Chubby Stoves

I started burning coal in the 1980's with a Better N Ben model, & at that time coal stove heating was pretty popular but seems to have died out. A friend of mine had a barrel shaped stove, I think it was called a "Chubby." Anyone ever hear of it & what was the "burping" that was normal to it? (backfires from volatils?)

I'm pretty sure there is at least one if not more posts or threads on the forum about chubby stoves... Try a search of the forum... I think last year about this time, there was a short thread about the Chubby.

Good luck.. Greg L

Devil, I have a chubby coal stove that i decomissioned two years ago and replaced with a stoker. It was made by Plymouth stoveworks in Mass. It is rated for 60000 BTU ,has no firebrick, almost like a clay pot grate basket. It holds about 35 lbs of coal and really radiates the heat. It has two flaps on the side that are for a secondary burn of the gasses. I did not really mess around with these much. I do remember the mini explosions sometimes if you opened the top door too fast, but if you slowly opened the door it was not a problem. Shaking was alittle dusty since i usually did by opening the bottom door and moving the grate back in forth with firemitts, but overall these are great little stoves. I t will put out more heat than you would think by looking at it. Mine worked best burning pea coal. There are still alot these stoves out there and you should be able to find one in New England for under $300. If you find one with a blower I would jump on it. Hope this helps.

Salemcoal wrote:Devil, I have a chubby coal stove that i decomissioned two years ago and replaced with a stoker. It was made by Plymouth stoveworks in Mass. It is rated for 60000 BTU ,has no firebrick, almost like a clay pot grate basket. It holds about 35 lbs of coal and really radiates the heat. It has two flaps on the side that are for a secondary burn of the gasses. I did not really mess around with these much. I do remember the mini explosions sometimes if you opened the top door too fast, but if you slowly opened the door it was not a problem. Shaking was alittle dusty since i usually did by opening the bottom door and moving the grate back in forth with firemitts, but overall these are great little stoves. I t will put out more heat than you would think by looking at it. Mine worked best burning pea coal. There are still alot these stoves out there and you should be able to find one in New England for under $300. If you find one with a blower I would jump on it. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the info!
I was just curious & am very happy with my Harman. I do remember my friend saying that his Chubby needed to be "burped" but never asked him about it.

I have a chubby. It works very well. The only time it burps is when you use bit. coal in it. Thats because of the volitiles. When they are burned off the problem goes away. Then it only burps if you don't open the two dog ears on the side. It is not a clay pot, it's a steel pot that is virtually indestructible. I would recommend a chubby to a first time coal burner because it is very simple and forgiving. A chubby is only rated for 60,000 btu. but it cranks out the heat. The gentleman I purchased my chubby from fabricated an aluminum plate to cover the cleanout during shaking. this cuts down considerably the dust.

The first year I burned coal (about 15 years ago) I had a Chubby Jr. I had the coal gas flairs shooting out the little air hole on the side. I solved the problem by removing the rope seal around the door. I then had just enough air entering the burn chamber to get a good blue flame on top of the coal bed.

Chubby Jr. is now doing service at my mother's house to take the chill off her kitchen.