Used Stove Coal Today in the Crawford40, What a Difference

First off...when your using nut sized coal for the first month and then you open a bag of stove coal, your thinking holy crap this is never going to burn it's too big. Well I know different but the way the stove behaves is dramatically different. Controlling air intake determines the stove running temp but I find it much easier to idle down and run at 300 degrees with the stove coal than with nut coal. you'd think the opposite right, well if your stove is sealed up well, the under fire air will determine heat output. I think that the stove size coal allowed it to breathe better. I still shut her down as it was low 40's last night which doesn't even require running two stoves, and I had much better taller blue flames in the morning at 6:30 am then with nut coal. With nut coal I have shorter blue flames the entire burn cycle but with the stove the blue flames are taller and look like (ok this is a reference for any wood burners who had gasification or secondary air tube stoves that burnt off the gases instead of sending them up the chimney, so bear with me as we are on a coal stove site) the flames over my Lopi wood stove. They were slowly dancing and while there were flames off the coal that were fairly tall, about 4-6" above the coal at almost the beginning of the inner barrel there was a slow moving ball of blue gases very slowly twisting and turning like it was slow motion. This was cool and I pulled up a chair and looked at it while morning coffee, almost was late for work as I was staring at it for so long. This stove was cruising right along at almost 350. I set the stove up at apx. 7:00 pm and the stove hardly looked like it had burned any of the coal. I'll go back to using up the nut sized coal as it's mild and my dealer has nut and pea in stock 24/7/365 while stove coal is on order out basis.

Hey BP, I'ld like to see a video of that flame, next time you put stove in it.

BPatrick wrote: there was a slow moving ball of blue gases very slowly twisting and turning like it was slow motion.

Good observation of the natural motion of gasses in a round tube. That pattern will also hold true of the air going up through the fire pot, making for better more uniform mixing with the burning coal. Just about as good as it gets in a hand fired design.

Yes ... Pictures please!

I love the stove coal too Brian. It is very responsive and will idle down nice and low. Mine was set at 275* F this morning after a fresh load at 0600. I'm sure she'll be right on that when I get home this afternoon. Also have some pea coal left over from the MKII for when it gets really cold for overnight burns.

I would like to try stove coal in my Hitzer 50-93, but not sure if it will work with hopper and not sure if I want to remove hopper.

Try half nut and half stove, or pour stove on the bottom of hopper , then nut on top as the stove size doesnt have to drop that way.

BP, yes a video! I enjoy pulling my hopper sometimes just so I can watch the stove size burn as its very pretty. I wish I could get XL stove size, lol. Only available at the mines I guess.

I will have to play around with the video option of the phone. Haven't shot video yet.

Broda B,

i'll trade ya 2 bags of nut for 1 bag of that stove to try in my stove after I get it set up.

steve

I prefer stove size coal as well. It's nice to sit and enjoy the near perfection of these stoves. My Crawford 40 just burned a 15 pound load of coal from Thursday evening at 6 PM until Saturday afternoon at 2 PM. On Saturday I was debating if I should keep the fire burning or not so I let go until the afternoon. I decided to keep it going so I put in another small charge say about the same amount. It finally went out Monday night sometime. I had it checked and the primaries barely open. It ran at 225 for the entire duration. Just enough heat to knock off the dampness.
These stoves will continually amaze you.

Kingcoal, I have 6 tons of stove, come by and grab a couple of bags at no charge...least I can do for all your help. Can't wait to see how the stove works for you!

BPatrick wrote:Kingcoal, I have 6 tons of stove, come by and grab a couple of bags at no charge...least I can do for all your help. Can't wait to see how the stove works for you!

I want to see how the modification works too. I'm sure it will be interesting.

I Just put in Crawford 40 ,could use input to get used to,w go to dn draft,stove dyes way down.
W btm draft open ,door and ash r slide closed ,flue to dn draft,lot of heat at first,dyes way down,
coal still going good ,heat goes way down !
Thanks jeff

Would love to help. Can you re write that in English please?

Welcome to the forum JB

scalabro wrote:Would love to help. Can you re write that in English please?

Too funny..... I think that's called Spanglish. I think.