bituminous in a hotblast????

i have a USSC hotblast 1557 furnace and absolutly love it. i bought a couple ton of antracite and right now burning my 3 ton pile of free antracite . reading the manual on this unit it says it burns bit coal. i came across a ton of free bit coal and thinking about getting it. does anyone have this furnace and burn bit? what are your experience with it? any input, good or bad would be great. keep warm ya all!
john mud

it wouldn't happen to be a free ton of coal in buffalo ny would it? pittsburgh #8? if so, it's long gone

If I knew about free coal (no matter what kind)I wouldn't be sitting at the computer writing about it As soon as I had the address I'd be out the door to get it. I wouldn't even take time to tell my wife where I am off to.

yeah, it is gone. i left a message and he was nice enough to call back. but, what are your experiences with bit coal in a hotblast?

i know someone who has a hotblast. It will work very well. These units were made for Bit coal.

mudman wrote:i have a USSC hotblast 1557 furnace and absolutly love it. i bought a couple ton of antracite and right now burning my 3 ton pile of free antracite . reading the manual on this unit it says it burns bit coal. i came across a ton of free bit coal and thinking about getting it. does anyone have this furnace and burn bit? what are your experience with it? any input, good or bad would be great. keep warm ya all!
john mud

How is the anthracite working and how much are you burning at a time? I have an Englander 28-3500 and they recommend about 10lbs of soft coal only. The stove has a pretty massive firebox (as I'm sure the Hotblast does) so they're afraid of someone overloading it and burning a hole through the floor. Just curious as anthracite is a lot closer for me to pick up.

wow, ten lbs at a time only? that aint a whole lot. USSC says you can put 70 lbs in at a time. its a big firebox, probably 14 by 26 inches. when its real cold out i actually put more than that in it, who knows, maybe just shy of 100 lbs. just mound it up in the middle. burns well. i would say hell yeah. get a few bags, maybe 6 or 7 bags and give it a try. it burns a lot differently than bit coal. where are you located?

I'm in Northwest New Jersey and anthracite is a lot closer than bituminous so I'd rather use it, but like I said, ESW warns against it. However, my firebox is the same size as yours, I have underfire air, and the firebox is totally lined with brick, there's just no shaker grates. So you've been using anthracite for a long time with no problems?

Wow I get. 10 to 12 hrs. But the temp on the furnace drops to 250 to 300 after 2 to 3 hrs and it stays there with eastern. Ky lump coal like to know how to keep furnace temp up to 350 400 range with hot blast 1500

I burn loose and dusty bit in a little Hotblast 1300 and it burns very well.