Wood to Anthracite in a Vogelzang, Norseman 2500

This unit is the Hotblast/Clayton design all the way. My 1600, I took the slope out of the firebox by using 2 inch fire brick and put some ash behind them to keep them from falling back. The thicker fire brick stand up pretty well on their own and made the throat to the grates inline. It worked well, only to shorten the burn time to about every 8 hours. Still good heat. Key to all of coal burning in my short years of it is draft,draft,draft. Got to get it right for the unit. Look for the hotblast 1557 posts and clayton posts as well.

titleist1 wrote:A friend of mine that has a similar stove (US Stove HotBlast) with the sloped fire brick like yours, had to put a fan on the ash door to improve the combustion air supply to get it to burn anthracite well. He can now get 10 hour burns pretty easily.

I found a link to the thread that may help a little....

US Stove Hot Blast Furnace Problems

It's been a while since I did anything with hand-feds, but that thread makes me very nervous. The idea of leaving an anthracite-fired appliance with the bottom door open, a modified ash door, a makeshift ash door fan, etc. seems like a recipe for all types of problems, particularly including overfiring and CO. It doesn't have to take a lot of $ to swap out this unit for a real anthracite stove/furnace that would do what you want efficiently and without a lot of fuss, bother or risky modifications.

Mike

Pacowy wrote:It's been a while since I did anything with hand-feds, but that thread makes me very nervous. The idea of leaving an anthracite-fired appliance with the bottom door open, a modified ash door, a makeshift ash door fan, etc. seems like a recipe for all types of problems, particularly including overfiring and CO. It doesn't have to take a lot of $ to swap out this unit for a real anthracite stove/furnace that would do what you want efficiently and without a lot of fuss, bother or risky modifications.

Mike

I would have to agree. Why risk it? If your manual says it was made for wood or bituminous coal, then stick with wood or bit.

Freddy wrote:Well..... Here's the skinny on your type of furnace: It comes under the heading of dual fuel. ANY dual fuel appliance that coal is one of the fuels, the coal efficiency is going to suffer. The best burning coal stoves & coal furnaces are those that are designed to burn only coal. (Of course any coal stove can burn wood, but a dedicated coal stove will usually demand the wood be cut to odd sizes.) Coal like a compact, deep bed. The shape of the "pile of coal" has a LOT to do with how well it burns. A round chamber and a deep chamber are the best. As you get further sway from that shape, you start having troubles keeping the fire going, and have more heat go up the chimney. Coal wants to be 5 or 6 inches deep minimum. If you try to burn coal that's only 2 or 3 inches deep, it might burn, but more likely it will not maintain a fire, or if it does, you'll wonder why you're not getting much heat.
Coal demands it's air come from under the coal. Air comes up through the grates, up through the ash, and makes the coal fire a happy fire. Air does not negotiate it's way through wood ash very well. It will, some, but if wood ash is too deep it slows the air flow.
With your furnace, I'd start with a wood fire. Get it so there is a shallow bed of red wood coals, then add 2 inches of coal. Let it roar until "the dancing blue ladies" are over the coal. Add another 2 or 3 inches. Leave one corner open to the flame so you don't bet a puff back (a boom). When the second layer has blue flame, repeat until the coal is up to the top of the firebrick. When the blue ladies are dancing on the final layer, now you can shut the air down, make it your favorite temperature, & it'll maintain that temp for the entire charge of coal..... 8 to 12 hours?

With wood, more wood means more heat. With coal, more coal mean more length of time it will burn. The heat output is controlled by the incoming air, not the amount of fuel.

After the 8 to 12 hours, shake down the ash, leave the red, repeat. You will have issues with ash collecting in the corners & not burning well. You'll need to make a poker to poke up from under the grates to clear the ash.

