Might Get Out...

 
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windyhill4.2
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Stoker Coal Boiler: 1960 EFM520 installed in truck box
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Coal Size/Type: 404-nut, 520 rice ,anthracite for both

Post by windyhill4.2 » Wed. Dec. 11, 2013 8:00 pm

JohnB wrote:The wood burning "advice" dished out in this forum is hilarious. I heated my house exclusively with wood for decades & still heat my shop with it. Who in hell waits until winter to find/cut/split their firewood. Mine's delivered in that condition & I stack it in my shed in the Spring to season. Any critters or bugs that move in during the summer are gone by burning season. As for ash & dust the coal stove is MUCH worse then my woodstove ever was. A shop vac near the stove is mandatory to keep it under control.
Critters & bugs move in when the temps drop,... they hibernate in the wood & then come out when wood is stacked in the house (warmer condition).We went thru 6+ cords to heat an old leaky farm house & found it very difficult to stack 6+ cords in the house in the early summer so it would be clean,dry & bug free till fall heating season.Even if you have a BIG basement its hard to stack 6+ cords in there,but 6 ton of coal needs a lot less space. In our current situation we use in excess of 30 cord/yr.-- (3) buildings,with an owb to keep the mess outside,&&& keep the fire danger out of the buildings....creosote,wood fire gone wild,etc. After all these yrs. & so many cords of wood no one will convince me that there is a filthier way to heat,& nothing will match the excessive work load of wood burning!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Glad you get so much enjoyment from this forum, you burn wood in an indoor stove that is only seasoned from spring till heating season???? :shock:


 
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Keepaeyeonit
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Location: Northeast Ohio.( Grand river wine country )
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Coal Size/Type: Nut & stove
Other Heating: 49 year old oil furnace, and finally a new heat pump

Post by Keepaeyeonit » Wed. Dec. 11, 2013 8:48 pm

like I said in my earlier post about the 20+years with wood insert the fact still remains a lot less dust(maybe the stove I had I don't know)but with coal I don't have to buy oil and after 15+ hrs of not being home and tending the stove,the coal insert is still cranking out 500* and I come home to warm house which I never did with wood!Keepaeyeonit

PS,I just took this pic and yes its always this clean! but some think that coal and clean don't mix :lol:
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Sunny Boy
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Location: Central NY
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Anthracite Industrial, domestic hot water heater
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Coal Size/Type: Nuts !
Other Heating: Oil &electric plenum furnace

Post by Sunny Boy » Wed. Dec. 11, 2013 9:01 pm

Yup, the bugs get in the bark, knots and splits. Mosquitos lay eggs in the bark.

This old house ran on coal, but it also has a wood room in the basement for the big fireplace. If I put wood in it, the bugs come out and they're all over the house. One year, after a damp spring and summer, I was still killing mosquitos in the house almost every day, well into December. And all the maple I had was completely covered in white mold. Did a job on my daughters asthma.

In fact, not bringing bugs in the house to "wake up" is why some old houses had a wood box built on an outside wall near the fireplace, or wood stove.

The wood box is loaded full through an outside door and held about a days worth of wood. The box also has an inner door. When wood is needed, it's brought in from the box through the inner door.

By having the box on the outside of the house out in the cold, it keeps the bugs cold and they stay in hibernation. They never get a chance to warm enough to become active before they go right into the fire.

Paul

 
JohnB
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Location: Northeastern Ct.
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Hitzer 50-93
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Post by JohnB » Wed. Dec. 11, 2013 10:11 pm

I never stored quantities of firewood wood in the house, sounds like a bad idea. I brought in enough for a few days at a time. Burnt 6-8 cords a year for several decades & never had an issue with bugs coming out of the wood in the house but I wasn't burning old half rotted stuff either. As far as seasoning I always had a couple cords on hand from the previous season which got burnt first. The green cut/split wood stacked up in April was always ready to go by the time I needed it late Fall/early Winter. As I mentioned in another thread I only had the liner cleaned once a year & never got more then a couple hand fulls of creosote out of it so you know damn well I wasn't burning green firewood.

