Coalpail.com Forum

New to the site, 1 month coal burner. Love the site and the heat. My father had been trying to convert me for years. I installed his old Alaska Stoker 1 around Thanksgiving in the basement of our old Victorian, first time in 20 years we've had warm floors. My question is has anyone out there burned coal in a DuoMatic Olsen wood/coal/oil combination furnace? I had burned wood in this furnace for probably 15 years and removed it from my ex-wife's house when she converted to gas. I am renovating an old farm house in upstate NY, Bainbridge, and would like to try to hand fire this furnace with coal this time. I am already not missing the months of cutting, hauling, splitting, stacking, chimney cleaning and worrying that comes as the "wood burning package".
Thanks again for the great advice that comes from this site. Sorry no info, still working on the profile.
Scott

Pictures of the unit and especially the grate and fire box would help. Most combination furnaces do not make coal burning easy.

Welcome!

I'll gab some pics tomorrow. I can tell you that the fire box is quite deep, goes down about 12" below the bottom of the feed door, about 16" x 16", fire brick lined with a 3 section shaker grate setup. I had to keep a section of heavy wire screen (3/4" squares) in the bottom or the wood coals would fall through to fast and drop all the good coals into the ash pan.
Thanks

Welcome to the forum. Nice to see that you get a warm floor now!

Here are some pictures of my project furnace in question, firebox has no firebrick installed in these photos.

Looks like it will burn coal...

That thing has a great firebox for burning coal. Nearly vertical sides, and individual shaker grates. The ash pan looks pretty small, but you can deal with that...get it hooked up and give it a try!

Looks good to me also. That area above the grates when the door is open will have to be well sealed by the fire brick to ensure that air does not bypass the grates. Could be messy shaking down with the door open and yes the ash pan is too small for 24 hour emptying. I think you will get good results with a few inconveniences. Can't see air input on either door and how it is controlled.

flap on the front of the clean out door has a chain that hooks to it. This has a motor that is controlled by the thermostat.

Where is the thermostat located? I would rather see it located on the plenum rather than your room. This way it senses the heat of the furnace and will open the air shutter when you add a new batch of coal. Plenty of air to burn off volatiles from the fresh coal and avoid puff backs, automatically closing when back up to heat. It can't do this if mounted in the room. In either case some over-fire air through the loading door is good to burn off CO in the established fire.

FB...
The damper system works just fine...
Old School...
Minimum air is set, 'stat adds air to warm house via motor and chain...
Takes some learning to prevent puffs but not that hard...

Thanks for the tips on thermostat location, when I burned wood in this it was located in the room. I will try locating it on the plenum.
Franco b, there are 2 small openings in the feed door to provide some over fire air. You can see on the inside of the door, there is a slide on the outside that stays put once you set it.

Do me a favor since that is a 32 year old hot air furnace. Go around the heat exchanger with a picking hammer and make sure everything is solid and no rust through is hiding on you. Now would be the time to make repairs before it leaks, afterward you may not get the chance.
It does look like a beast, should keep you warm as toast.

I agree. Check the joints and crevices for rust thru. If it is still solid then your good to go. Should provide plenty of heat.