Need Help Choosing a New Wood/Coal Furnace

I need a new furnace asap. My ashley 24 is only about four years old and it has warped,cracked,had electrical component failure and generally gone to junk. Obviously I cant afford a new furnace every few years so Im trying to choose better this time. My house is about 1600 square feet counting the unfinished basement where the furnace resides. This is my primary/only heat source. I have an oil furnace but only set it to come on to keep house above freezing .
The ashley would get hot fast but also cool down fast. It would not burn the bituminous coal I had available locally without the draft fan running almost full speed.
Also RFI energy is where I buy coal locally and they are going out of business. When the five ton I have is gone there is no more so I will be back to wood for the future.

Im considering the Ashley 30, US stove 1602r or the 1802. I would rather have the 1802 but the budget is badly stretched for the 1602.

I really need some advice from others experience as trial and error buying furnaces is way too expensive.

I have the Clayton 1600 (which is the same as the US Stove 1602). It works is about all I can say. It will burn wood or coal.

I have no experience with the others you mentioned.

JF, I would think you know but Ashley stoves are basically junk. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news:(

You can get a D S Machine furnace in that price range, why buy something inferior .

Used U S Stove units are popular items on Craigs List, have you looked?

There are many other makes listed there too.

LoschStoker wrote:You can get a D S Machine furnace in that price range, why buy something inferior .

+1 on DS Machine. I have the Ecomiser and love it.

vvvvv Look at the bottom of the page,the Hitzer ad ,might be they have a unit that would work for you.

JoshF wrote:My ashley 24 is only about four years old and it has warped,cracked,had electrical component failure and generally gone to junk.

How did your furnace endure such calamity? Were you over firing it with bituminous coal? Did you clean it and coat it with anything to inhibit corrosion during the summer months? Did you totally neglect the poor thing? I don't understand how a stove could get destroyed that quick. My cheap "piece a junk" is 12 years old and runs great..

JoshF, where do you live? Maybe you can get anthracite delivered, then you can buy a better stoker and never have to worry about cutting wood.

JoshF wrote:The ashley would get hot fast but also cool down fast. It would not burn the bituminous coal I had available locally without the draft fan running almost full speed.

That's what bit coal does. You must have over fired it with running the combustion blower wide open. I advise you don't operate it that way or you'll ruin the next stove too.

My guess is Im over-firing it to warm the house combined with poor build quality. It was never quite right. I could never really choke it down. The only experience I had previously was a homemade stove we could choke the air down and put the fire out if we wanted to. This thing I would fill with oak before bed and choke down all the air inputs and it would still burn hot and fast.
Like I said coal would not burn without the damper open and draft fan running as much as possible. Unfortunately the budget just wont stretch much past about 2000.00 to replace it.
I have wood available and prefer to burn it but we started a small farm two years ago and their just has not been time to cut wood. Since the coal was reasonable and local I went with it. It works nice for longer burns but it really took it's toll on the burner.