Making a Coal Stove Questions???

OK I have built a few wood stoves in my day. this will be my first coal fired one. right now I have a vigilant II way to small for my house. its keeping the oil burner from kicking on though. I am going to burn ANT don't think I can get BIT in north east pa. need some help on the design of the fire box to achieve 50 000 to 150 000 BTU. want to burn nut or stove. having trouble coming up with the size of the shaker grates in relation to the fire box size and baffling in the stove to achieve at least 75 to 80% efficiency.

am I nuts? I know there are stoves out there for what I need. I don't want to spend 3 to 9 thousand on a stove when I know I can make it for far less. for way under $1000. I wouldn't mind making some sort of boiler adapter for the stove too. but not really needed at this point.

i have looked at some different models of stoves. nothing really gave me any clue on what I needed for this. well nothing I could make at a reasonable cost with out forging or casting parts. as soon as you start talking casting or forging there goes the cost.

well question
1 fire box sizing needed
2 grate system
3 baffling
4 thermostat controls "manual, or automatic."
5 sanity check?

thanks for all the help

A hand fed stove does not cost 3-9 thousand? You can have a brand new DS 130K BTU for less than $1600. I would find a used stove and use that, unless you had something really special in mind.

Welcome to the forum.

Eric

Welcome to the FORUM my friend. See, ya figured out all that cost stuff all on your own. Look at Hitzer's web site.

OK i'm going to sound stupid here. whats a ds stove? haven't come across that one yet not even used. is there any place I can get info?

i need to heat 3500 square ft pulse a full basement. so its closer to 4500 square ft.

windtech wrote:OK i'm going to sound stupid here. whats a ds stove? haven't come across that one yet not even used. is there any place I can get info?

i need to heat 3500 square ft pulse a full basement. so its closer to 4500 square ft.

You will have a very tough time doing this with a hand fed stove located in the basement, unless you have incredible air flow patterns. What is the current heat system. DS is an amish stove company. Google DS machine stoves and some dealers will come up. They are located in gordonville, PA. Hitzer, alaska, and Harman also make very good hand feds (hope I am not forgeting anyone).

Eric

I will ask again what is the current heat system.

Yeah, I gotta agree with coalfire. I found a decent coal furnace on Craig's List for $650. Its not top of the line or anything but it cranks out 120,000 BTU and I'm very pleased with it. So I suppose if you really have a lot of time on your hands, good luck with it

Yea, you're way out of ONE hand-fired size sq. footage wise. Now you're in girly-guy country. You got a world of knowledge there, listen up.

well I don't mean to offend anyone. but there is a lack of people building things that they need I know there are options out there but I was looking to build what I need. I have got the time im layed off for the winter so I have time on my hands for about a month or so.

right now I am heating the house with 2 Vermont castings vigilant II stoves. there just doing the job. the oil burner kicks on when needed for the really cold nights.

windtech wrote:well I don't mean to offend anyone. but there is a lack of people building things that they need I know there are options out there but I was looking to build what I need. I have got the time im layed off for the winter so I have time on my hands for about a month or so.

right now I am heating the house with 2 Vermont castings vigilant II stoves. there just doing the job. the oil burner kicks on when needed for the really cold nights.

Agreed, oil burner? forced hot air or boiler? If you are handy enough to build a stove, I would find a poor shape whole house furnace/boiler depending on what you have, and refurb it. If you have the talent go for the whole house unit and save the growing pains on trying to make a hand fed work.

Let us know what you got and we can give more recomendations

Eric

No offense taken my friend. WELLL, get at it,me thinks you've done your research & you know the money situation--materials, foundry work, etc--hell, if that don't make ya flinch, have at it. Keep us posted on your progress.

windtech wrote:well I don't mean to offend anyone. but there is a lack of people building things that they need I know there are options out there but I was looking to build what I need. I have got the time im layed off for the winter so I have time on my hands for about a month or so.

right now I am heating the house with 2 Vermont castings vigilant II stoves. there just doing the job. the oil burner kicks on when needed for the really cold nights.

You might want to read this thread.

Coal/Wood Stove Plans

I've built several stoves in the past as well. Building a wood stove or boiler is fairly easy, they don't require shaker grates. It's the design of and creation of a good, long lasting iron shaker grate that's going to be the stumbling block for making a good coal burning stove.

The best way to research the design of a hand feed stove is to go to all the manufactuer's web sites and look at the 'exploded view' or line drawings of the stoves or 'cutaway' views. these will show these major features:

A firebox lined with firebrick, the firebrick vertical or nearly vertical. the fireboxes with sloped sides create problems with ash and clinker buildup. DON'T build a firebox with sloped sides, you will regret it !! [I did, and I do regret it ]

The floor of the firebox must be as close to 100% shaker grate as possible.. any ledge, edge or non-shaking area will accumulate ash.

The area under the grates must have a large, preferably deep ashpan that can be removed through it's own door.

