cold night

cold night out. upper 20's. Burning a medium fire in a Harman mag stoker. 73 degrees downstairs in all the rooms. 71 degrees upstairs. Burning 2 buckets a day. How is everyone else doing?

74 in main room where fire is at...about 69 in rooms on the perimeter of the house...keepin toastie in 26* weather here in Michigan!

Burning about 70 lbs a day the last few days but an average of 50 lbs the last 20 days. Looks like I'll use a ton about every 40 days plus or minus a few. I figured about 5 ton a year. House was built in 1927 w/ very little insulation. 1200 sq. ft. Keeps the house between 74 and seventy downstairs and about two degrees less upstairs depending on how often I get downstairs to change the auger speed and blower. And the basement is finally livablt in the winter and the warmest place in the house. If anyone can give me some advise on the 140, Please post me a reply on the prior page. From what I'm reading on the site, I am doing pretty good but may need some tweeking. Would like to hear if the coal - trol would be a good option for me. Nice site, thanks to whoever is responsible.

Nights have been in the teens...days around mid 30's...burning a 40 lb bucket a day..give or take...basement is 78 degrees main floor and secong floor 73 degrees....the warmer days we had I was doing a bucket every 3 days....

Al

teens at night upper 20 to 30 in the day time.60 pounds a day house at 75 on the first floor 75 to 80 on the second floor and 70 on the third floor.

John, it sounds like your stove is working up to expectations now. Glad you got it's problem resolved.

In my boiler today, I made the firebox area for coal larger, I have around 40# in the pile right now, and will add to this before I head for bed. I will burn around 80# in 12 hours.

Along with several large heavy oak logs I expect to hold 140*++ water temp all night.

This gives me enough heat to satisfy the thermostats in the three zones in the house, two at 70*, one at 65* This house is around 3900sqft, and some of it is poorly insulated and drafty.

Have a warm toasty night. Greg L

Ls, twice a week I take the ash from the metal can and put them in a plastic bag and the garbage man takes them. What do you do with all your ashes?

Hi mjb, I live out in the country. I dump my ashes in an ash pile outside the boiler outbuilding. In the spring I'll take the loader and move it to a dump on the farm. Or maybe on the garden??

Does anyone know if it is OK to put ashes on the garden?

Greg L [LsFarm]

Well my outside thermometer read 10*f this morning, and the inside ones read 70*, so I'm pretty happy with my boiler. There was no wind, so that helped the house stay warm.

The water temp in the boiler was only 130* when I went out to the boiler building, so that was a little below my expectations.

But I found out why, the temporary back divider that is the rear of the coal fire got moved and there was about 6"x6" of grate with no coal over it this morning. A lot of the air from my combustion blower was excaping and not going through the coal fire. I apparently moved the divider with either my shovel when loading it last night, or with a log tossed into the back of the firebox.

So I'm going to weld up a better coal/wood divider today, and see how it does tonight, it is supposed to be just as cold as last night.

Greg L

i'm burning about 3 hundred pounds a week, 9.20 a bag. its been in the 20's and 30's, sometimes colder at nite. we had 6 one morning. keeps it around 70 in my kitchen which is on the other end of the house. this is my only source of heat and i'm quite pleased.

The sky is clear, and the outside temperature is 3*- 4*. The house has dropped off from 70* to 68* or so. The hotwater baseboards are only luke warm. But I'm a long way above the 58-60* that I kept the house at when I burned only propane. I burned only $5 of coal last night, if that, which is much better than the $30-$40 of propane to keep the house 10* cooler.

However, I am a bit disapointed, I had a large load of coal in my boiler last night, in anticipation of the temperatures dropping below 10*.

The house stayed warm but the heat load from the house really pulled a lot of heat from the boiler. This meant that the combustion blower ran most of the night and the coal was being burnt at a high rate. The pile of coal after 9 hours had burnt down to mostly glowing embers with a little blue flame dancing above. The 8"-10" deep pile of coal was only 2"-3" deep and not putting out much heat.

The water temp was down to 120* which is barely enough to keep the temperature sustained in the house.

I 'gambled' with an experiment last night, I used only coal, [I can find only Bituminous here] and didn't toss in the usual three big oak logs into the back of the firebox behind the coal. I needed those logs last night, but thought that with the larger than normal load of coal I would get through the night and maintain 140*+ water temp.

The ash pan was very full this morning, and a lot of the ash was thumb-sized 'clinker' and burnt-out coal. My coal is apparently poorer quality than I had thought.

So tonight, I'll go back to my normal routine and add a few logs to the firebox for extra heat. I need to find another source for coal in Michigan, hopefully anthracite is available somewhere.

Greg L LsFarm

LS, can't imagine burning bituminous coal. How far are you from Jackson? It would definaltly be worth the trip for some good anthracite.

It was around 10 last night, temp inside was 72. Day time temps are around 30. I am using two buckets a day at this temp. Seems on warmer days I really don't use much less. Two buckets a day is sure alot less than oil would cost me.

Pap

It was -4* the last two nights. On Friday night I heaped the Bituminous on the fire, about a 16-18" deep pile. 4 hours later I was loosing water temp. The fire had burn down to the mature stage the coal level was down to about 7-8".

It was VERY windy though, so the house was pulling a lot of heat out of the boiler. The combustion fan ran continously to maintain 140-150* water.

Last night I was able to experiment with Anthracite coal. I aquired two 40# bags of Anthracite coal. [Thanks Davemich!!] I added one bag over the top of the mature Bituminous coal bed at about 10PM, then at midnight I added the other 40#. The coal bed was the same depth as the night before, about 16-18".

I set the alarm for 0430, and noticed when I got out of bed that the heat was doing pretty good in the house. In the boiler's building, the combustion blower was off, and I had 170* water and the coal level had only dropped maybe 3" . I had a full bed of individual coals [not bridged] and a 2" blue flame above the coal, this was with natural draft.

At 0800 the coal had burn down another few inches and the blower was running but I still had 150* water, the blower shut off while I was inspecting the fire.

So I'm pretty impressed by the Anthracite, the problem is the cost. I have to balance my very cheap but problematic Bituminous against the cost of the bagged coal. I may use both, the bituminous when I don't need an all night high heat fire for really cold weather.


I may make a pilgramage to NEPA to get a big truck load of coal, and share it with Dave. I have to see about bulk vs bagged prices and convienence.

Greg L.

Pretty impressed by the anthracite vs my lousy Bituminous.

-5 here last night.burnt 40lbs of coal house stayed at 80 degrees..