Coalpail.com Forum

I'm a little concerned too how you will heat upper floors with a 50-93 in the basement ?
A layout of the house would give us an idea of what your facing. Sounds like you are diving into the coal business head first with a fair amount of expectations. Hope it works out well.

Here's a picture of the future stove location. I plan to remove that plastic rack, and make my heat shield go left, over to the stairs. Right above that rack I can cut a cold air return to my second floor, almost straight down to the stove. I'll have 2 more ducts leading up, one for each floor. The basement is a partial, and i'm not expecting too much heat to hit the extremities of the first and second floors, if all goes well i'll add another stove later that will heat the entire house. The basement is only about 300sf, and I hope to keep the stove idling nice and low until a power outage or cold snap where i'll crank it up.

The main floor of the house is heated by a pair of mini-split heat pumps, each with a 500cfm fan, hopefully their fans can push stove heat across the entire first floor. And if I'm not so good at coal right away, or I want to leave for vacation, they can handle the load.

I planned on the air gap for the walls, should I also consider raising the stove off the floor? the floor is concrete, and I wasn't planning anything under the stove.

The setup is very convenient because out of the picture to the left is a walkout that goes under a porch. It's a nice closed in room that I plan to stack 5 gal buckets in. Right outside that closed porch is my driveway where i'll build the bin eventually. Should be easy to load the bin, transfer to buckets, and load inside.

I've been reading here for months and hope I have a grasp on the general house setup, and I've spent the past few days ready everything I can find on this stove in particular.

You sound like you know what you want and where. Excellent! Keep us tuned in,we love first fires.

Yea, i'm not one to just run out and buy something because it sounds fun. Might be because my actual job is "Purchasing Manager" I spend most of my days doing research and cost comparisons. In a previous life I was a construction worker, so I'm always working on some kind of house project.'

Last night after I ordered the stove I tried telling my wife my entire plan, how it would work, etc...she just laughed at my nerdiness.

The local dealer I found will fill 5 gallon buckets, so I think I'm going to gather all I can find and get a few buckets of different kinds of coal to try them all out. Although reading here it sounds like i'll be using mostly nut coal. This place will deliver up to 4 tons for $50 and they have an auger on the truck to put it where I want it. If I can catch a few nice weather days I'll build the bin, if not it can wait til summer and i'll use buckets for this winter.

I never would have got this far without this forum, thanks again for the wealth of information available here.

Scott, even if you just take a few bricks & place them under the stove with a piece of steel plate on top, you will get that heat radiating up & out instead of getting sucked into that concrete floor

I'd get nut size coal, and pea sized coal. Most use nut size coal in 50-93, including myself. Never tried pea size in my 50-93. I have a 30-95 in the shop, which I've also burned nut sized coal with great results. Last year, for the first time, I tried pea sized coal in the 30-95. As someone else on the forum recently said, "there is a noticeable difference in how the two different coal sizes burn". I actually THINK I like the pea size better. However, that's in the shop, where the stove simmers most of the time. When I need heat, I simply turn the fan on low. As a rule, I don't touch my controls/settings. It's fan on, or fan off. 50-93 = very good stove. Oliver

Welcome, Scottaw. I am running the insert version of the 50-93 and love it. Only heat source for 3000 sq ft house and it does well. Hopper sure is handy.

When you get your stove in and your thoughts turn to coal bin design, check out the one I built several years ago (Coal Bin Project (the Entire File This Time!)). Think about the sloped floor feature that brings the coal to you as you shovel. Also, many links to other coal bin photos at the above cited thread. Good luck and enjoy the heat!

Ok, so the installers left, said I was all setup and ready to go. So I thought I would just give it a go. Never even seen a coal fire in person, just following the posts I've read here. I preheated the chimney with my wife's hair dryer for a few minutes, piled some paper and wood and off I went. I've been sitting here watching it making sure everything looks as it should.

At about :30 I could see some coal glowing nice and red, left it go to about :45 and saw what I can only image are the "blue ladies" I hear so much about. So every half hour I've added another layer of coal, waiting until there is a good bit of blue, and adding some more. I think my next refill, somewhere a but after the 2 hr mark I will fill the hopper, close the ash door, and see what happens. I can't upload pictures from my phone, but they will be up when I get a chance.

When getting a fire established, a good rule is to never add more coal than what is already burning in the stove.

Looking forward to some updates and pictures.

Ok, at the 2 hour mark I thought it was looking good and filled the hopper. The ash door is now closed, but the vents in it are open. I have a very nice amount of glowing from the bottom, and the thermostat is set at 10. Ive been sitting about 3' in front iPod it, and im quite warm. I'm gonna watch it for another :30 and then leave it along until bed.

How did the installation of carbon monoxide detector go? I couldn't help it safety first Congratulations on your first fire, you're hooked now. My hopper won't be ready for another 4 years, he's only 6 and he can't wait to help daddy!

We've had a hard wired, multi floor smoke and CO2 setup since shortly after buying the house. And I have 3 standalones as well. I'm with ya on the safety idea.

I bought the stove used, but the stovepipe was new. It's smoking a bit, but I think it's just paint.

The front of the stove is around 275

The top is 205

The stove pipe right after the stove is 475.

And the stovepipe right before going up the flue is 350.

Those numbers all sound good?

Ok, having closed the ash door dampers, stove still on 10, left alone for half hour.

325 on the stove front.

225 stove top.

225 pipe at the stove.

120 stove at the flue.

Sounds like your off and running. Now grab a beverage of choice and enjoy the heat. Just remember when you shake try getting all the ash out. I know in my stove it makes all the difference. One of the things I had to work on. Matt

I've been sipping on a wonderful imperial stout, and enjoying this fire very much. It's brutally cold out and my old stone basement is 72. Hopefully I have as much luck with tomorrow's first shaking and cleaning as I did getting it rolling.