Cookin' With Coal

The ash pan on the Ashland Deluxe is indeed small and down low near the ground. More to ponder. The guy who showed it to me commented that the Amish themselves (and he among them) hardly use coal anymore. Mainly they use wood. He also questioned why would I want to burn anthracite when it is so expensive. He suggested burning compressed wood blocks called Enviro-Brick (formerly called Eco-Brick), and said he gets them delivered for $150 per ton. It must be nice to be able to get the "Amish" price for things, as I've only seen them at the "English" price of more like $260 per ton. Enviro-Bricks have about 8,000 BTU's per pound. But then he is in Millersburg, OH and that is also where the Enviro-Brick factory is located. http://www.envirobrick.net/

What I see in these new stoves is the difficulty moving them if necessary.

It seems older ranges, like their antique stove counter parts, disassemble easily. Plus, to me, they look far better

scalabro wrote:What I see in these new stoves is the difficulty moving them if necessary.

It seems older ranges, like their antique stove counter parts, disassemble easily. Plus, to me, they look far better

Yes, there's that.

Not that they need to be moved alot now. However, many were designed to be able to be moved outdoors to the "summer kitchen" and brought back in at the end of summer.

By just lifting off all the parts that don't require more than simple screw driver and pliers (the back mantel shelves), I can get my range from about 400 lbs down to less than 200lbs for the core box in about 5 minutes. And that's with the added weight of the water reservoir housing, that very few have.

Granted my Sunny Glenwood is at the small end of the sizes, but when I bought it, I unloaded it from the minivan, brought it in the house strapped to a hand truck, and set it up all by myself.

Paul

Sunny Boy wrote:

scalabro wrote:What I see in these new stoves is the difficulty moving them if necessary.

It seems older ranges, like their antique stove counter parts, disassemble easily. Plus, to me, they look far better

Yes, there's that.

Not that they need to be moved alot now. However, many were designed to be able to be moved outdoors to the "summer kitchen" and brought back in at the end of summer.

By just lifting off all the parts that don't require more than simple screw driver and pliers (the back mantel shelves), I can get my range from about 400 lbs down to less than 200lbs for the core box in about 5 minutes. And that's with the added weight of the water reservoir housing, that very few have.

Granted my Sunny Glenwood is at the small end of the sizes, but when I bought it, I unloaded it from the minivan, brought it in the house strapped to a hand truck, and set it up all by myself.

Paul

When we brought my Clarion into the garage, even with it torn right down to just the main box, Dad and I had our hands full. I am guessing torn down it was about 400#.

Randy

For those among us who might still have interest, I believe that I have located (sort of) the manufacturer of the Ashland Deluxe cook stove. No phone, but they do have a post office box address where they can receive (and presumably respond to) snail mail:

Ashland Stove Company
Route 1, Box 63A
Ashland, OH 44805

I further believe that their street address is:

1990 Adario East Road
Shiloh, OH 44878

Even though a Google Earth search of this specific street address places one upon a dirt road amongst farm fields.....

SWPaDon wrote:I was looking at those grates while you were posting, will be tough to clear clinkers.

On this site: http://www.stovesandmore.com/index.php/products/s ... rs/ashland , a couple of pictures show an extra knob on the ash door.

Looks like it might have something to do with being an adjustable primary air inlet while also being a door knob ?

One other problem that some models have. While they can hold a lot of wood, with a one-piece top all the loading has to be done through the firebox front door. That means that if you wish to use coal, it can't loaded any higher in the front than the front edge of the firebox. So, even sloping the coal bed higher toward the rear, the firebox can only be filled about half way for it's size.

Some of the competition to this one have removable covers in the cook top. So, like antique wood/coal ranges when using coal, they can then be loaded through the top. That way, the front loading door is left closed and the front of the firebox is temporarily walled off with firebrick. Then the firebox can be loaded to capacity.

Paul

Sunny Boy wrote:

SWPaDon wrote:I was looking at those grates while you were posting, will be tough to clear clinkers.

On this site: http://www.stovesandmore.com/index.php/products/s ... rs/ashland , a couple of pictures show an extra knob on the ash door.

Looks like it might have something to do with being an adjustable primary air inlet while also being a door knob ?

One other problem that some models have. While they can hold a lot of wood, with a one-piece top all the loading has to be done through the firebox front door. That means that if you wish to use coal, it can't loaded any higher in the front than the front edge of the firebox. So, even sloping the coal bed higher toward the rear, the firebox can only be filled about half way for it's size.

Some of the competition to this one have removable covers in the cook top. So, like antique wood/coal ranges when using coal, they can then be loaded through the top. That way, the front loading door is left closed and the front of the firebox is temporarily walled off with firebrick. Then the firebox can be loaded to capacity.

Paul

If I were going to go with a new cookstove, I would go with the Kitchen Queen. This is another Amish made stove, I believe made in Canada. It has the round plates in the top for easy loading and cleaning. It does have coal grates and summer grates available. I do believe the coal grates are more for bituminous rather than anthracite, although I have read where some have burned anthracite in them. They have glass doors available for the firebox and oven now too. Here is a link for them at a stove in Montana.
http://www.discountstoves.net/Kitchen-Queen-380-p ... nqueen.htm

Randy

I emailed the guy at this link: http://www.antiquestoves.com/ashlandstove/

And in reply he told me that the Ashland Deluxe will burn anthracite.

lsayre wrote:I emailed the guy at this link: http://www.antiquestoves.com/ashlandstove/

And in reply he told me that the Ashland Deluxe will burn anthracite.

