Qualified Range Cook Stove Advice Needed

Hello,
What a relief to finally find a group of folks that are into the old cook stoves. I hope you don't mind if I pick your brain(s). Maybe you cant help but I hope you can.
My wife and I purchased a beautiful Cream and Mint Green Range Qualified Wood(Coal?, not certain)Cook Stove that is in beautiful condition.
Were not Antique collectors, we purchased it in order to learn how to use it for emergency heat and cooking. The only issue with the stove turns out to be a big one. The fuel grate is gone and we'll need to have one made by a friend of ours. It is certainly designed for wood, but how does a person know on a stove this old if it was also designed for coal as fuel.
I have spent countless hours online researching The Qualified Range Co Belleville, IL, which seems to have been linked to Hitzer Co in Indiana but as far as anything aside from that they exist(ed)there are no old parts drawings or manuals to reference. We are also missing a hinged, pendulum shaped door pull for the oven, but everything else cosmetically appears close to museum condition. We have not yet learned how to cook with it because of the missing grate issue but hoped to stay tuned in with this group to learn as much as possible. Its a beautiful stove and would like to share pictures if interested. Have not been able to find an identical one anywhere online, however we have found one that uses the same Cream & Mint Green colors.
Input from anyone that may read this is certainly welcomed to chime in as we are rookies and anxious to learn more.
Regards & Merry Christmas
Randy & Jen in Nebraska

Welcome Randy and Gen.

Might I suggest reading through this thread on cookin' with coal. A lot of your questions will be answered.

Cookin' With Coal

As to if the range had wood, or coal grates, sometimes pix of the firebox and firebox door will give clues. Also take a whiff inside the firebox. Does it smell like wood smoke? Is there light tan, loose dusty ash in the range flue passage ways ? That's anthracite coal ash residue. If it's black and oily soot, then that's most likely bituminous coal (aka "bit" coal). Or, is it the black-ish brown glaze of old wood creosote under dark soot ?

I did find some info about the grates used in Qualified Ranges, with a picture of the combo wood/coal grates, here. Is yours like this one ?
http://woodcookstovecooking.blogspot.com/2012/10/ ... stion.html

Unless they are referring to bit coal only, I question where it says the flat sides of the grates are best for coal (anthracite, aka hard coal ). I think it's just the opposite. Coal needs it's primary air under the fire to burn well. Wood needs it from above. Most wood grates have little, if any openings, to help hold embers in the firebox and get the wood to burn more slowly. Some wood grates are just two flat plates that slide over each other with openings in each that line up, or not, to control air flow in under the fire and make the wood burn slower/last longer.

Some anthracite coal ranges had a "summer", or wood, plate that was just a flat plate with smaller openings that was put on top of the coal grates when burning wood.

If I was using those combo grates in the picture, I'd use the sides with holes for coal and the flat sides with wood.

Paul

Randy wrote:
The only issue with the stove turns out to be a big one. The fuel grate is gone and we'll need to have one made by a friend of ours. It is certainly designed for wood, but how does a person know on a stove this old if it was also designed for coal as fuel.
Regards & Merry Christmas
Randy & Jen in Nebraska

Randy and Jen,

Actually, cook stoves were less often made to burn wood than coal. It is more likely the original intent of that stove was to burn coal rather than wood. On the old cook stoves, if there is a space for an ash pan underneath the grates, and there is a location where the grates could be reached for shaking, then the stove was originally intended for coal. That would be the general rule of thumb...

dj

Ranges were designed so that they could be set up for wood only, coal only, kerosene, gas log, or a combination of wood and coal. Some have fire boxes that are best for one fuel or another. An example would be a stove with a built in wood box extender. They are also regional. Stoves from certain areas like Maine are designed mostly for wood.
I have many grates for coal but only for stoves made in New England. I also have two different wood grates that fit just about all kitchen ranges. They usually need to be trimmed or have tabs welded on but they work great. If you plan to burn wood I can help. If coal----well that's another story.

Paul,
Thank you for your feedback on our post. Our stove is the identical colors/mfr. to the one in the picture from the link that you offered, just a slightly different design. I have not been able to find another one like ours on the web....
I appreciate your input very much!
Have a great week
Regards,

Randy Beaulieu

Depending on what you want to burn, Emery from Stovehospital said he might be able to help you if you want to burn wood. Another place to check for coal grates is Woodman Parts Plus. Here is a link to their website.
http://www.woodmanspartsplus.com/ They have lots of different style grates to choose from.

Welcome, and like Sunnyboy mentioned, look through the Cookin with coal thread.

Randy

Randy, ... umm . . . no, the other Randy. Your very welcome.

Wood's good, but coal is better. Randy (Photog200) and I both have used wood in our ranges, but, ..... reasons being we prefer coal is because with coal you get more even and longer cooking temperatures. Plus, easily double the tending intervals if not even longer. 11-12 hours on a firebox load of coal is not uncommon.

And, even dampered down for night time to get it to run that long, your looking at the left end cover plates running in the 500-600+ degree range. Plenty hot enough to cook with.

And the biggest plus is no creosote build up or worry about chimney fires, or having to clean the flues and pipes once a month like with wood. Burning just coal, I clean the flues once a year.

And no worrying about, is the wood too wet or dry. You can take coal out of a bucket of water and put it right into the range and it burns fine like it had never been wet.

One ton of coal takes up far less room and if you don't use it, it's ok, it won't rot, hide or get eaten by bugs, or go bad. It's been waiting to be used for a few million years and it will be around for a million more if you don't burn it.

And, shhhh, . . . don't tell this to the wood stove guys, but good anthracite coal burns much cleaner then wood. So much so the EPA exempts coal stoves from their latest new stove clean-burn regulations.

Can ya tell we like coal ?

Paul

Old post but I just found it sorry for bump but Lehman carries all grates for Qualified Ranges I bought complete set for my stove and a spare...Again sorry for bump but guy looked like he needed parts and I looked hard before I found mine...