Possible new coal burner

Wow...you had a busy day!! You mentioned your fiance in the first post and by your last post you list her as your wife!!! Either that or you're crazy enough to have one of each!!!

A couple things to note...first is that if your wife likes the look of a particular stove then your choice has already been made!! You just have to show her the ones that have enough BTU's to do the job for her to choose from.

Second...If you are going to have to have a generator for extended power outages anyway, then I would go with a stoker to begin with. Make sure you get a generator that is auto start or a keyed start. I can't get my wife out there in the snow or rain to stand on top of the frame and pull start our 11hp genny no matter how hard I try.

Third...Clearances can be lessened if you make the surround a masonry wall or use a heat shield with an air gap. There are some nice pics on here of what some folks have done.

edited to add....you mentioned about the wood stove overheating the space in your parents house...you can control a coal fire much better than a wood fire. And burning it "low" you won't have to worry about creosote like with a wood fire either.

This is one place you don't have to apologize for being long winded!

Thanks for the replys fellas! And thank you Dann757...most people just flip us truckers off and are pissed we go slow up hills haha. I think 90% of the population forgets how they got the things they own. Without trucks the country would come to a screeching halt real quick! Lol. And yes your right Albany has changed very much since your days up here. It's quite the busy city these days. So much that I try to stay out of it as much as possible lol.

All this talk about stokers really has me thinking more and more about it. I really like the idea of the lack of maintaince to keep it going. That's a HUGE plus. And that you can direct vent some of them right out the wall is really nice too. I think in the end we may end up going that way. I come home next week and will be visiting a couple showrooms to check out some stoves in person and may end up making the decision then so it can be ordered if it has to be or if they will let it sit there for a couple weeks until we get the flooring done and can install it.

I think I might have the generator problem figured out. I didn't think of it before but I can most likely leave the generator in my parents heated garage which is like 200 ft away from my house and just run a long lead cord if the power goes out. I think that will be my best option to make the generator easier to start in real cold temps. We haven't buried the water line yet so I may run a lead cord in the trench and bury it. That way when we get a bad storm and the power goes out I won't have to worry about ripping the lead cord in half with the plow truck lol

Any fan favorites on stoker stoves? I know that's prolly a question with a million answers but figured if throw it out there :p

SteveZee wrote:If the chimney is hasn't been build yet, I would try and make sure that it's inside the house for sure and secondly the more centrally located you can get it, the better/easier it will be for heat distribution.

I've never felt any heat coming off of my chimney using an AA130, not even during the longest burns. Is there more heat lost up the chimney with a stove? Just asking....

I think Steve was referring to the heat coming off the stove, not the chimney.

I have heated with oil, natural gas, propane, kerosene, wood, corn, solar, and finally with coal. Not all in the same house. We moved a lot in the past. I"m not sure how I missed wood pellets?

What I do know is now that I am on coal in NE Pa. I will never go back to other fuels as long as I can get the coal. Even if I have to pay a bit more for it than the other fuels I will do it. The satisfaction of knowing that I am buying a fuel produced in my backyard is enough.

I have used hand fired and stokers. It is all going to boil down to lifestyle. If your home most of the time or have a regular "9-5" job and don't mind tending the stove, then a hand fired will work just fine. You have to add coal and take out the ashes whether you use a hand fired or a stoker. The tasks are the same. The technique is all that changes.

With a stoker you can get lonnnnnggggg burn times. If you don't have a 9-5 job and have erratic hours a stoker might be well to consider. I put a 1/2 bucket of coal in the hopper in the morning and 1/2 in the evening before I go to bed. Every other day I take out the ashes. When it gets cold and I have to crank the feed up it might be a bucket in the morning and a bucket in the evening and take out the ash daily.

The house stays at the same temperature morning, noon, and night. No more blasts of heat followed by gradual chill creeping in. My little ancient Econo 1 from Leisure Line hums along gently producing heat 24/7. No shaking down the ashes, banking the fire, coaxing a dying fire back to life, no downdrafts causing puffs of smoke from the wood stove, no more bugs in the house from the wood, smell from the kerosene and oil, or wild price fluctuations depending on what some dictator decided to do when he woke up that morning.

