Coalpail.com Forum

Got a Harman mark 1 currently.
There is nothing wrong with it. However, I find that I am struggling to heat 2500 ft/sq. House is insulated well which is probably why I can do it to begin with. Its a ranch style house, stove is in the basement. 2500 ft/sq is full upstairs and basement.
They want $700 for the 50-93, comes with a blower and the hopper. Been used for a couple years. I could probably score it for 5-600. Will I get a reasonable benefit from this stove? Or am I wasting my money.

Bootstrap wrote:Got a Harman mark 1 currently.
There is nothing wrong with it. However, I find that I am struggling to heat 2500 ft/sq. House is insulated well which is probably why I can do it to begin with. Its a ranch style house, stove is in the basement. 2500 ft/sq is full upstairs and basement.
They want $700 for the 50-93, comes with a blower and the hopper. Been used for a couple years. I could probably score it for 5-600. Will I get a reasonable benefit from this stove? Or am I wasting my money.

Nope I'd go for that in a minute if the Hitzer is in decent shape. You can always sell the Mark I and recoup some money. That Hitzer is a hopper stove with a good reputation and it's a good bit bigger (BTU's) output too. I'd guess it's inbetween the Mark II and III for heat output and it's got a hopper feed which you find mighty handy. Your Mark I is a bit small for that size space in all honesty. Always better to have more stove, then less. Can burn a bit lower and longer and you have the power when you need it.

I purchased a Harman I to heat a 1400sq ft 125year old farm house. Will put the stove in center on the first floor. Opened area with a large floor vent on the 2ed floor stair landing. Should work find. Before this coal, I warm the house with a VC Resolute wood at 500 degrees griddle temp. General first floor room temp on a 26 degree day with light wind with the Resolute is 72degrees. Seconed floor 68degrees.This is only rated at 36000 btu. The Mark 1 is 48 btu. Your situation seems to small of stove to heat a larger home. My home is not all insulated. Yours most insulated and newer construction. Basement ceiling vents to upstairs? What stove temp? What temps are you looking for? Many variables here. I've posted recently some questions, and got very good replies. You will too. This is a good forum. PS. Replacing wood stove with coal for longer burn time.

In a heartbeat bootstrap. Do you have floor registers installed?

That Hitzer will blow the doors off a Mark 1 in both heat output and burn time.

It's actually a 30-95. She is letting it go for 500 and I'm jumping on it. Hoping to sell the mark 1 for 300. What kind of burn gtime should I expect out of the 30-95

Bootstrap.Go with the hitzer.Iam heating 3000 sq ft,one floor and basement with my stove down stairs and 2 fans running (basement door open) and a little tweaking,its 70 degrees at the furthest point from the stove. hitzer puts out a simple bulletproof stove -Imho.

A 30-95 is only slightly larger than a Mark 1. 60k BTU rating I think. I think you are a candidate for a larger stove, but if you can get the 30-95 for $500 it seems like a worthy experiment. The bimetallic thermostat and hopper on the Hitzer should give you more stable heat output over a longer period of time. But please note, if you are going to run the stove wide-open it will still need to have the ashes shaken down every 6-8 hrs.

bs, I would NOT spend that for basically the same BTU stove--be patient, they're out there

If getting longer burn times is what I accomplish, then its worth it to me. I can deal with shaking it down every 10 hours, I don't plan on running it wide open.

If you are heating 2500 sq ft with the stove in the basement I would be looking for the bigger Hitzer, the 50-93. Also, the Harman Mark III would give you that little bit xtra that you are looking for. I would be looking for a stove thats rated to heat up to 2500 sq ft.

Might as well pick it up for that price and try it out if it is in very good shape. But then I always say you can never have too many coal stoves!!

Yes I am an addict and I only admit to having two working mag stokers, a semi working parts mag stoker and a mark 3 hand fed and I still look for a good deal to pick up another of either kind. Your affliction may not be as bad as mine!

Worst case scenario is that it performs the same as the Mark I and you will probably be able to sell it for same price as you bought it in order to upgrade to a larger 50-93 or Mark III or something similar in the DS line. You only lose time and energy moving it.

I don't believe in wasting time or energy. If it was me I'd get MK III or a 50-93 or something equal to them.

I would not buy the 30-95! Look for a 50-93 I found one on craigs list for another guy for next to nothing. That 354 that is listed is 100,000 BTU the only thing it doesn't have is a hopper, same stove as the 50-93 just no hopper and would be better than the 30-95.

Well I have the stove and she's hooked up and running. It's in mint condition with only one heating season on her. So far the $500 wad worth it. The hopper is convenient and mostly removes the need to open the front door. Also keeps dust down cause I dump straight from the bag into the stove. If I get the $300 I'm looking to get for the Harman, it will have been more worth it.