Today I ran 1 half Pale of coal through the stove. First let me say that it did not explode! My stove is made for it. It burned for close to five hours. I started with wood and when it was just red coals I put a layer of coal on and got it burning. I then made a cone from the back of the stove to the feed door. It burned nice and hot but it took a little while to get the air set right. Switched back to wood for the night. The coal is nice and warm, but I've decided that that I'm just going to keep burning wood! It puts an awful lot of dark smoke in the air and you can definitely smell it out in the yard.
I don't know It's beyond my experience. Inside is there a very heavy duty set of grates with a shaker?
If it is an open grate at the bottom, then IMO it is able to burn coal. If it is covered at the bottom it is solely a wood stove. If it has a detachable grate you have the option of both. Mine will burn smokeless fuel, anthracite etc, but I'm not allowed to burn ordinary 'household' or bituminous coal and wouldn't want to (smell, mess, environment emissions even after a fast hot burn of initial ignition wood, risk of overfiring my small stove etc here in a UK urban area)
When the warm air moves in the house from turning the stove up at dusk I often get a whiff of our old fireplace. we put a new insert in but it would not accomidate the faceplate (yes blocker installed). That smell turns my tummy, totally different from burning smell. I watched a movie today with the lil one where a lad was sweeping chimneys a century ago, I bet he smelled exactly like you described.
I'm betting that stove is a wood/coal stove. It looks very close to one my parents had. There should be a shaker that you hook onto the grates and move back and forth to shake the ashes down to the bottom. That type should also have a damper in the flue. But what puzzles me is there is not another draft in the firebox door. Usually it is a slider. But, if you look for the bottom and see grates that you can move to shake the ashes down, it will burn coal.
Years ago I had a wood stove that said you could burn coal in it as well as wood. My friend had several bags of coal he gave to me that I mixed in with the wood, more as an experiment just to see what it would do. Worked fine. I, like you, remember the distinct odor outside the house when burning coal. Interesting thread...
Another thing I remember as a child was that I had to take the sledge hammer and break up the bigger pieces of coal. Best nobody is standing around when that is done as the chips will fly. I also never liked the smell of the stuff.