As will many wood stoves. My main concern with these wood ranges are, ... will they burn anthracite "well", or waste coal while frustrating the user ?

I've noticed that with every one of these wood ranges, they are never advertised as being able to burn anthracite. It's always a question that has to be asked. But whenever the question of anthracite is brought up, the salesman always say, "yes".

Take another look at those grates. The "teeth" are more like paddles. And the gaps between them are small so that they can support wood embers and ash. They will not allow coal ash and ash chunks to pass through easily during shaking. That means the need for more arc during shaking and dumping a lot of coal off the sides of the grates. That often leads to also dumping large, still burning coal to affectively clear ash.

Now, look at the proportions of true coal grates, either draw center, triangular, dock ash, etc. The proportion of grate metal width to ash gap width is closer to one to one. The better coal grates are designed to chew at the ash with minimal grate movement so that they don't have to drop large still-burning coals while able to break up and dislodge ash and small, soft clinkers before they become larger, firmer clinkers. I don't see that working well with wider, flat grate bars that are designed to better support wood embers and ash.

And with no way to load this maker's range models through the one-piece top, if you want to use coal the firebox capacity will be reduced by at least 50%. So, there's no point in using coal to get a longer burn time than a full load of wood. However, if you make some type of half wall in the front of the firebox to partially close it off with firebrick, then you'll be able to have a deeper coal bed and gain back some of that lost capacity.

And with such a small capacity ash pan, the stove will need tending more often, no matter how much the coal capacity is increased.

If you plan on just using wood in one of these type ranges, I can see where they will very good. But, I think that whoever tries to use anthracite in one of these wood range, will be very frustrated and not gain as much as they think.

Paul

Very good points Paul.

The question then becomes, why does no one build a new anthracite fueled range?

Maybe KingCoal can make that his next project

scalabro wrote:Very good points Paul.

The question then becomes, why does no one build a new anthracite fueled range?

Maybe KingCoal can make that his next project

For the simple reason of production numbers. Most of the folks who live off grid use wood. Same as stove shops sell more wood stoves than coal stoves.

Around here wood is still much cheaper to use than coal - about $100.00 a full cord cheaper than a ton of coal. If you cut your own standing timber, many see it as getting back some of the money they pay in land taxes.

My two friends who both use a wood/coal kitchen range most of the year, only use wood in them. I've mentioned the advantages of using coal to them both. But, everyday, they look out their back door at the hundreds of acres of wood they own.

Some of the old farmers, who are too old to keep cutting their own firewood, will let a younger neighbor cut on their land and take half as payment.

Paul

scalabro wrote:Very good points Paul.

The question then becomes, why does no one build a new anthracite fueled range?

Maybe KingCoal can make that his next project

there are a number of pretty good current production ranges that with a bit of work could be converted.

Agreed, Steve.

Lots to choose from, but all are advertised as "wood", not like the antiques which were advertised as "wood/coal", which they were designed well to handle both.

Here's just one source.
http://woodstoves.net/cookstoves.htm

Some of those ranges are usually the ones that the front of the firebox can be closed off and loaded through removable covers in the cook top - same as the antique ranges do. With such large fireboxes fully loaded, my guess is they would hold about 50 lbs, or more, of coal - about a couple of days worth.

But, the problems aren't coal burning air feed, or being able to hold a large quality of coal. Despite what salesmen say, with every one of the modern ranges I've checked into so far, domestic, or imported, the designers made shaker grate's that show that they have little, or no experience burning anthracite. That's also evident in the lack of an ash pan better sized to handle as much coal ash as a large capacity firebox will produce.

It's much easier to design a stove so that you can burn wood in a coal stove, than it is to do the opposite. And making space for a larger, easier to use ash pan is doable, but not if your goal is to have the largest wood firebox possible.

If someone can solve those two problems, then they can have a true multi-fuel range,.... instead of a wood range where coal use was an afterthought.

Paul

To be fair, and not seem like I'm against all modern types of kitchen ranges,..... as with all modern stoves, some are better purpose designed than others. For anyone thinking about getting one, it is well worth investigating as many as possible to see the advantages and disadvantages before buying.

And many of the better ones do have some advantages over the antiques.

Without a doubt, much bigger fireboxes - especially if they can be top loaded for coal (remember to look at coal grates and ash pan designs, too).
Better air control with gasketed doors that are more airtight and thermostatic controlled dampers to give more uniform cooking and heating output.
Bigger ovens, with glass doors.
Easier to maintain cooking surfaces.
Being able to handle piped-in heating of water for hydronic heating of other areas of a house, and/or, for domestic hot water.

Paul

Would the Ashland Deluxe coal grates function any better with pea than nut? I'm really trying to stick with stocking only one size of coal, and I use pea in my AHS Coal Gun boiler.