Wondercoal ?

Anyone her with experience with the Wondercoal stove from U.S. Stove company ? I've had good enough luck and saved enough on my fuel oil cost with the Hot Blast I want coal in the garage too . Does anyone know if the burn wood alright too? Bud

Well, my father in law had one years ago, and burned both wood and coal in it, but think this was befor EPA stuck theirs noses in. Don't know if todays stoves are still capable.

I had the Wonderwood years ago, and I loved it as a heater, and the simple bimetal thermostat worked very well. It put out plenty of heat and with it's circulator design I never felt I needed a blower. The "only" problem was that, at low burn rates, it made tremendous amounts of creosote and I had one chimney fire and one creosote-plugged chimney cap that sent me scrambling up on my roof in the middle of the night to clear it. My understanding is, the difference between the Wonderwood and the Wondercoal was (1) shaker grates and (2) a modified loading door with secondary air for the coal. It may at that time have had a gravity-latch load door rather than a positive lock, so it could blow open if you had a coal explosion. The current design has a positive latch.

I would not hesitate to try a Wondercoal in the garage for burning coal, but I personally would not use it for wood, I'd use one of the newer wood stoves specially engineered to meet EPA specs.

Here's a fun story about the circulator feature -- that is, the double-wall construction that acts like a mini-chimney to whoosh the heat out the top of the stove. One of my kids had a mylar balloon that had lost a lot of helium so it just hovered a couple inches above the floor. I held it above the stove so it got nice and warm and the helium expanded and filled the balloon, then I let it go. As the helium cooled over about five minutes, the balloon gradually sank toward the floor. But as it sank to different altitudes it followed the convection currents all through the house. First it shot to the ceiling above the stove, then migrated across thirty-five feet of ceiling to the far corner of the living room opposite the stove's corner. Then it cooled a little, sank a little, and migrated fifteen feet from the corner to a door into the poorly-heated kitchen. As soon as it cleared the kitchen door it shot to the ceiling again because the kitchen air was so much cooler. Then it migrated thirty feet tacross the ceiling o the far corner of the kitchen, sank as it cooled, and migrated at lower altitude following the air flow returning to the living room. By this time it was cooled almost completely and it made a beeline across the living room floor straight back to the stove.

I would burn bit most likely as I seam to have an esier time with it ,found one on clearance for just under $400 .The pipe and everything is there my wood stove that was out there had a suspicious crack and I gouged and welded it up but after that it always gave me the creeps to let it burn for any period of time I'm not out there (I machine, weld, and fabricate out there) .I used to go out and start the stove and let it warm up a little before I'd go out ,but I just don't dare anymore . I burn bit. in my hotblast but wasn't sure if the Wondercoal could. I just picked up two free ton of anthracite so I thought that would do me for quite a while out there . I loved the story about the balloon , my grand father used to say a balloon going around the house like that was being carried by a ghost!

Here's a link to US Stove Company's Wondercoal owner's manual. It mentions bituminous in a couple of places, also anthracite. It recommends egg-size low sulfur bituminous.

https://www.usstove.com/Downloads/Owner ... MANUAL.pdf

P.S. Under $400 sounds like a great price.

I got the 2 ton of anthracite for the $20 to my son and his friend to load it on my truck ! How good is that !I tried some in my hotblast and it is small enough to fall through if there isn't sufficient bed to hold it up.