 
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mmcoal
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Post by mmcoal » Thu. Dec. 12, 2013 1:23 am

I have to agree with JohnB. Like I have said, wood burning is not for everyone and I am starting to find many people over exaggerate it a bit. Obviously, if wood burning is going to have a negative impact on your family's health then that is a different story. I grew up in a house that was heated exclusively with wood where we would have 3-4 wheelbarrow loads of wood in the basement at a time and we never had problems with bugs all over the place. When ever I brought the wood in I use to check it over before placing it in the wheelbarrow and if the bark was loose I would separate it and make sure nothing was behind it. Not to say we never brought bugs in, but it never became a problem in our house. Yes, creosote is very dangerous, but if your a knowledgeable wood burner it's not as large of a risk as one may think.

 
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freetown fred
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Post by freetown fred » Thu. Dec. 12, 2013 6:16 am

DITTO with JB & mm. I did it for many years & it worked real well due to an abundance of firewood--and then I woke up one morning to discover I had gotten OLD-coal is a luxury for this old farmer :)

 
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Keepaeyeonit
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Location: Northeast Ohio.( Grand river wine country )
Baseburners & Antiques: Glenwood #8
Coal Size/Type: Nut & stove
Other Heating: 49 year old oil furnace, and finally a new heat pump

Post by Keepaeyeonit » Thu. Dec. 12, 2013 7:17 am

All you guys make good points but for me my door to the back is to the other end of the house so I would lug arm full's of wood a crossed the finished lower level multiple times a day plus I had a pile inside the house for the wife because she would not lug it a crossed the house. but if the door was right there by the stove it wouldn't have been that bad, now I just refill my indoor bin with (8) 5 gallon buckets of oiled nut once a week and the burn times with wood still are no where close to coal for this particular set up. The wood you are cutting this year is always for next winter, if you have the time for wood it's not a bad way to go, it takes a fair amount of time but so does any solid fuel. Keepaeyeonit :)


 
coalcracker
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Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Standard sealed hot water boiler, hand fed
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Harman Mark I Magnafire
Baseburners & Antiques: Lehigh Oak 18, Washington potbelly, Sears Roebuck parlor cabinet, PIttston 6 lid cook stove, vintage combo gas/coal cook stove 4 lid
Coal Size/Type: nut

Post by coalcracker » Thu. Dec. 12, 2013 9:00 am

Bootstrap wrote:The wife wanted a small wood stove for upstairs. Kinda like it. And being small in size, it doesnt burn much.
My Hitzer is in the basement. Heats the house decently but she raised a good point: Why are we heating the basement? I guess I don't really have to. I mean besides the warmer floors, I have comfy slippers. And the floors arent really that warm as there are dividing walls down there so its only a small portion of the flooring.

No, I don't want the hitzer upstairs. Most importantly, is is produces tons of ash and I don't want that upstairs what so ever.
I do enjoy coal burning, but for what we need in this tiny little shat box house, I think the little woodstove might do it. I might be selling a nice Hitzer 30-95 and about two tons of baged nut coal.
wood isn't bad either, but you'll be doing a lot of cutting, splitting, stacking, felling, hauling to get it- and a lot of chainsaw filling, oiling, maintenance. Good luck either way.

if we had to burn bagged coal, it would not be cost effective to use coal in many areas here. My brother and sister both have homes with modern natural gas boilers and their max heating bill with hot water for winter months, on the budget plan, is only $220/month or so.

if the coal heat costs got to $10/month one may be better off with natural gas, if there's a gas line there

one thing about coal is, you have real heat though. Their bills are low, but their homes are not quite a toasty cozy warm as mine. Like the old saying goes, nothing heats like coal.

 
JohnB
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Post by JohnB » Thu. Dec. 12, 2013 9:55 am

coalcracker wrote:wood isn't bad either, but you'll be doing a lot of cutting, splitting, stacking, felling, hauling to get it- and a lot of chainsaw filling, oiling, maintenance. Good luck either way.
Do you mine your own coal? I'm guessing that most everyone on this forum buys it from a supplier who delivers it to your house? You'll find that the majority of folks heating with wood are doing the same so it's already cut & split when the supplier delivers it. All that's left to do is stack it under cover.
coalcracker wrote:
if we had to burn bagged coal, it would not be cost effective to use coal in many areas here.
one thing about coal is, you have real heat though. Their bills are low, but their homes are not quite a toasty cozy warm as mine. Like the old saying goes, nothing heats like coal.
I think it should say "nothing heats like coal with as little work". Our house was definitely toastier last year burning wood. If I kept the temps up where they were with my woodstove I'd be burning way too much coal to make it worth the change. Bagged Blaschak coal is cheaper then bulk around here & at $295 a ton delivered it is as Fred said "a luxury" & not cheaper then burning wood for me. I love the convenience of a hopper feed stove & the nice even heat round the clock but if coal prices go up around here I'll be back to burning wood.

