Pea or Nut in Harman II ?

Ok, guys, your gonna see more of Uglysquirrel here since I just dedicated myself to coal next year. Great site! With a Harmon II ready to be picked up in Hebron, CT I'd like to request your expertise on the size of coal I should get. I have 3 tons of Blaschak on order, 2 nut and 1 pea . With Harman saying this stove takes nut or pea, what are the burning attributes of nut and pea ? Is pea or nut easier to bring to a lower temp, like end of season, etc? Is nut for deep winter intense heat? Does pea burn longer ? I'm also somewhat concerned with the pea falling thru the grate, though most of what I've heard from dealers is NUT. All your opinions will decide if I need to do all nut or mostly nut and some pea like currently planned. I'll also need to set this baby up with one of those Field controls and draft gage (been reading a lot of your experience based advise) but that will come later, sooo for now, its nut or pea ? Thank you for any opinions! Bruce

Pea will burn slower and longer, while nut gives you more heat but doesn't last as long. Use the pea during the early fall and later spring, saving the nut for deep winter. I just bought a used Mark II to replace my 25 year old crane and looking at the grates, you should have no problem with the pea falling through. My old stove has much larger openings in the grate and some of the pea will fall through when I am first lighting it, but once I get a bed going, I have no problem. I plan to continue burning both when I install the Mark II.

Oh, and don't forget the match light charcoal. It is the only way to start a coal stove. Get twenty or so briquetts going and start adding small amounts of coal. Also great for saving a dying fire.

Uglysquirrel wrote:Ok, guys, your gonna see more of Uglysquirrel here since I just dedicated myself to coal next year. Great site! With a Harmon II ready to be picked up in Hebron, CT I'd like to request your expertise on the size of coal I should get. I have 3 tons of Blaschak on order, 2 nut and 1 pea . With Harman saying this stove takes nut or pea, what are the burning attributes of nut and pea ? Is pea or nut easier to bring to a lower temp, like end of season, etc? Is nut for deep winter intense heat? Does pea burn longer ? I'm also somewhat concerned with the pea falling thru the grate, though most of what I've heard from dealers is NUT. All your opinions will decide if I need to do all nut or mostly nut and some pea like currently planned. I'll also need to set this baby up with one of those Field controls and draft gage (been reading a lot of your experience based advise) but that will come later, sooo for now, its nut or pea ? Thank you for any opinions! Bruce

You can also burn Stove size in it aswell you might won't to pick up a few bags of it and save it for really cold days
throw it on top of the Nut you will get more heat and it will burn a little longer or you can do all three Pea first then Nut
and top it off with Stove the Pea will slow down the burn the Nut & stove will throw more heat works good when the Temps are in the single digit & teens boy I miss them Nights already

coal berner wrote:

Uglysquirrel wrote: With Harman saying this stove takes nut or pea, what are the burning attributes of nut and pea ? Is pea or nut easier to bring to a lower temp, like end of season, etc? Is nut for deep winter intense heat? Does pea burn longer ? I'm also somewhat concerned with the pea falling thru the grate, though most of what I've heard from dealers is NUT. All your opinions will decide if I need to do all nut or mostly nut and some pea like currently planned. I'll also need to set this baby up with one of those Field controls and draft gage (been reading a lot of your experience based advise) but that will come later, sooo for now, its nut or pea ?

I have no experience, but a coal company sales manager told me that, "the larger the coal size from the same brand...there is less ash". Can anyone comment?

Not to forget WI Coals question on size vs ash, but you guys are coal artisans. A lot if it makes sense. I'll keep the 2 ton nut/1 ton pea on order, buy 4-5 bags of stove, can we go to subzero for a few days in the next month to try all this out ? Lots of alt energy excitement here. Thanks, I'll let someone address the size vs ash question.

I would not recommend stove,, nut is big enough for most home size hand feeds.. I guess if you only bought a few bags. When I bought several tons to use in my 'Big Bertha' hand feed boiler, I wished I had bought Nut...

Maybe a base of stove, covered with a layer or Nut or pea... but I certainly wouldn't buy a lot until you tried it.. Stove can be as big as a baseball, or a fist.

Greg L

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In addition, if you are buying real deep-mined coal-nut size will work great. If you are buying strip or refuse coal I recommend buying pea size only.

When I was burning crap coal the nut size was hard to keep going and formed large hard clinkers that tended to jam the grates and block the air flow. I would spend a lot of time "clinker fishing". Pea was the only coal I could burn properly.

With my switch to deep-mined coal, Coalberner said to use nut size, so I did. I have no problems getting nice long burn times and no problems with big hard clinkers.

I would avoid stove size, I really don't think it will work out well. I did try it once but it was very poor quality so I cannot accurately say how well it will burn.

