Introduce Yourself

Hi Dave welcome to the forum.

Have you considered rehabilitating a removed coal boiler. I purchased two very nice Gentleman Janitor units that will be serviceable with a little blood sweat and tears. I notice you are in NE PA this area is filled with units being removed, I know of folks that have found them for free. I have three complete boilers one of which is ready to install and I paid less than $1,000 for the whole lot!

Just a thought for your consideration, I personally like to see the hardware that still has life in it kept from being turned into scrap.

Matthaus wrote:Hi Dave welcome to the forum.

Have you considered rehabilitating a removed coal boiler. I purchased two very nice Gentleman Janitor units that will be serviceable with a little blood sweat and tears. I notice you are in NE PA this area is filled with units being removed, I know of folks that have found them for free. I have three complete boilers one of which is ready to install and I paid less than $1,000 for the whole lot!

Just a thought for your consideration, I personally like to see the hardware that still has life in it kept from being turned into scrap.

I have been looking at the used mkt as well . I have seen a few used efm s. I would like to get one with oil backup or at least the option . Dave

when i finally get my stair lift for the basement. i would also be interested in a coal boiler to connect with my oil boiler. i would like the hopper and auger setup. maybe buy next summer.

Hi everyone. My name is Diane and live in northeast pa with my hubby and 6 great kids. We live in a 100 year old Queen Anne Victorian home. It is drafty as heck, but we love it. Currently our house is heated by gas/steam heat. We really hate it - it is so expensive and really does not do the job in keeping us warm. We have been considering coal for a while, and with gas/oil prices going up..up..up.. - we think now would be a great time. I don't think we are ready to go with a boiler/furnace type of deal, but are considering a stove unit to put in our basement. Our house is huge - 14 rooms (not including the basement)- most having 9 foot ceilings. I am not sure where to get started on how many BTUs, ventilation, etc. Any suggestions? How much of an an investment are we looking at?

Nostagically speaking, the original owner of our home was a treasurer for a coal company at the turn of the century. At one time he had taken in boarders. One of his boarders, in exchange for payment, painted some awesome coal mining scenes on the basement walls - so it is only fitting we bring coal back into the home!

Looking forward to the forum!
Diane

Diane--

Please submit images of the drawings. That is so cool.

Sound like you need a really big handfired or a stoker. But let Greg help you out. Greg is our lead installation guru. But he may be away on business right now flying the friendly skies.

Why bust out $2500 for a huge handfired when you can put the $$$ toward a real furnace utilizing the existing piping. Start researching various coal furnace websites such as Harmanstoves.com

Start a new thread with all of the details of your existing system and home.

Welcome Diane.

As Cap suggested, starting a new thread with some details about house layout, size of rooms, locations of usable chimneys, etc, will get the folks on here that have solved similar challenges to chime in and give some great advice.

This forum has some pretty saavy folks who have the skills to really help. Best wishes for a successful project.

As Cap requested, please post some of the pics of those paintings when you get a chance, sounds like it is quite a house.

Hi, all. I am Bruce and I have been a woodaholic for more years than I can remember. The DW recently suggested going to coal to reduce the amount of work involved for me, so, I went along with it as long as we got a stove that could still use wood. We went to a local dealer, and purchased a new Hitzer 354. We have a single story log home with a full walk out basement, so out went the Fisher, and in went the Hitzer. Should have seen DW and me getting this 500 lb. piece of steel off my truck, (I'm 61, and she's not far behind. ) Anyway, got it in place, fired up, and not too impressed, til I found this site and did some lurking. Sure shortened up the learning curve! The last three days have been great, got yhe stove going real slow, has a bimetal thermostat, was going to let go out, so didn't feed it in the morning, came home from work and it was still burning! This doggone thing will go over twentyfour hours! Never even came close to that with wood. So easy to take care of, I almost feel like a "girlieman". Oh as a final note, DW works at college, and I supervise maintenance Dept. at a State Prison. We live in Scott, NY, about half way between Binghamton and Syracuse. Thanks to all for the great pointers on this site.

