New to me coal/wood stove - bit coal questions

Several years ago I purchased a Timbereze coal/wood add on furnace from a friend of mine. It's been parked out in the barn all this time and now I'm getting ready to install it this spring / summer . It's a very heavy unit around 700 lbs I'll replace the fire brick and one blower, new paint and new wiring and it's ready to go. I plan on installing duct from the top of the unit to the hot air supply from my LP furnace to the house. This will work as I had another add on down there for some time. But it was a wood burning furnace this newer unit is wood/coal. I'm no stranger to burning wood ( Been doing it 40 years ) but I havent been around coal since I was a little kid, I use to get coal in for my grandmother every night after school. ( A long long time ago ) I have a retail coal supplier near by (10 miles ) they sell lump coal by the ton $195.00 I asked what type it is they said It's from Kentucky that's all they know !!! The other retail supplier is 20 miles away they sell pittsburg # 9 1500 # for $75.00 My question is would the $75.00 coal burn as well as the coal from Ky. ? Too heat 1200 sq. ft. how much coal will I burn in a day ? I will use 5 cord of wood this winter to heat my house at $110.00 per cord in my wood stove up stairs. my reason for moving back to the basement is the dirt and dust . Any info that anyone can give me would be helpfull . a couple more questions.

1. How much hardwood does it take to equal one ton of coal .
2. Does the size of the coal matter. is larger lumps better
3. Will large pieces burn longer then small ones
4. Does anyone know anything about the Timbereze furnace model 530 ? ( I know they were made in Millersburg ohio and are out of business. )
5. I would be glad to purchase a owners manual if someone has one.

4 tons of decent coal (bituminous or anthracite) should be roughly the ballpark equivalent of 5 full cords of well seasoned mixed hardwoods. Others with the qualifications to do so will likely chip in regarding information on bituminous coal burning.

In my opinion a good KY coal is as good as it gets. As someone who's used both, I wouldn't waste time with the #8 as it will melt together and "bridge" in the firebox. The KY is well worth the additional cost, it's FAR easier to use and likely has more heat and less ash as well. The big question is, does the guy selling the KY coal really have KY coal (it's unfortunate, but some people lie about what coal they sell). If it's large rectangular lumps, burns to a white or very light colored ash, and doesn't really stick together at all while burning, you have good KY coal.

Make sure you use a minimum 8" flue from the furnace (even if the collar is smaller - immediately expand to min. 8") and use T's for easy cleaning instead of elbows.

The bigger the better -they burn slower and smoke less - use the largest lumps that will fit in your stove/furnace easily.

A good KY coal will be 27-29 million btu's per ton compared to about 17-22 million btu's per FULL CORD of hardwood.

Also, where are you located? there might be other coal suppliers in your area.

Another comparison from my past experience is: When I first started buring coal, I would use a 55 gallon drum per week. The drum full of coal would weigh 440 pounds. To heat the same little house with wood, I'd burn one face cord per week.

I have a big hand fired unit. I tried pea with no luck, nut seems to work the best. Hard to run straight stove coal, but it works if you mix it with the nut sized, I guess the air pockets are too big. I would start wtih nut and see what happens. Good luck, you'll enjoy not loading the stove as much with the coal...

I would say that 3-4 tons of coal would exceed 5 cords of good wood, with much less fuss than wood.

this might help http://nepacrossroads.com/fuel-comparis ... ulator.php

Much of this comes down to the efficiency of the wood stove vs. the efficiency of the coal stove. At similar efficiencies 4 tons of coal should be about the BTU equibvalent of 5 cords of well seasoned mixed hardwoods. If the coal stove is 70-80% efficient and the wood stove is only about 55-60% efficient, then it could be about 3 tons of coal to 5 cords of wood.

Since many who burn wood do not properly season and store their wood, 55-60% efficiency is probably about all they are getting.

Thanks guys for the Info. I can buy a full cord of seasoned hard wood for $110.00 loaded into my Piqua dump trailer. Or the trailer full of cut to length (18") slab wood for $60.00 4 ton of coal would cost me $813.00 so the seasoned hard wood is $263.00 cheaper, the slab wood is much much cheaper but I would have to burn a lot more of it.
I havent used the stove yet so I don't know about the efficiency of the Timbereze. I think that I will buy a small load of coal just to try it.

There are 4 saw mills within 5 miles of my home firewood is relatively cheap in this part of Ohio compared with the big city. in Columbus it runs $180 to $200.00 per cord . I store all of my wood in a open shed to keep the rain off of it and dont burn it unless it's 13 to 18% moisture. A note about the slab wood The saw mills around here are all Amish owned and operated, they cut what they call dimensional lumber, so the slabs are for the most part huge, I have to split most of the 18" pieces to get them into my stove. But there seems to be more ash with slabs then with the split hard wood. Once again thanks for the info.

If you have a tie mill close by their cutoffs make dandy stove wood. No bark, all hardwood (usually oak) and almost already to stove dimensions. Up until this year I ran wood during the day and lump bit at night, several others here do the same. I'm getting up some wood now and may return to a combination next year myself although not in my Warm Morning.