I run a Mark II and would agree that most of the coal you will burn will be Nut size. However each location/house/stove/chimney combination will be slightly different. Start with Nut, a properly calibrated barometric damper, a good chimney install, and then adjust your mix/size of coal accordingly. I use Nut but run Stove size with no issues and use the Pea size to slow the burn if necessary. Make sure that you buy quality coal; in bulk just listen to ‘coal berner’ and for bagged ‘Blaschak’ is the premium coal. Once you burn good quality coal you do become a bit prejudiced.
Still burnin’ to keep the chill and dampness out of the house, i was thinking of hooking up the little Godin to act as a dehumidifier all summer and it might be cheaper than the electric dehumidifier now.

Blaschak is pretty much the only coal we can get in Central CT. From this forum, seems this Coal seems kinda like this wood thing I was doing for the last 20 years, re: Good Athracite is equal to nice dry oak. But enough of the "W--D" word. I'm trying to convince my two brother in law to do coal,,,one is almost there with the other still doing w--d. He finds a certain passion with running his w--d splitter by the light of the moon with Heniken in hand.,,, and to some degree it becomes more rewarding as more libations are consumed until he falls on the ice and put his back out. I'm gonna call him up now and tell him to read this..Smiles,,,,

LsFarm wrote:I would not recommend stove,, nut is big enough for most home size hand feeds.. I guess if you only bought a few bags. When I bought several tons to use in my 'Big Bertha' hand feed boiler, I wished I had bought Nut...

Maybe a base of stove, covered with a layer or Nut or pea... but I certainly wouldn't buy a lot until you tried it.. Stove can be as big as a baseball, or a fist.

Greg L

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If you would read my respons you will see that i sugested that he could use all three sizes as Harman states and I only suggested a layer of Stove on top of Nut it will give extra heat for the real cold days aswell if he would use Pea Nut and then Stove it will slow the burn and he will get a longer burn time I have dunn it It works and remember I am not
new to burning coal expcelly in Hand Fed stoves and furnace and I have taking care of few stoker boilers over the years
Parents grandparents & neighbors There is Nothing wrong with burning stove size coal as long it is good Quality coal & That goes for any size coal And if you mix it with Nut or pea it will work better then burning it by itself Stove size should be 2 7/16" to 1 5/8 "in size Nut should be 1 5/8" to 13/16" Pea 13/16" to 9 /16" Buck 9/16" to 5/16" Rice 5 /16" to 3/16" Barley 3/16" To 3/32" These are standard Anthracite sizes

Coal Berner, while I have not been on this forum too long, I've seen that a lot of people trust what you say. The great thing about trying new things (within the realm of safety) is that it's fun and lets not furget it's the middle of winter, it's Saturday night at 11 pm and nothing much else to do. Not to start a new topic here but the recent articles on starting a coal fire with match light and cardboard with a hole in it made me stop at a couple houses that were throwing out a lot of cardboard on trash day (I guess that shows how cheap I am). The reason why I noted that I'll try something that some one else did as long as it seems safe. Soo keep up the good sugggestions. I do have several more questions I'm planning to ask in the next week about special types of CO detectors and CO backdraft potential as the stove dies down. I'm gettin ready..

I too liked the matchlight charcoal starting method. You do not need the cardboard, use the space for more coal. But I have moved on to lump charcoal.

Lay down 3 inches across the grates, covering the entire bottom.
Use a couple of “fat sticks” for fire starters on the top of the pile.
One or two pages of news print in the ash pan, the same on top.
Cover your barometric damper with tinfoil.
Light the top paper first to induce draft and light the fat sticks.
Light the bottom paper.
Close the main door but leave the ash door open.
You will know the lump charcoal is going when you get sparks and a nice glow.
Start slowly adding your coal at this point; you do not want to smother the fire.
Once you get the first few scoops of coal going you can add more coal faster.
Have a beverage, malted/filtered/distilled, of your choice as your coal stove warms you.

Back on subject.

The Stove size makes nice heat when it is really cold. Burned a half ton of Stove this season and best of all it was free.

Uglysquirrel wrote:Blaschak is pretty much the only coal we can get in Central CT. From this forum, seems this Coal seems kinda like this wood thing I was doing for the last 20 years, re: Good Athracite is equal to nice dry oak. But enough of the "W--D" word. I'm trying to convince my two brother in law to do coal,,,one is almost there with the other still doing w--d. He finds a certain passion with running his w--d splitter by the light of the moon with Heniken in hand.,,, and to some degree it becomes more rewarding as more libations are consumed until he falls on the ice and put his back out. I'm gonna call him up now and tell him to read this..Smiles,,,,

Uglysquirrel,
In Vernon CT there is a bulk coal dealer, Phelps and Sons. I have not burned their coal yet, but I will. I have talked to their coal customers and they are happy.
1258 Hartford Tpke
Vernon CT 06066
(860) 871-2118