Alaska 140, Changing From Coal to Pellets for a Few Days

Hello, This is my forst post but I've been reading this forum on and off for a few months. I have an Alaska 140 with blower & auger and I usually burn rice coal in it. My coal dealer is out until Saturday, so I'm forced to use pellets until then. The stove manual said it can burn both. Is there anything I need to do differently? I put in a few scoops as a test and the flame is much higher, and a lot smokier. I think my chimney is hotter as well. This is my first stove of any kind, sorry if its a noobie question.

Burning for 2.5 hours, hopper is now full of pellets, no fire; yet.

From what I have read I would NOT do it. You are extremely raising the risk of a hopper fire. I believe it would almost be a sure thing.
Chris H

choyt002 wrote:From what I have read I would NOT do it. You are extremely raising the risk of a hopper fire. I believe it would almost be a sure thing

He has the alaska 140 auger.
It is meant to burn pellets or coal.
The pellets and or coal are augered to the grate so there is no risk of a burn back into the hopper.

jdt0t wrote:The stove manual said it can burn both. Is there anything I need to do differently?

Just follow the instructions in the manual.

Actually, I have a Channing III and very well could have burnt my new house down! The manual said it was a 140, but upon closer inspection, this manual is for 4 different Alaska stoves. Told you I was a noob at this! Thank you for the replies.

jdt0t wrote:Actually, I have a Channing III and very well could have burnt my new house down! The manual said it was a 140, but upon closer inspection, this manual is for 4 different Alaska stoves. Told you I was a noob.

Holy chit are you lucky!
Yes the channing III is coal only.

Wow, what a night. You're not joking about hopper fires. At 2:30am my wife dragged me out of bed because the smoke detector was going off. Boy was she surprised to found out that I filled the hopper all the way up with pellets. We dumped a stock pot of water to extinguish them, which turned into a boiling volcano of sawdust. After a 4 hour clean up it was off to work. Luckily I found some bagged coal to get me through the rest of the week. I guess the lesson learned here is that if you need some extra bedding for your kids bunny rabbit, just soak some wood pellets in water for a while, then let 'em dry out. See, pellets are good for something.

WOW!! thank goodness for smoke detectors. You probably have to have something adjusted differently to burn pellets. That is probably why only certain ones (auger) can burn pellets, the stokers probably can't.