The ashpan door is the easiest place to locate the combustion air vents to feed air to the fire, all this air must come from under the fire/grates.
A little air may be entered above the grates, the loading door can have an airvent as well as the ashpan door.

All combution air vents must be able to shut off air completely, and the loading and ashpan door must have a slot around the edge to hold a rope-gasket to seal the door, NO poor fitting doors or non sealing air vent controls !! You must be able to shut off ALL the air to the fire if needed.

The design of baffles above the fire to increase the heat exchaning surface area must take into account that flyash will settle on and build up on any horizontal surface, even in the flue pipe where there is a lot of air/exhaust velocity.. so any baffles must be accessable with a vacuum hose for periodic cleaning.

Google is your friend, look at every site you can find, even the stoker stoves and look at what is done to improve heat exchanger design.

The firebox needs to be deep, I'd use firebrick on end, this will result in at least a 9" deep firebox, this is in my opinion a minimum. The deeper the firebox, the better the coal will burn, and longer the fire will last per loading.

The surface area of the fire determines the heat output, the BTU's that the fire will produce. Again, go to the various websites, and compare the
BTU output of the various size stoves, and the dimensions of the firebox. this will give you a good 'feel' for the size of firebox you need to build.

Find a set of shaker grates that will be the basis for your firebox, and build the stove from there.. I'd recommend finding a set of the big, heavy grates for
a Gibraltar stove. Do a search for Gibraltar on this forum and you will find several threads about these tough stoves.

But, I completely agree with the the comments in above posts about buying from DS Machine, they make some big hand feed stoves and Hopper fed stoves,
and with the size of house you want to heat , you need a very large stove.. if you go with a stove.

I agree that you really need a large stoker furnace or boiler to get the control and distribution of your heat. With only a stove in the basement, you will have a sauna in the basement and progressivly cooler levels above, and you will waste a lot of coal to heat the main levels to a comfortable temperature..

Read, read and read some more, the answers are all here on the forum or the various sites of manufacturers.

I'd keep an eye on Craigslist, and buy a big heavy hand feed for a few hundred, and fix it up, and learn from there. A big Hizer, Gibraltar, Harman SF250, DS machine etc... lots of people sell a stove when they move, or when they decide to go with a stoker.

Best of luck,

Greg L

To my own opinion, LS advices are very good.
An other thing I would do if I had to build a ""new""stove would be to make a stove on the VigII model. You have one of the best long heat path found in a new stove and an interior damper to get on it. That system is about like those found in the antique base burner. I think that all stoves must have these long gasse path to keep the heat in the house instead of in the chimney. It gets a thermostatic air control, no need for a baro or mpd. Is a top load and have a very good swing out ash pan system.
The poor points in the VigII are the front bars and the grates. With the modifs I made on mine, the stove is cleaner to use, no more ash build up, same and even more heat with a smaller fire chamber/less anthracite...
So why are you looking for something else: you have the best teachers in you home? Just take the best from it and improve the lower points. Then you can make it the size you want it.
An other thing to take in consideration is to study how the antique base burner/heater were made.
If you want you can make the best stove dreamed by many peoples.
For the first one, the stove model can easily made from steel plates, fire bricks all around the combustion chamber... when the result is perfect(make it as perfect as you can, there are lots of stoves being far from to be now) you could improve the look if wanted...
Best of luck.

LsFarm wrote:I'd keep an eye on Craigslist, and buy a big heavy hand feed for a few hundred, and fix it up, and learn from there. A big Hizer, Gibraltar, Harman SF250, DS machine etc... lots of people sell a stove when they move, or when they decide to go with a stoker.

Good advice.

LsFarm wrote:I agree that you really need a large stoker furnace or boiler to get the control and distribution of your heat.

Even better advice...in my opinion at least.

I have attempted to heat a 4000 sq. ft home with a 100,000 BTU hand-fired stove. It was tough on the stove, and tough on my ears when the Mrs. wanted to know why the bedrooms and upstairs was so cold. Take it from someone that has already tried this...it is VERY difficult to distribute heat from a single stove to a home that size.

Surely a home that large has some sort of central heat already installed? I think you would be a lot farther ahead looking for a used stoker boiler/furnace. A stove will be cheaper to build/buy, but that is where the savings will end. With a stove you will end up overheating part of the house to kinda-sorta heat the rest.

Agree with LS and Rob,

A coal boiler is probably your best bet. You never said what the current system is but assuming oil and either hot water or steam, a coal boiler would easily fill your needs. You should look in the classifieds as there are some used and rebuilt boilers available.
The cheapest option, If you are "just getting by" with two Vig II, then two DS Machine 1400's or better and/or a couple Hitzer 50's would probably work fine and be the cheaper option. The Vig II is rated at 50k or so and these others are 90k+ each. Two of any of them (or of course a couple nice baseheaters) would do the trick.