Tremont Wood / Coal

I would appreciate any help/advice I could get on this unit. We recently bought a house and this unit was in. I've had it cleaned and the chimney inspected. The inspector was puzzled and said it was a combination coal and wood. I'd like to try it with coal, but I wanted to get some firm answers first. Internet searches have been useless and it looks like others' searches were as useful.

My main question is "Would it be safe to burn coal in this unit?"
Thanks for reading and looking.

Welcome MwadeO, does the stove have grates that rock back and forth in order to shake the ash out? Whats under the fire bricks on each side of the fire? Coal needs a deep bed of coals ( 6 to 8 inches minimum ) in order to maintain it's fire or it won't burn very long.

Lots of info on TREEMONT STOVES on line

Thanks for the reply michaelanthony. Solid steel is under the fire bricks. The whole grate, where the fire is sitting is connected to a shaker, it only allows very short jerky motion. I'm hoping to find a manual or other instructional materials online, but to date I've had no real luck. Lots of look alike pictures.

I should mention the shelf on top of the stove appears to be ornamental.

They may have put a small movable grate in so they could bypass EPA regulations by calling it a combo wood/coal stove. Given the name "Tree"mont, it's probably a woody. ...just my 2 cents.

Welcome.

Looks like a wood stove to me.

Appreciate the replies. I'm going to go with wood right now and continue with the research. The chimney guy was sure that coal was the way to go.

MwadeO wrote:Appreciate the replies. I'm going to go with wood right now and continue with the research. The chimney guy was sure that coal was the way to go.

I think wood would be much better in that unit. Coal need a full grate system.

some pictures of the grate system without a fire in the box could be helpful

Plenty of room in it to burn wood, but only about 1/3 of that space is a coal grate ? That says wood stove to me.

Coal won't burn unless air can easily be fed in from under the firebed. And just using that small center grate to put a coal fire on, it won't be able to burn enough coal to make much.

Paul

If'n it were me & opinions were real iffy, I'd buy a couple bags of coal & give her a try. Nothin ventured, nothing gained!

Sunny Boy wrote:Plenty of room in it to burn wood, but only about 1/3 of that space is a coal grate ? That says wood stove to me.

Coal won't burn unless air can easily be fed in from under the firebed. And just using that small center grate to put a coal fire on, it won't be able to burn enough coal to make much.

Paul

+1 that grate is not enough.

I've never seen one of those stoves in person, but by looking at the pictures, the idea of it seems to be that you burn 20 inch logs in there across the entire length of the firebrick......then move the ashes towards that center grate to evacuate them from the firebox and into the ashpan. It appears to be designed so that shoveling ashes from the firebox and into a bucket is eliminated.

SWPaDon wrote:I've never seen one of those stoves in person, but by looking at the pictures, the idea of it seems to be that you burn 20 inch logs in there across the entire length of the firebrick......then move the ashes towards that center grate to evacuate them from the firebox and into the ashpan. It appears to be designed so that shoveling ashes from the firebox and into a bucket is eliminated.

My wood stove had square plug it was useless. I bet that small grate would be perfect for wood.

SWPaDon wrote:I've never seen one of those stoves in person, but by looking at the pictures, the idea of it seems to be that you burn 20 inch logs in there across the entire length of the firebrick......then move the ashes towards that center grate to evacuate them from the firebox and into the ashpan. It appears to be designed so that shoveling ashes from the firebox and into a bucket is eliminated.

My wood stove could have been that way if I had ordered it with an optional ash pan then - it's standard on that model now. The bottom and three sides of the firebox are lined with firebricks like that stove is. But for the ash pan models they just left out one firebrick off on the right side of the firebox floor and made a matching size hole down through the stove's base plate into the ash pan. Then you just scrape the wood ashes into the hole.

In hind site I wish I had ordered the ash pan model.

My fireplace has a cast iron trapdoor built into it at the rear center of the base. There's a large ash pit under it built into the foundation of the chimney. There's a cast iron cleanout door in the outside of the chimney base. No risk of mess/dust shoveling ashes into a bucket indoors. The pit under the fireplace is big enough to hold most of a winter's worth of wood ash. Nice idea, ....except if I forgot to empty the pit at the beginning of the winter and then I have to dig through deep snow and shovel out the pit while on hands and knees.

Paul