Difference between stoker and hand fired is like the difference between a stick shift and an automatic transmission. Both do the job, just how much hands on control do you want.

blrman07 wrote:Difference between stoker and hand fired is like the difference between a stick shift and an automatic transmission. Both do the job, just how much hands on control do you want.

That is the best analogy I have ever read about the difference between hand fired and stokers. PERFECT!!! BRAVO!

cabinover wrote:

SteveZee wrote:If the chimney is hasn't been build yet, I would try and make sure that it's inside the house for sure and secondly the more centrally located you can get it, the better/easier it will be for heat distribution.

I've never felt any heat coming off of my chimney using an AA130, not even during the longest burns. Is there more heat lost up the chimney with a stove? Just asking....

and

Rob R. wrote:I think Steve was referring to the heat coming off the stove, not the chimney.

Steve, IMHO, was likely referring in part to the probability that an interior chimney would be warmer, keeping a higher flue gas temperature all the way up thru the chimney. Hotter flue = more and more consistent draft. Exterior chimneys might run cool and in warm spells loose draft. Read Wood'nCoals many posts and what I posted earlier here about my wood burner's chimney

VigIIPeaBurner wrote:

cabinover wrote:

SteveZee wrote:If the chimney is hasn't been build yet, I would try and make sure that it's inside the house for sure and secondly the more centrally located you can get it, the better/easier it will be for heat distribution.

I've never felt any heat coming off of my chimney using an AA130, not even during the longest burns. Is there more heat lost up the chimney with a stove? Just asking....

and

Rob R. wrote:I think Steve was referring to the heat coming off the stove, not the chimney.

Steve, IMHO, was likely referring in part to the probability that an interior chimney would be warmer, keeping a higher flue gas temperature all the way up thru the chimney. Hotter flue = more and more consistent draft. Exterior chimneys might run cool and in warm spells loose draft. Read Wood'nCoals many posts and what I posted earlier here about my wood burner's chimney

BINGO! An inside chimney is always a better drawing chimney, and as Rob pointed out, if your stove is a handfed and radiating the heat, that chimney inside give you better possibilities to locate the stove in the best spot for even, consistent distribution. Take a look at any of the older houses in you neighborhood. Any good quality abode that was build before the the advent of cheap oil and central heating, will always have the chimneys inside and usually relatively centrally located within the house.

But then again.... A stove like the Harmon DVC-500 is a Direct Vent Stoker, and doesn't need a chimney at all. Just cut a 9" x9" hole thru an extrerior wall and hook it up. 75k BTUs, 24x7.

009to090 wrote:But then again.... A stove like the Harmon DVC-500 is a Direct Vent Stoker, and doesn't need a chimney at all. Just cut a 9" x9" hole thru an extrerior wall and hook it up. 75k BTUs, 24x7.

Yep for sure easier double O. I was talking in particular with a hand fed radiating type stove.

Duh...wasn't thinking about the stove radiating centrally. Glad it's Friday, I feel so dumb

If you are going the genny route & can't get it any closer then 200 ft. I strongly suggest hard wiring it like you stated w/ your water pipe. 200 feet is a hell of a drain. If I were to go the genny route, I too would like to put it in someone elses garage, I hate the noise.

Adk - ceiling fans are wonderful throughout most of the year. A vit of informaiton that I've learned from this forum (think it was I'mOnFire ) who found that a ceiling fan can actually create a curtain of air that acts to block the natural flow of hot air out away from the vacinity of the stove. Speed and direction have to be played with to see if there is an affect to the natural convection flow in your layout.

We switched from wood to coal. Never been more pleased. Way less work and way more heat. And no heartburn like you get when a fuel oil furnace kicks on. We have a brand new one that was in when we bought the house, used it part of a season. I got heartburn everytime it kicked on. First season in the house I spent 2 grand on oil and house never got over 68. Do it and never look back.

cabinover wrote:Duh...wasn't thinking about the stove radiating centrally. Glad it's Friday, I feel so dumb

No worries CO. I feel that way most of the time!