this member is correct^^^ you can burn wood more effectively in a coal design then you can ever burn coal in a wood design. The problem in terms of of burning anthracite in your furnace is more because of its flawed design then because of the safety of the unit but having said that (i claim no liability for speaking about a product that im not an official of), I myself would not burn any coal other then anthracite because its so much cleaner, long lasting and efficient. A tip on starting a coal fire would be to use a piece of 8 inch stovepipe about 14-16 inches long and make sure you stand it up on a grate that allows air flow from underneath "up through", fill the bottom on this temp. pipe with some paper and nice dry oak sticks and at the top place a small shovel of coal (14-16 nut size pieces place right at the top)....now light your paper at the bottom and allow it to burn down and as the wood finally burns up your left with a beautiful bed of red hot coals that you can add and other shovel full to.... now your off and running and you can use a pot holder to carefully pull out your temp pipe! If you had a proper coal design combustion chamber this trick would not be necessary and you would have no problem burning through the night and the coal fire should not go out unless you choose not to load coal one day (but this probably wont be the case with your unit if its designed for wood im sorry to say).... but I wish you the best and I will keep my fingers crossed that you have success and im wrong! sincerely Doug Crane

Thanks for the response. this winter was NOT much of a heating season, but I learned quite a bit about my stove. Activity knowledge and confidence got me some pretty good results. The best part of all and my greatest blessing in converting to anthricite was this NEPA website. The BEST tool, and I made a lot of friends, too. GB, Louis

Hey Partner, I just looked up your furnace and it looks like a replica of mine. I have the Clayton 1557G. Its true these are a dual fuel furnace and like mentioned before, from the factory they aren't as efficient as they could be... This was my first year burning coal. I spent a lot of time tweaking the furnace to run good for Anthracite. I would like to mention too that I am now very pleased with my Clayton's performance and can't wait to use it again next season. I did some pretty extensive posting about my modifications and trials and errors I think you could benifit from.. I'll list a few of my posts for you.. Check them out

Anyone Remotely Monitoring Boiler Temp, Etc.

Hotblast 1500 Coal Burning Newbee Help

Fly Ash and/or Residue Insulating Firebox?

Successfully Burning Anthracite Coal in a Clayton Furnace

Poker

Well, That Was Interesting.

Those will get you started lol... I've also discovered a secondary air feed on the back of the furnace that lets fresh combustion air come in high over the fire. (It was probably designed for a powered draft inducer for wood or bituminous coal). I made a "valve" to control air flow thru it and it helps maintain draft up the chimney on warm days because of more heated air mass going up the chimney. I think I might be getting more heat too since, unless I'm wrong about this, I think its giving oxygen to combust CO into CO2 just over the coal bed.

Basically, the most important thing is to block off the passages in the firebox that allow combustion air from the ash pan door to choose a path around the grates, instead of being forced to go up thru them. As designed, the fire would die out as ash formed over the grates and combustion air would choose a path of least resistance thru the passages in the front and rear firebox liners around the fire. In the beginning, this was my problem in keeping a fire going. With these passages blocked, I have independant control of the primary combustion air (coming in from the ash pan door) and the secondary combustion air (wheather it be from the load door vent OR if your furnace has a secondary on the back) INSTEAD of the primary air doing a half assed job of doing both lol.. Hope this makes sense

never modify a stove. Not worth it. Sell yours, buy one for anthracite. Example; I purchased my Harman mark 1 for $300 used. Thing is good as new condition wise.

Before that I had(still own) a Warm Morning 523R. That stove was built for bit coal. I thought it did a good job with Anthracite but I do believe the Harman is better for Anthracite.

Again....NEVER modify a stove.

I whole heartily disagree with the post above: Never Modify a Stove.

That might have been true a few years ago, but today with high liability and cut throat completion, stoves are not made as good as they could be, especially the lower priced ones.

What I am seeing lately is wood/coal stoves that have so many air holes in the firebox, that you could toss a horse through them. They do that now on account of liability. Years ago every one knew that you simply opened the draft a few moments before you cracked the door on an air tight stove or the sudden influx of air would cause a mini-explosion; back draft firefighters call it. That happened because the fuel was sufficiently heated, but lacked enough air to readily burn. This is what makes for incredibly long burn times on wood stoves. Today, stove manufacturers fear lawsuits and know if their fireboxes have air holes in them, the fuel will readily burn and there is no back draft potential or exceptionally high creosote build up. They really do not give one lick if you burn more wood, or send more heat up your chimney, as long as you buy their stove, they are happy. Now the more expensive stoves do care about their product and how well it burns, BUT their high price also takes into account higher liability rates.

