which stove????

i'm currently using a hand fired king-o-heat from martin industries. it heats pretty well but since i live in central maine and temps get down to -30 i'd really like to upgrade this stove to a hand fired that can handle it. im currently heating a 1,100 sq ft house, insulated but not extremely well. (drafty at times). i just added a heat reclaimer to my stove this week and what a difference, i would reccomend these to anyone burning an older hand fired stove. any suggestions would help. the stove would need to be able to be unattended for 12 hour stretches, and could only burn pea coal or larger since rice coal isn't easily available. any help would be appreciated.

Bill,

Check out the Hitzer model 50-93 EZ-Flow model. It has a hopper feed system that will definitely get you past your 12 hour mark. Actually, seeing as your place is 1,100 SF maybe the smaller hopper fed Hitzer would be the way to go. With that model you can remove the hopper and burn wood in a pinch.

Either that or a Harman Mark I or Mark II would be nice also. I would go with the larger Mark II seeing as your place is a little drafty and the low temps.

All are good stoves.

Hi bill here are some stove sites keep warm up there

http://www.alaskastove.com/cms/index.ph ... &Itemid=29

http://www.hitzer.com/heaters.html

http://www.keystoker.com/radiantstove.html

http://www.harmanstoves.com/list.asp?id ... l%20Stoves

http://www.bakerstoves.com/stoves.htm

thank you guys for taking the time to reply, i really appreciate it.

I agree with "Townsend"...I'm starting my third year with a Hitzer Model 30-95. I can use nut or pea coal, fill it every 12 hours and empty the ashes every 24 hours. It heats my old 1600 sq ft house with no problem, using a 40 lb bag a day on average.

I can only give my opinion to our Hitzer 50-93. Being our first season burning coal with this stove, I only wish I would have been introduced to this stove 10 years ago. Sooo easy and sure puts off the heat.

Empty the ash pan and fill once every 12 hrs.. Heats just under a 3000 sq ft farm house.

The hopper fed system is nice. We have yet to open the front door this season. Because of this we are guess the reason why we are experiencing little to no dust/ash in the house.

i just found 2 of the 50-93 stoves never used, for sale for $1,000 each and im seriously contemplating it.

bill4117 wrote:i just found 2 of the 50-93 stoves never used, for sale for $1,000 each and im seriously contemplating it.

That is a good deal for 1k. Do they have the blower attachments? Our 50-93 is the radiant style which we like. Already our power went out two days ago for 3.5 hours. Glad we had the radiant stove.

Bill, I know nothing about the 50-93, but I would echo Townsend about the Harman Mark I vs. Mark II -- the Mark II would be your better choice of the two. I'm also in Central Maine, heating part of a drafty old farmhouse with a Harman Mark I which does fine for the 800 square feet I generally heat. But the Mark I is marginal and can't quite keep up when my offspring come visiting and we open up a couple more bedrooms.

If you go with a Harman I'd get the Mark II. When I bought my Mark I was unfamiliar with coal burning-I should have gotten the Mark II. The Mark I heats the place well until the outside temps drop below 30 degrees. Then I do have to get the burn rate really going to keep the place warm (warm is more then 65 degrees). We also burn a wood stove insert at the other end of the house for additional heat. I went by square footage to be heated when I bought it but did not factor in the heat loss in this old place.

But as I said, for the most part the amount of heat we get is fine. Better to have a little too much heating capacity then too little.

If getting rice coal is difficult where you live then a stoker is ruled out.

rberg where are you getting your supply and what's the price??? ive found that by the bag 40 lb blaschak is 5.99 but by the ton kimmels is 290.00. ive also found it in auburn for 283.00 a ton. i don't know if the stoves have the blower attachements. and the only rice coal ive found up here is about 2 hours from me. id rather not get a stoke if i have to rely on one supplier. plus the power goes out often here in the winter.

Bill, I am just outside Augusta. I bought two pallets (5,000 pounds) of nut from Knight's Farm Supply in Augusta, $650 delivered into my garage on the pallets last Spring. It is Kimmels, seems to be pretty good. Not sure what that works out to per ton, about $260 I think. I haven't checked the price this Fall, but I will be getting some more before long as soon as I make room in the garage. Paris Farmers Union and Agway also sell coal around here, though since I needed nut coal I didn't pay much attention to whether they carry pea or rice or stove. Only problem I have with the Kimmels is that the bags are 50 pounds. 40 would be easier for my aging body to hoist. But hey, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?

The power outages were a big factor in my getting a stove that doesn't need electricity. Remember the ice storm of '98? We were powerless for 12 days. My Harman does have a blower to circulate the heat, but it also works pretty well without the blower. So far I have only used the blower an hour or so a day when I come home from work and crank the stove up to bring the place back up to temperature.