heat exchanger I installed in my plenum, above my propane FHA furnace. Going with an anthracite stoker boiler for heat and DHW is the only way to go! Trust us!!

As long as the $$$ will not hold you back, go the stoker boiler route and do your domestic water too. The money saved will pay for itself in short order. EFM, axeman anderson, and AHS would be all good choices. The ahs doesn't have an auger, think about a coal bin layout for the stoker, and chimney location compared to where you want the stoker to reside.

xpress23 wrote:I'm begining the process of building a new house. I'm leaning towards using a coal stoker as a supplemental heat source that I will tie into my cold air return. The house will be aobut 2300 sqft excluding the basement. I'm looking at the leisure hyfire or pocono. Does anyone have any experience with these or suggest other models? I'm OK heating the basement and allowing the heat to rise and heat the floor on the first level. I know its hard to estimate but could anyone give me an idea on how much coal I might burn in a typical winter if I keep the house at 68/69?

Thanks for the input.
Xpress23

The Hyfire is def. overkill for 2300 sq. ft. I have an older Harman stoker (85,000 BTU) that is my only! heat source and it can cook us right out of the house (2500 sq ft) when its pumpin". The pocono with Coal-Trol would be more than enough, esp. if you have a new well insulated home. BTW, I burn about 4-5 ton/ yr in my NEPA home depending on the severity of the winter.

AA130FIREMAN wrote:As long as the $$$ will not hold you back, go the stoker boiler route and do your domestic water too. The money saved will pay for itself in short order. EFM, axeman anderson, and AHS would be all good choices. The ahs doesn't have an auger, think about a coal bin layout for the stoker, and chimney location compared to where you want the stoker to reside.

You can get the optional auger for the ahs.

Hi,

I installed an s130 boiler in an existing forced air furnace using a water to air heat exchanger and it has been really good. I would explore the costs of building a super insulated house. The closed cell foam insulation is r7 per inch. With 2x6 construction you might be able to keep your total energy consumption real low. Summer cooling savings also. A boiler option is at least ~10k if you have someone else do the work. I think super insulated houses are considered a "green" industry house and you get gouged. If all you do is use different insulation and still use a regular tar paper or tyvek shell I cannot see a huge labor cost differential. You do not have to use "green" (expensive) renewable products all over the place just the good insulation. I think the spray in nature of the insulation does the super sealing. You do need an air handler to introduce fresh air if the house is sealed really good.

It might be worth a look.

Dean

I have a forced air in the ceiling , my coal heat feels better than the heat pump, the air at my best register is over 130, a heat pump is at best a 20 degree differential, so 70 you may see 90 at best. Now my basement is 72 in the winter verses 58 when the heat pump was on, does help to heat the floors. Radiant in floor would be the cats meow, folled by baseboard.

I installed radiant heat in my new 3200 sq ft shop and the labor was more time consuming than hard. And when I say time consuming two people a solid day un-rolling the pex tubing. My house has baseboard and the old style radiators in the basement. The radiant is awesome!! beats baseboard hands down! I would never even think about building a house with a basement without it. Not to mention messing with pex for a day beats the time you will save installing baseboard heat. I will admit the old cast radiators beat the fin baseboard. Drawback is they consume alot of space, always the space your wife wants to put a couch or a piece of furniture ,not to mention painting or cleaning around them is a pain in the ass. I also have A/C with duct work and just added a electric heat coil in my A/c unit for a back up never used it in 10 years.
JM