My name is walt. 40 years young and i am from wv about 25 miles south of the Pa. line.
I am also a blue collar type feller.work hard play hard and love my family of a great wife and 3 kids. i have been recently looking into a wood and coal stove for heating/suplimenting my approx. 1800 sq ft single level house. I had wood and coal heat growing up years ago and want the warm heat back.I have been reading on this site fer about a week er so now and find it not only enjoyable but very informative.....THANKS GUYS.
I am thinkin about the harman tlc 2000. we'll see what the out come is.either way the h8fulhilbily one way or the other is going to get a little back from the energy co and get warm by going back to the hot heat. agian thanks for the great forum fellers.

Hi, my name is bruce i live in north central mich. upper penninsula's. i just started buring coal on 11/4/07 and love it so far. In the land where wood is king there is not a lot of coal stoves. You get alot of funny looks when you say you burn the black rocks. We are into ATV's alot, most of my time is spent riding. the riding here is some of the best in the good old usa.I also do bit of shooting/hand loading. My wife and i are in our late 40's, so i hope coal will make our lifes easyer.I have a alaska channing 3 in our main floor living room.small house 1 1/2 story. thanks all for all the good info.bruce/connie

Hi, I am Mike and I wanted to find out If the Selkirk Metalbestos chimney I'm Installing was suitable for the stove a Franco Belge I Bought used.It came with no manual and I am bran new to coal so I have a few questions as you might guess.

Hi Mike, welcome to the forum. This thread is just for introductions, not questions and answers..

Post a question about your chimney in the 'Venting, Chimneys etc' Threads, the next sub-forum down the page. Your question will get answered there.

Greg L

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Chubs here, ran across the forum 2 weeks ago been reading it since, alot of good imformation. Live in central Ohio and have some questions about stoker that i will ask later.
Chubs

Hey Guys, just signed up so to speak. been signed up for awhile but never posted anything. i see some of you are thinking of meeting up or doing some mine tours next year. members of our group work at all 3 anthracite mine tours, so we can schedule special group tours anytime during the normal tour season. a little about myself, i run a group called abandoned mine research, inc. we specialize in underground photography in abandoned and working mines in the anthracite region as well as historic preservation of old mine equipment. our most ambitious project was the total rebuild of a whitcomb electric storage battery locomotive. it came from a mine near forest city and was built in 1926. for more information on our group and photos of anthracite mines as well as our project please view our website: http://www.undergroundminers.com

Welcome back Chris. Stick around and enjoy the ride, I'm sure many of the members here would be very interested in discussing some the historical aspects of anthracite coal mining. We don't have a member that is very familiar with history, least none that I'm aware of.

greetings

cosmo here, new to the forum. First, thanks to the forum creators and participants, I stumbled onto the forum while researching alternative heating options. I have a 30 year old gas boiler that runs great but is inefficient I was going to replace with a new gas boiler .After research and countless hours viwing this forum I ordered a Leisure Line Hearth model I'm venting into a basement fireplace. I started it tonight and am looking forward to distribution solutions as there are old forced air return ducts that make there way back to the basement. Right now its 72 at the far points, on setpoint with the coaltrol stat.

On a personal note I live in Trumansburg NY 10 miles north of Ithaca. I'm happily married with 2 college age sons. I work at Cornell University as an electrician. I enjoy working on my house, baseball, vegetable gardening [ if you cant eat it, whats the sense] outdoor recreation of any kind.

My first experience with coal was growing up in Fishtown, PA east Philly everybody had coal boilers , steam heat. The coal deliveries down the shute all us kids watching as the coal landed in the bin , a few paces from the boiler. Often ,times were tough and my brother and I would walk to the grocer for a 20 lb. bag.

The thing that enthused me as I read this forum was a sense of security and self suffiency. Now I have that with 3 ton neatly stacked in a shed under an addition to my house a few paces from my stove

Regards