In the perfect world, we would all be able to afford high end stoves and live happily ever after, however that is just not the case. It depends on your skill level of course, but since I have the ability to build US Navy Destroyers that have withstood mines in the Mediterranean, (and personally thanked by the Captain of the vessel for saving the lives of the crew by doing my job as a welder), I don't think modifying a stove that burns better is outside my skill set. Neither do I think it is outside the skill set of others.

In today's world where manufacturers know that people buy stoves based on price, they cut as many corners as they can on manufacturing them. My Vogelzang Pot Bellied Stove is an example. I have since greatly modified it and it is an excellent stove now. In every case the only reason the manufacturer did not do what I did to improve the stove, was on account of costs; latches for the firebox doors, seals on the doors, and automatic draft controls.

It could be argued that if a person has the skill set to modify a stove safely and efficiently, then they could build an even better one from scratch. That is a true point to make but why reinvent the wheel, when something simply can be improved upon? With the attitude; Never Modify a Stove, we would have never got out of the fireplace era. I am sure at one time people thought adding wood stoves to fireplaces was dangerous and ill conceived as well, and where would we be with that mind set. Modifying a stove is nothing to take lightly, but with some skills, research and investment, some spectacular results can be achieved.

NoSmoke yer the man I've done plenty to modify my furnace and now it heats and maintains a fire like nobody's business!! Furnaces like mine must be tweaked to burn coal like it should..

You may be able to modify a stove and it works. Thats great. But he and his family might end up taking a dirt nap if he screws up.
Your not trying to reinvent the wheel, come up with something new. You want to do something alot of other people currently do. Maybe you can modify that stove to do something it wasnt made for. Maybe not. Either way, that stove will never burn anthracite as good as a stove designed for anthracite! Just sell your current stove and buy one that has been engineered for the job. Then there is nothing to worry about and you will probably walk away with a profit from the whole exchange.
Don't be stupid.

The kind of people who think like nosmoke think they are heros and end up burning their house down.

If your going to modify a stove and live in the space it exists in. Do the following. Educate yourself the best you can, and surround the room with CO detectors. bunches of them.

Kevin

The kind of people who think like nosmoke think they are heros and end up burning their house down.

That is not always true. There are many clever people in the world.

KLook wrote:If your going to modify a stove and live in the space it exists in. Do the following. Educate yourself the best you can, and surround the room with CO detectors. bunches of them.

Kevin

The kind of people who think like nosmoke think they are heros and end up burning their house down.

That is not always true. There are many clever people in the world.

There is no reason to take the risk.

Following your logic, I never would have owned a home. I lived out in the boonies where many people are self reliant. I built, wired, plumbed, my whole house. I installed virtually every piece of equipment in it. I am not a rocket scientist. Just typical of my region and quite handy.
The last house I built in Maine was for a retired couple from Avon, Ct. They were amazed at the range of my knowledge and I was amazed they thought so highly of me. He was a retired IBM engineer. In larger metro areas everyone specializes and everyone is taught that everything is hard and requires special knowledge. I am sure you have seen some real crazy lash ups if you are a tradesman and so have I. Just don't lump all of us into the "one trick Pony" category. This forum is not about telling people what they can't do but how to do it safely and wisely. Otherwise someone would come in and tell everyone to forget coal and go to electric.

Kevin

KLook wrote:Following your logic, I never would have owned a home. I lived out in the boonies where many people are self reliant. I built, wired, plumbed, my whole house. I installed virtually every piece of equipment in it. I am not a rocket scientist. Just typical of my region and quite handy.
The last house I built in Maine was for a retired couple from Avon, Ct. They were amazed at the range of my knowledge and I was amazed they thought so highly of me. He was a retired IBM engineer. In larger metro areas everyone specializes and everyone is taught that everything is hard and requires special knowledge. I am sure you have seen some real crazy lash ups if you are a tradesman and so have I. Just don't lump all of us into the "one trick Pony" category. This forum is not about telling people what they can't do but how to do it safely and wisely. Otherwise someone would come in and tell everyone to forget coal and go to electric.

Kevin

Outstanding. However, you are not "following my logic". My logic is basically saying its not worth re-engineering the current stove to do something its not designed to do, when you can easily acquire one designed to do it.
So, when you built your house, did you not use 16" on center framing? Did you invent some kind of new wiring? Did you in any way not build it to code? And why did you do it the way that others already have? Because its already been figured out.....Thats what I thought. Go beat yourself up.