Ok fellas this is going to sound strange coming from a woodburning guy. I have a Us stove company unit. I was tending the fire and was reading the riveted tag on the stove and its says it is a duel fuel unit. Wood and coal. It just so happens I have a pile of coal. My father has always burned wood and has passed that obsession on to me. Has anyone ever burned any coal and how do you do it. The reason : Is it worth using this stuff up or should a person just get rid of it. I've used it to do metal work in the forge but never for heat. What do you guys think.
I have a U.S stove to and went and checked mine and I would try a small chunk . If it works mix a little with wood and use it up.
When I was a kid there were a few times that Grizzly's Paw would burn coal, but I was way too little to know how it worked. Maybe he can explain.
I pulled my book out and looked about a bit. Was able to find a little about how to load the stove. What scares me is the book says it can creat gases that can explode. Im not real keen on that.
MJ, many, many moons ago my parents had a stove that we could burn either wood or coal. Most times we burned wood but usually went through about a ton of coal every winter. We would not use the coal until the weather turned, well, about like this week has been. What we would do would be to line the bottom of the stove with coal and fill the rest with wood. We never had a problem with it but I didn't like it because I had the task of breaking up the large chunks with a sledge hammer. Danged dirty job it was. In addition, whenever we burned coal, all the snow around the house would turn sort of blackish. As for creating gasses, I would not worry about that and never remember a problem with ours or the neighbors. I remember one of our neighbors would go through about 6 ton of coal every winter. The nice part about burning coal is that it will hold a fire a lot longer then wood. Good luck.
We burned coal in our old smoke dragon. 75% wood, but would put coal on the hot logs/wood coals bed before bedtime. Gave nice constant heat all night and would relight more logs in the morning by itself. I should add the smoke dragon door did not have gaskets (by design) so I didn't worry about gasses building up. I think a bag of coal was 300lbs, we went through several bags every winter. It did not turn the snow black around our house, but as our neighborhood changed and new (against burning) neighbors moved in, they complained of the smell. (even though the we were all on several acre plots......)
Mj, be interested to know what you do. Be sure to let us know what works. If all else, I'll come up there and help solo some more wood for the coming months/years!
I would try it, cautiously at first and working my load size up over trials. I was about 6 when my last family member stopped burning coal. I don't remember much about it, it was never burned in our house.
My FIL burns coal and wood. He burns about a ton of coal each winter I think. He does pretty much what BWS suggests, lines the bottom of the stove with coal and fills the rest with wood. The biggest thing that I've learned with coal is that a little bit goes a long way. Too often I've been at his house and I've put too much coal in and we've been opening the windows later. Coal burns very hot and lasts a long time so if I had any I would use it overnight.
grew up burning coal never had any problems of explosions. burns dirtier than wood, but burns hotter lot of BTUs Regulate the air just like you do with wood nothing to be afraid of. try some
Flip side, being able to open the windows instead of bundling up because its so cold inside is a luxury IMHO
We had a coal furnace until 1972 when hurricane Agnus flooded our basement with water. I don't recall ever having an explosion. My dad installed an oil furnace to replace it. We had coal delivered 1 ton at a time. The truck had a long chute that went in through a small window and when the guy raised the bed, the coal went right to the "coal bin" which was about 15" away from the furnace. We had 10-15 metal, 5gal buckets for ash that needed to be carted upstairs where they were then spread out on the stone driveway. Very warm heat and coal was around $20/ton back then.
I wonder if coal would work in an EPA stove or better yet a hybrid. Has anyone ever tried it? Like mentioned, some folks like to sprinkle coal dust on their wood fires for a little help with the overnight burns. I know very little about burning with coal, I wouldn't risk it on anything newer.
Coal burns significantly hotter than wood, so I've read you can do damage to the stove if you burn coal in a stove not designed for it. Also, coal stoves draw the air from underneath, at least my FIL's does. Bit of a different procedure than my wood stove that took me awhile to get. Coal produces more ash than wood, not really a problem just thought I'd mention it. And, for my FIL, cleaning his chimney is a very dirty job. He's basically covered with the stuff by the time he's done. Very, very different than when I clean my chimney. Personally I would only burn coal in a stove designed for it. Just my 2 cents.
