Coalpail.com Forum

recently acquired lovely pot belly stove & do not know much about them, but very willing to learn!! picked it up off Craigslist for really cheap & former owner had no details(was using as ornamental piece), said his father-in law, who passed many yrs. ago, used this stove for only about 1 month before becoming very ill. Anyway, it's a small cast iron stove(i think), has stars on top & eagle on bottom door.....that's it, no serial number's -model. No other identifying features. Looking for some advice/details as I would like to get this baby up & running for next winter. I live in nepa. I'm at work right now, so can't post any pics, but if you google eagle & stars pot belly stove it comes up !!! But without any info. I even saw it on 2 different auction sites, called them up & was told they also had no info. to help with my search. so frustrating!! I would love to know if my stove is able to burn coal in it. any help would be most appreciated!!!!!! please reply to [email protected]

A picture is worth 1000 words.......

Need to post some photos showing head on, door open, fire pot inside and burner ring on the bottom of the fire pot. Then we could tell what you have.

Without that it's kinda like saying "I bought a car, it has four wheels an engine and it runs. What did I buy?"

Gotta have pictures of the actual stove.

I was finally able to upload pictures, please tell me what I have & if I can burn coal in this stove. thanks!! Dawn

front view

You can burn coal in it, I wonder if it is a army stove of some sort... I wouldnt try to burn anything but bituminous coal in it because there will be a lot of over fire air coming in around the door and in the seams.

This Cannon Heater is a modern stove. It is probably less than 30 years old. I don't know who made it, but; you could get new, cheaply made versions of laundry heaters and cannon heaters from places such as the Alanta Stove Works up until at least the mid to late 1980's. I bought a brand new laundry stove for my dad to put in his shop in 1985 for 90 bucks. The only difference between that and one from a 100 years ago is the new one was made of light weight cheap castings that didn't fit very well. It burned Bituminous just fine.

again beginner so please go easy .....soooo I got a bag of anthracite(nut coal), fired the baby up outside, wanted to identify any leaks, problems, ect.... slowly put the coal in after I had good wood fire going(only about 3 cups worth), seemed to have trouble getting it up to temp. let it go for the night...cleaned it out this morn. & seems as though half the coal did not burn. ideas, comments? thank you!!

Fired it up outside

.

Did you have it hooked up to a chimney pipe or flue?
Or just set it outside and build a fire in it?

A stove needs to be hooked up to a flue to be able to work right.

dawnrulost wrote:again beginner so please go easy .....soooo I got a bag of anthracite(nut coal), fired the baby up outside, wanted to identify any leaks, problems, ect.... slowly put the coal in after I had good wood fire going(only about 3 cups worth), seemed to have trouble getting it up to temp. let it go for the night...cleaned it out this morn. & seems as though half the coal did not burn. ideas, comments? thank you!!

carlherrnstein wrote:

Fired it up outside

.

Did you have it hooked up to a chimney pipe or flue?
Or just set it outside and build a fire in it?

A stove needs to be hooked up to a flue to be able to work right.

In order to get a good coal fire you will need to fill the stove with a least 6" of coal on top of the hot wood fire.
Use the search in top right for How to Light a Hand Fired Coal Stove
I believe you would only need a couple lengths of pipe(maybe 4-6' of stove pipe) to have a test fire outside