Wonderluxe / Wondercoal

I have read many times that one should not buy a wondercoal / Wonderluxe because they burn coal poorly. The instructions say Bituminous or Anthracite Nut coal should be used but with a lot of experience I will say Anthracite nut coal works the best. Like all hand fed coal stoves it is a pain in the butt until you master the art. This is my experience with the Wonderluxe over the last three years. First fire up a good load of wood and patiently wait until you get a good bed of coals. Next up grab some Anthracite nut coal and cover those coals with about a 2 inch bed of coal. At this point I would leave your thermostat control on the half way mark and your bottom draft control with half of one hole leaving air in to the bottom of the fire box. The firebox door draft control should be closed and stay closed with no exceptions. Patience is a virtue here as you wait for that coal to light (blue flames cracking and popping) and glowing red. Once that layer is lit add another 2 inches of coal and the process continues until coal reaches the top of the fire bricks front to back. Now this is where most of the screw ups occur and loss of fire happens. Never and I mean never do I use the shaker grate that is in the unit. It sucks and never does a sufficient job of bringing down all the ashes. I went to Lowes and bought a 1/4 inch x 4 foot piece of flat steel, approximately 6 dollars, it will be your best friend a long with a piece if 1/2 inch x 4 foot piece of re-bar and welding gloves. When you open the bottom ash pan door and look in you should see an orange glow coming from the grate front to back if not its time for a shake. Take your piece of flat steel and slot it in between the fire grate and the fire box on the left side first. You are basically slotting it so it slides under the coal bed and pushing it through until you hear it poke the back of the unit. Now wiggle it briskly from side to side and watch the ashes fall until you see glowing embers then remove it. Do the same thing on the right and then slot it in diagonal doing the same wiggle motion. You will be done when you see the orange glow along the entire grate. It sounds like a pain but the entire process takes a couple of minutes if that. Please make sure you use gloves as the steel gets hot. When you feed new coal in the fire box you might see a dark spots in the front , possibly the back, and possibly along the sides which might indicate ash build up. Don't panic just take your rebar and gently poke the spots and work the ashes down through and fill with coal. The best time to empty the ash pan is before you shake in the morning that is when the pan is the coolest and wont burn through your gloves. You will be doing that daily. When you want to burn the stove fairly hot the thermostat draft will not supply enough air and you will have to supplement it with more draft by opening the bottom draft holes. It took me a month before I got the hang of it but once I did it works beautifully. I am going to post a video on how to shake it on YouTube just search Wonderluxe Shaking. On low setting you will only have to shake it once every 8 to 10 hours or morning and night and increasing shaking depending on how hot your burning it. You should never have to shake it any more than 4 hour intervals on high. Turn it back at night and relax..... Hope I helped

Welcome to NEPA Crossroads, and thank you for sharing your experiences.

Welcome.

At one time I had the WonderCoal stove its not a bad stove and I burnt wood and some bit coal done well for me.

Thank you for posting. I too have a Wonderluxe and have found the same thing. DO NOT USE THE SHAKER. Coal falls off the grate in the front and back and locks up the shaker where you cant get the ash door closed without hitting the grate with a big hammer to break up the coal so the grate slides back into place. MY WIFE LOVED THAT ONE WHEN I HAD TO DO THAT AT 4 IN THE MORNING! I use a long metal bar also. Afterwards I will gently tap the coal bed down with a shovel trying not to disturb the coal, because the coal hangs in the air above the grate and you lose space so you cant add as much coal.

Things I found out:
Try not to put coal right up to the top or over the firebrick. The metal retaining bars holding the fire brick over time will get too hot and become very brittle.

