researching coal for 2500 sq ft drafty farm house

I am looking to either supplement our natural gas forced air furnace with coal or put it on the bench all together and am looking for input. 5 bedroom, 2500 Sq ft farm house in Crawford County (near Erie PA) is very old with the original house being built in the early 1800's and the upstairs and front rooms added on in 1860. It is two story and is not that well insulated yet. Basement lies below foundation of original house which has me wondering whether to put the stove in the basement or into the living room below our bedroom in the newer(1860) front part of the house. Downside to the living room is that I have a 6 month old that will be learning to crawl and walk this winter. There are vents in the cieling/upstair floors to allow heat to rise.

I am considering an Amish made hand fed anthracite stove that is manufactured in Ohio that holds about 72 lb's of coal -stove costs about $1000.

Any advice for a potential coal newbie is welcome.

I would say that a good quality, large stove will be a huge help in cutting into your heating bill.........but....from your home's description I can't imagine it providing all the heat you'd need.
(however, it may be all you'd need in early & late winter (except for the dead of winter) when you may have to supplement with some central heat)

Edit: Missed the location question. I would say it'll do allot more service upstairs than in the basement. Just block it off from the baby.

Five bedrooms? That is a lot of DHW.
You want a boiler, in the basement. Jr will be crawling on warm floors with no drafts. A stoker is ideal, lots of cheap hot water all summer too.

Link to the stove? Model?

Roughly speaking a 90,000 BTU unit would supply most of the heat for your home. I'd guess at least 75% using about 5 tons through the season.

I am not sure what a boiler is as compared to a hand fed anthracite stove. ?? I'll try to find info on another thread but any guidance is welcome.

The model that is sold at a place near my home is a Coal EZ-100 and it holds 120 lb's of coal not 72. Says it will heat 2500 SQ ft. It is Amish made and is not listed online.

how much are boilers and how much to install?

Do you know what the BTU rating is? They range widely and without knoing that it's impossible to say what you'll be able to do with it. In any event any coal stove that works well is going to save you money.

There's two types of coal appliances, stokers and hand fired units. Hand fired would be the type you are looking at. A stoker is automatic self feeding.

Within stokers there is two subsets. Hot air and boilers. Generally the hot air are smaller like Leisure Lines products. http://www.leisurelinestoves.com/698400.html

Lastly you have the "big dogs" which are boilers made by EFM, Keystoker and a few others. These are intended for whole house heating. Price varies and it's not cheap. At least $6000 and probably more than that. It's a lifetime investment though and well worth it if you want to go that route. It WILL outlast you.

Here's ours, 25 years old, runs 24/7/365 and isn't stopping any time soon.

Because my grandmother still owns the house I am not looking to get into the cost of a boiler yet. I want a non-electric supplement/backup to the natural gas furnace and it sounds to me like coal stove is the way to go. We do lose power in our area periodically so I like the idea of a manual feed.

My main question now is whether to put it into the basement or into the dining room below our bedroom. The basement lies below our kitchen and the Family room and stairwell. I am not sure if warming the floors below those areas will adequately transition the heat to the rest of the house that is not above the basement. The house is a big rectangle - roughly 42 Ft. 32 ft. with the basement lying underneath 42ft x 18ft. of the house.

Another question is what to do with ashes from the stove - is the ash usefull for anything?

Again I appreciate all the thoughts and posts.

4chapmanwetmore wrote:My main question now is whether to put it into the basement or into the dining room below our bedroom. T

Much better in the dining room.

4chapmanwetmore wrote:Another question is what to do with ashes from the stove - is the ash usefull for anyt

Not that I've found but I guess others have. There are threads on this subject.

4chapmanwetmore wrote:My main question now is whether to put it into the basement or into the dining room below our bedroom.

With that size of drafty house I would install the stove in the dining room also.

Personally I'd put it in the basement however I'd also be purchasing one that was large enough to do that. If the unit has a low BTU rating then definitely upstairs.

The ashes an be used for clean fill, mix it with concrete etc., other than that there is little use for them. The borough picks them up here and in places where they don't the garbageman will. Coal is so common in this area that most refuse haulers offer a flat yearly fee for the ashes.

Stove in the dining room, you will have problems getting the heat upstairs. My cellar can get down to 50 degrees on really cold days, this will have a definite effect on the room(s) above. Keep the cellar warm and the whole house will be warmer, therefore the boiler or another stove in the cellar would be a good idea at some point.

4chapmanwetmore wrote:I am looking to either supplement our natural gas forced air furnace with coal or put it on the bench all together and am looking for input. 5 bedroom, 2500 Sq ft farm house in Crawford County (near Erie PA) is very old with the original house being built in the early 1800's and the upstairs and front rooms added on in 1860. It is two story and is not that well insulated yet. Basement lies below foundation of original house which has me wondering whether to put the stove in the basement or into the living room below our bedroom in the newer(1860) front part of the house. Downside to the living room is that I have a 6 month old that will be learning to crawl and walk this winter. There are vents in the cieling/upstair floors to allow heat to rise.

I am considering an Amish made hand fed anthracite stove that is manufactured in Ohio that holds about 72 lb's of coal -stove costs about $1000.

Any advice for a potential coal newbie is welcome.

This would help you more then a stoker stove also the seller will have hot water boiler's aswell PM him he can help you
You can tie this in to your duck work that you have already for the Gas hot air furnace keep the gas off and heat with
coal what size is the gas furnace The BTU Rating This Hot air furnace is 125.000 BTU's The oil gun can be removed and you will save some money if you do not take it with the oil gun PM Him Or Myself I will give you his Number

http://nepacrossroads.com/about5295.html

Hitzer has a hot air furnace in that same price range http://www.hitzer.com/furnaceunit.html
US Hot Blast Furnace 1557 the furnace around $1100

http://nepacrossroads.com/post35803.htm ... ove#p35803 the stove is around $800 http://www.hitzer.com/model82.html

I believe there was a thread about the Amish built furnace, DS Machine Stove, with some pics on the install
http://nepacrossroads.com/post27051.htm ... ove#p27051

You can tie this in to your duck work that you have already for the Gas hot air furnace

Sorry, I missed the info that you have forced hot air. Coalberner is right, you can leave the gas furnace there and tie the coal furnace into the existing ductwork. There are also some of us who have modified a stove to flow heated air into the ductwork.

I plan on going with a hitzer 82 U.L. model and building my own heat shield around it, then blowing it into existing duct work. This idea could be done with different types of stoves/models, but i think that concept would be good for you as you have the duct work already, plus if you have just a circulating fan option on your furnace that could help move the heat around.