 
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BPatrick
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Post by BPatrick » Thu. Dec. 12, 2013 11:35 am

Well John B, many of us used to burn with wood too. And we got tired of being a slave to it. No way wood is cleaner and less work than coal. Are you still trying to convince yourself that the extra work is worth it. Wood heats and if you want to do it fine. To be shocked that a bunch of ex-wood burners who saw the light and won't turn back after anthracite, is laughable. You do know your posting this on a coal thread. Many people on here used wood. Now we don't.

 
JohnB
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Post by JohnB » Thu. Dec. 12, 2013 11:51 am

Never said I was shocked did I BP. Just pointed out that there are LOT of gross exaggerations posted here concerning burning wood while the issues common with burning coal are glossed over or never talked about. I'm enjoying burning coal for now, I'm just not swilling down the kool-aid. Off to tend the woodfire in my shop. :lol:

 
franco b
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Post by franco b » Thu. Dec. 12, 2013 12:06 pm

JohnB wrote:Never said I was shocked did I BP. Just pointed out that there are LOT of gross exaggerations posted here concerning burning wood while the issues common with burning coal are glossed over or never talked about. I'm enjoying burning coal for now, I'm just not swilling down the kool-aid. Off to tend the woodfire in my shop. :lol:
The only advantage of wood over coal that I am aware of is the much lower amount of ash.

You have to carry twice the weight of wood to equal the heat output of coal and that assumes an efficient wood burner.

 
JohnB
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Post by JohnB » Thu. Dec. 12, 2013 12:31 pm

The ash is the main thing; not just the amount & the fly ash but the disposal. There is also much more to starting & keeping a coal fire going compared to wood. The coal needs more draft & outside temps play a much bigger factor especially in the shoulder months. I've picked it up pretty quick after losing the fire a couple times. My biggest concern is how my wife would fare if I was gone for a few days or longer. Currently the stove is our only source of heat which is one of the reasons I do want to get at least a small woodstove back in the house. She did "ok" dealing with the Jotul but I'm not so sure she's going to pick up everything you need to know about living with a coal stove.

 
franco b
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Post by franco b » Thu. Dec. 12, 2013 12:38 pm

Having a hopper and thermostat your stove should be among the easiest to tend. Let her get some practice with you there and I am sure she will catch on once she loses her initial apprehension. Will add to her self esteem too.

 
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Sunny Boy
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Post by Sunny Boy » Thu. Dec. 12, 2013 12:55 pm

The cool aid can go both ways.

As said, many of us have used wood stoves. I've used fire places, wood stoves and coal stoves.

I've moved and stacked wood outdoors and indoors. And I've had many years of having to put warm clothing on/off every time I had to go outdoors in cold, snow, and wind. Or several times a day up/down basement stairs a day to equal once a day for coal.

I've worked from bagged coal stored in a shed and bulk coal in a bin. It's a lot easier to stand there and watch bulk coal slide down a shute into a coal bin than it is repeated trips carrying wood in, or carry/stacking bags of coal. My 6 ton coal bin holds two years of coal for my stove and takes up a lot less room than wood.

I still have a working fire place and that high efficiency rated wood stove. - they don't get used. And I still buy some wood, but it's only used in an warmer weather outdoors while we're sitting around a fire pit, or on camping trips.

No more having to chean the chimney or worry about creosote build up. Once a year or two just shop vac the 8 feet of stove pipe. And take a small pail of fly ash out of the chimney clean-out door.

Wood ash went in the garden, coal ash in the driveway. Same distance. True wood has less ash, but more wood is needed by volume then coal. Didn't matter if it was fireplace, wood stove, or coal stove, they all needed to be emptied every day.

My coal stove will burn far longer on a full load of coal to heat the same area than my high efficiency wood stove will with it's much larger fire box.

There's very good reasons why so many coal stoves replaced wood stoves for 100 years. And the coal stoves only got replaced by oil and gas burners.

Paul


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