How to Light a Hand Fired Coal Stove

Devil5052 wrote:

coalkirk wrote:You've got to try the lump charcoal. It lights quickly and burns hot. I used it last night and had the coal lit in about a minute. I just hit the lump charcoal with a mapp gas torch for about 30 seconds, turn on the combustion blower and it takes off.

What is "lump' charcoal & where do I get it Terry?

It's hardwood charcoal, not briquettes. It's all irregular shapes or chunks/lumps. It's readily available at most hardware stores or home depots. I use it in my grill and found that it works better than anything else I ever tried to light my coal. You only need a little bit of it too. If it ever stops raining here, I'll take a picture of some (it is in my grill storage bin) and post it.

Hey Devil, here's the picture of lump charcoal I promised.

coalkirk wrote:Hey Devil, here's the picture of lump charcoal I promised.

lump charcoal.jpg

Thanks....I look for it at Home Depot. Freezing here today!! (It looks like I'll have the Harman going all summer at this rate )

Hi,

I light a new fire each night and want it to be as little time consuming as possible. My routine is:

1. Clean out the ash of previous night, leave anything that can't fall through the grate after raking it.
2. Add cheapest charcoal in the spot where my LP gas fire starter flame will hit - this is to one side of the firebox. As little as required.
3. Fill up with antracite enough for the whole night - about 6-7 hours.
4. Poke a hole through to the grate at the spot where the charcoal is, to make sure there is a little pathway for fumes, else smoking / gas starter flame dies due to lack of O2 / lack of draft problems can occur.
5. In my 1 stove, heat up the flue with the gas to start draft. This stove has parts where the exhaust actually moves downwards, so a draft can't be assumed. After a minute or so you can see there is a draft.
6. Close all other doors and put gas flame under grate, under charcoal through the ash pan door.
7. After about 3-5 mins, turn off gas. At this time the charcoal starts coming to life more - I think the gas consumes all the oxygen and leaving gas on too long doesn't make it light any faster.
8. Close ash door, open air flow to max, leave it alone.
9. It takes at least an hour to get up to speed, and even longer before you feel it in the house, but I don't have to do anything else again for the whole evening except close the air flow when it gets up to speed.

You can see the "blue flame" part spread from the starting point outwards, behind it red glowing coals and in front of it yet-to-be-ignited coal. Later you can see the original spot dying while the late starters are doing the job. I don't open the front door again, and the top loading door only if I misjudged the original quantity and want to add mode coals, but by this time there are no flames anymore.

Regards
Leon

leoncoal wrote:I light a new fire each night and want it to be as little time consuming as possible. My routine is:

None of my business but why do you light a new fire each night? (Way to time consuming for me) Why not just shake down yesterday's fire? (if I had to light a new fire every night I would have burned coal for about 2 nights over the last 26 years!) With good coal, I can keep one fire running 24/7 from October thu March........spending maybe 8 minutes/day shaking it down.

Hi Devil,

It doesn't get so cold here (sunny South Africa), and the house is empty during the day. House also not that well insulated so heat would just be lost. I do keep it on during weekends now & again if we're going to be home much of the time. It would just burn too much anthracite just to walk into a warm house.
Oh yes also this heater I can't turn down very low - the vents not air tight enough or leaking at the seams or something, if I could get a lower tick-over speed I would consider it again.

Regards
Leon

I know it has been a month since this thread was viewed but I would like to offer my 2 bits.

When I am going to start my coal fire in the fall I start with a fresh bed of coal, about 3- 4 inches. I build a nice wood fire on the top of it and allow that to catch the coals. This way there is no smuthering of the wood fire you have going and creating a lot of unwanted smoke when you throw down coal on the top of it. I leave the ash bin door open a little to provide air flow. If the coals don't seem to be hot enough to keep burning after fire is dying out place some more wood on the fire. My fire box is 36" by 24" and I usually have a coal only fire going in an 1 to 1 1/2 hours. I like the idea of using charcoal or if I can find the lump charcoal even better than using wood. I may try that this heating season.

Mike

YoungOldtimer wrote:When I am going to start my coal fire in the fall I start with a fresh bed of coal, about 3- 4 inches. I build a nice wood fire on the top of it and allow that to catch the coals.

Never tried that but it sounds good. I switched to using charcoal last winter & like that way. Whatever floats your boat!

I use thoes fire starter things and a little wood.Break the fire starter brick in half.Put one in the middle of each grate.Take wood about 3/4X3/4X 5" and make a teepee over the fire starters.When its burning good(2 mins) shovel about 1 bucket of coal around them.When the 2 fires meet in the middle fill'er up.
DON

Thanks, everybody. There is so much great information here.

I grew up with a soft coal boiler & woodstoves. My wife and I now have a Harman Mark 1 that my mom gave us in 2003 (she's went to natural gas). We only burned wood until last year, but then I found a local trucking company (of all places) that also sells hard coal. Man, was I thrilled!This is in upstate New York, not far from Albany, where a lot of people all but equate coal with killing babies.

Anyway, most of my attempts at a coal fire last winter were pretty dismal. I hadn't build a coal fire since I was about fifteen, but reading all the suggestions here is bringing it all back to me (slow building, banking, etc.). I can't wait for the cold weather!

Thanks again--
JL

Does anyone know the dangers of burning charcoal indoors? I am only in my second season of burning coal so as you can imagine I have to re-lite my stove every few days. I like the idea of the charcoal to start the stove but the bag of matchlight I bought has all kinds of warnings about outdoor use only and carbon monoxide. I do have a CO detector in my house and when starting a fire I only use about 8 pieces of matchlight mixed with wood to start the fire. Am I worrying for no reason or should I stick to wood and paper when starting my fire so often? Thanks for any advise, Jeff

Jeffb227 wrote:I am only in my second season of burning coal so as you can imagine I have to re-lite my stove every few days.

I don't think the charcoal will harm you but the real solution is to learn how to keep your stove going so you don't have to keep relighting. Are you filling the stove up totally with coal? What are the circumstances when you lose your fires?

Hello: I'm new to coal stoves in general. I have an old chinese laundry stove in my art studio. I don't know if any of you are familiar with this stove. I don't know how to post a pic so I'll describe: It has sad irons all around the base and is small and on four queen ann style legs. Anyway, the fire box is 10 inches deep and 12 inches in diameter. I'm having trouble maintaining a coal fire. I start with wood fire (boy is that easy) and add coal without smothering wood fire. I'm keeping ash draw open as well as stove pipe damper wide open (is this correct so far?). (My ash drawer has a small rectangular damper on it as well marked P.E.P. if anyone knows the significance of that). My first layer of coal gets going very red but no blue flame. I add a second slight layer of coal leaving plenty open to breath and then it all slowly goes out. Please advise. Thanks

Try sneaking that pipe damper closed a bit. ... your chimney might be sucking the life right out of the coal.

I don't know anything about your stove and have never seen one but these are my thoughts on it.
1. Too much draft
2. Not enough draft
3. Stove is not air tight and too much air is being sucked in over the top of the coals.
4. Coal is not good quality.
5. What are you using for fuel Anthracite or Bit.

All air must be drawn in from beneath the coal. If #2 and #3 apply it wont keep going. If #1 is the problem it burns itself out to quick.
I'm thinking 2 or 3 but thats just a guess.
Oh.. And always use the full ten inches. Fill it up after starting.