If you don't have a manual pipe damper then get one. This stove loses too much heat and will burn out the right side of the coal bed very fast without one. I can burn for 12 hours on nut coal and 16 hours on pea coal with steady temps(300-350 on the stack one foot up from the flue).

nynownepaforever wrote:Thank you for posting. I too have a Wonderluxe and have found the same thing. DO NOT USE THE SHAKER. Coal falls off the grate in the front and back and locks up the shaker where you cant get the ash door closed without hitting the grate with a big hammer to break up the coal so the grate slides back into place. MY WIFE LOVED THAT ONE WHEN I HAD TO DO THAT AT 4 IN THE MORNING! I use a long metal bar also. Afterwards I will gently tap the coal bed down with a shovel trying not to disturb the coal, because the coal hangs in the air above the grate and you lose space so you cant add as much coal.

Things I found out:
Try not to put coal right up to the top or over the firebrick. The metal retaining bars holding the fire brick over time will get too hot and become very brittle.

If you don't have a manual pipe damper then get one. This stove loses too much heat and will burn out the right side of the coal bed very fast without one. I can burn for 12 hours on nut coal and 16 hours on pea coal with steady temps(300-350 on the stack one foot up from the flue).

I had some issue wit the grate getting out of place not very often but I did not burn a lot of coal mainly hardwood.

The pipe damper is a must with these stove I even use one with my new Busk stove.

I too have this stove. I used it for wood burning mostly trying a bag or two of coal with poor results.
I often check here but this post and video was the first I have seen. I would do what I called shaking down but nothing like I saw in the video. I thank you greatly! I wasnt putting nearly enough coal in it or shaking it hard enough . I had flat stock in the garage so I set out for a legit coal burn. Im going on 4 days with a house warmer than its ever been . Still learning the proper air settings but im watching the temps on the flue pipe and only shutting the mpd about 3/4 closed. I have 2 co detectors already . I grabbed 10 bags of nut this morning @ 6.70 a bag 40# reading. My job takes me to central pa every day from pinegrove to wilkes barre so if this works out I will build a bin and start buying bulk next season.
Thanks craig

Let me know how you make out. I was frustrated at first but in the end you will be happy like me

I did make one boo boo above when I referred to the ash pan door as the firebox door. Firebox door draft is always closed and use only the draft on the ash pan door to supplement the airflow.

I have burned 31 bags of nut so far. I can't seem to get past day 10 without signs of the dreaded dead spot. The load side burns nice but the far end seems to ash up and choke off. My stove location is not ideal in my opinion between my old oiler burner and the wash machine which limits my range of shaking ( 1 more piece of stove pipe would fix that ) I also considered another air hole cut in that side. I am teaching the better half to help out here while I'm working but that has ended in cold coal when I returned. I'll see if I can post a picture . Also I made some pokers and ash pullers
Thanks. Craig

10 days straight is a great run with that stove. I would just burn wood for one day and keep cleaning all the ash out every time you reload.

After you shake run a poker diagonal down through the coal and wiggle it back and forth to let the coal settle down. Remember that when you shake you should have no shadows between the grate and ash pan...shadows mean ash. Honestly a little dead spot in the back will hurt nothing just work it down with a poker. ...as long as it doesn't grow. Mine has been running since the end of October and I have burnt a little under a ton of nut. Keep experimenting you will get it....

Should add you can go 8 hours easy this kind of weather 10 to 20 degrees as long as you shake it down good and load it up...12 would mean a ton of ash but it will make it.

After burning a full load for 8 hours then shaking/slicing and poking this is what you should be looking at. Notice the even drop front to back no shadows below,

Nice looking fire. I'm too early in to my burn for a shake. About 8 pm I'm going after it. I will snap some pictures for comparison. I had wood burning until this morning ,to cold and too many trips up and down the steps. The last bags of coal I got must have been the bottom of the pallet , they were double bagged but they claimed to have re weighed them. They were already loaded on the truck when I came back out from paying. Never again the coal is all busted up with lots of fines and dust . I'm planning on checking out lutz's coal yard near skippack and ace hardware in east Greenville for bagged coal. They have leisure line stoves at ace. Might price one out
Happy new year to all
Craig