How many tons to purchase for season?

The length of burn time has a lot of variables.. the heat the house is asking for, the depth of the fire, the strenght of the chimney draft etc.. If you have a deep load of coal,, say it is up to the brick at the edges, and mounded in the middle, and the temperatures are moderate, say in the 30's,, your house is reasonably insulated... well I would estiimate at least 10-12 hours burn,, and maybe as much as 14-16 hours.. there are just too many variables..

But as mentioned above,, a deep fire, don't poke at it, with the 'V' shape, this will guarantee clinker formation [my experience] just shake every 8-12 hours as needed, shake untill you see a few hot embers drop into the ashpan. The load the firebox up as full as you can.. As metioned above,, control your heat output with the air controls.. the more coal in the firebox, the easier it will be to control.. just the opposite of wood..

If you can find low ash coal.. I suggest UAE coal.. then with some practice and figureing out the right technique your unit should work fine..

Greg L

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6" is thin, you will need to tend it twice a day or you could run into trouble. If you run it deep, close to a day in warmer weather. More than likely you will need to bank the coal bed when reloading.

I may open doors and windows and fire this thing up this summer and just get a little idea of what all I am going to need before the season hits us.
Want to make sure all the bugs are worked ut before I need it.

Overdraft blower needs holes plugged I have 14 holes in the face of it that need plugged so draft will divert into ash pan. I have a hunk of Aluminum plate that is half inch thick that would cover the holes nicely and could be removed if I want to switch to wood. Will this stand up to the heat? Or make a melted mess?

Aluminum will not survive anywhere near the coal fire.. if this is near the top of the firebox, maybe it could survive.. But you are better off tapping each hole and plugging it with a bolt or pipe plug.

The fire will burn in the 1800-2200* range, I have measured mine several times in excess of 2200*.. but that is in the fire.. Above the fire the temps usually are around 1500* then they cool off as the heat exchanger absorbs the heat.

Greg L

I see post about stack temps are temps 100 - 200 degrees celsius or fahrenheit?
I am firng up furnace in shop to test and see how everything works I have unhooked the waste oil burner and am using stack for coal furnace to test it out.

Is it harder to get coal to burn this time of year? Due to the outside temp being warm and effecting the draft. I have a coal fire going but seem to have to tend it frequently to keep it going. I left it unattended for 3 hours and it appeared to be almost out I stirred it and gave it a shake and it is going again now. It is probably my not having any clue how run a coal furnace. But me being a stuborn German I will Conquer it sooner or later.

Yes, it can be tough to maintain an adequate draft with outside temperatures above 55F or so. In order to get it to burn more completely you would have to burn the coal quite hot, with a lot of air. In fact, you may have to keep the combustion blower on all the time.

This website is great for us new guys I feel like I am asking to many question. I am glad that there is so many people that are willing to help out with advice.
I have noticed that the draft blower does not seem to help out a lot I may have reconfigure the duct that shoots draft down into ash pan. I have plugged all the holes in the face of overdraft duct. I have thought about taking the screw out of manual draft on ash pan door and mounting the blower where that is. The only concern I have is controlling draft when you want to throttle it down draft will still suck through the fan cage when it is not running.

If you position the fan on the ashpan door,, place it so that the inlet to the fan is horizontal,, use a large refrigerator magnet to cover the hole to control the draft.. some motors use a flapper that pivots on a screw.

Greg L

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There is a flappper with a screw on the draft blower I thought that is was used to adjust the volume of air going to the fire. Did not think about using it shut down the draft as well dah.
I was able to keep fire all night last night I loaded it up at 3:oo P.M. and still have a lot of fire at 5:30 this morning.Stack temp was 150 when I went out and checked this morning.
It will be nice tending to the furnace a few times a day instaed of every 6-8 hours. I think I am going to like coal as a fuel. I will keep some wood around for when I am out of town so the wife can keep things going.
I think that the shaker grate that is in the furnace may have some issues. It is a 2 pc rotatary grate and the front moves a lot more than the back I may have to make a poker to poke the ashes down through or poke from bottom.

The front grate moving more than the rear grate is a common problem. The two grates are mated together with either a tri-angle or square socket/stub. There is often a lot of slop in this connection.. try using steel shims to fill in the gaps and tighten the connection.

Greg L

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I have noticed a lot of talk about barometric dampers. I dont want to get off topic here but I ordered a mark2 dwywer manometer from ebay today and a baro damper from patriot supply. My furnace manual says that flue size should not exceed 12 inches and I need a minimum of .08 W.C. this seems out of line with everything I am seeing on specs. (.06)posted here on the forum.
My flue is a clay lined block 8x16 will this effect the function of furnace?
I know that I will have to mess around with manometer and baro to fine tune furnace when it gets cold and I get it fired up. My existing oil furnace vents into same flue with a seperate thimble. I know this is a no no but it is what it is. I have always questioned the vent issue of 2 furnaces into 1 flue mostly due to the fact that some combination wood and oil burner do that. They use the same fire box for the gun and the wood.
Is coal a different deal?
I think am going to go to purchase my first pallet of coal this weekend it is going to go up $20. per pallet on the first of July.
Thanks for the help for us that are new to coal this forum is the best.
Do they accept donations to help keep this forum going?

.08 seems pretty high, mine calls for a max of .06 and I run it down to .02 at times.

I would size your stovepipe and thimble to whatever the exhaust collar is on your boiler.

The difference with coal in the same flue is that there is no creosote. That stuff is the reason for the code that says you can't do it. As long as you have a sufficient draft, it should be fine. I recommend a stack damper on the oil unit if you run two into one.

I have a baro damper in my oil furnace stack. When you talk about a stack damper is it something that close by electric signal when oil furnace fires?