Slowly but Surely Getting Ready to Switch From Wood to Coal

dcrane, I did mention the chubby as a question if anyone knew if their output was enough for this application. Titleist1 he said early in the thread he would burn anthracite,no previous mention tho of quantity or source.

Hi Pancho and welcome to the forum. I've learned an incredible amount of extremely valuable coal heating info here, thanks to the help of so many kind members.

I'm currently using a Smith & Anthony parlor stove I just had restored by Emery at the Stove Hospital. It's a circulator with indirect back pipe, which brings cold air up from below the stove by convection.

It's a fantastic stove, but has not proven to be as easy to run as I thought initially. I'm finding that I have to keep the ash relatively low, to keep from loosing the fire. it's been very frustrating, but I think I'm getting it (thanks to Oros35 for his valuable input). My point is that base heaters have a learning curve - allow yourself time early in the season to test fire and get acquainted with what ever you buy. I didn't get my finished Smith Anthony from Emery until the end of December. I guess the plating took a long time.

I early on decided that I would concentrate on New England made cast iron stoves, based on Emery's recommendations (Glenwood,.Crawford, Smith & Anthony, Herald, etc.) One thing I quickly learned is that all these antique stoves kicking around are NOT equal. There are tons of inferior stoves around - it takes a lot of study to be able to recognize the gems.

I have managed to find a lot of wonderful stoves - mostly on Craigslist (I got the Smith & Anthony on eBay). I traded a bunch of stoves I'd accumulated to Emery and Brandon, including a Glenwood Oak 40 I had. It's a POWERFUL heater, and would be a perfect match for your needs - but it's a very high quality Oak which can burn wood as well as coal - not a base heater. I made a few mistakes, but I'm very happy with my little collection as it stands now.

In closing, I would strongly recommend you buy a restored New England made cast iron stove - either an Oak or a Base Heater - from Emery/Brandon at the Stove Hospital in Little Compton RI. They won't steer you wrong, and they will crate/ship the restored stove to you, for a modest extra fee.

Good luck - Chris

Many antique stoves have lot of levers, dampers, check dampers,internal damper...and I realised it's a super good thing. In a short time you will dicover the benefit of all that equipment, just like a ""full equipped car"". YOU can control the heat output, burn time...very easily with these levers and with the precision of a Swiss made watch.. They all have a special function, in the past they didn't know the word gadgets and stoves had to work hard in those un-insulated houses.
For the transport: just like if handling a Jewell. These stoves are real jewells, so care should be taken for each states: choosing the right one, restored or not...but they are stronger than we can imaginate.
The base burner stoves usually need just a one year cleaning for the gases paths.
Watch Williams videos and see how it easy to stay warm 24/24.

I own a baseburner, have for many years. Now, I like the stove a whole lot, but just thinking about living in Michigan, the availability of wood compared to anthracite, and thinking about the long range - I'd invest in an Oak rather than a baseburner or one of the more sophisticated coal specific stoves. The Oaks will burn wood well (not as well as a modern wood stove) and they will burn coal well. Not quite as efficiently as one of the more sophisticated coal specific stoves, but you'll be hard pressed to really notice the difference. You will notice their much better ability to burn wood on the other hand. Years ago when I was burning wood only, I almost sold my baseburner to get a good Oak because they worked so much better burning wood. I didn't because someone lent me a good Oak to use at the time so the "need" disappeared, so to speak. Now that I burn exclusively anthracite, I'm glad I have my baseburner, but I'm also sure if I'd sold it and bought a good Oak way back when, I'd be just as happy. The up-front cost of an Oak from one the restorers, is probably going to be less than a baseburner. It will give you more flexibility in fuel choice at the same time costing less. The performance drop using coal will be hardly noticeable, the performance increase using wood will be very noticeable. You can still burn coal exclusively if you wish, but in years down the road if the cost of coal drastically changes, you can always just switch back to wood and keep on heating...

Just another point of view for you to ponder...

dj

Very good point dj, And if pancho has enough room, and has some exposed flue pipe, the pipe will radiate a lot of heat anyway.

I'm concerned about the size and height of the room.. you could have a huge stove of any type, flavor or design, and still have a cold room on the floor level. I'd assume he has ceiling fans.. but ?? We need more information.

Hey Pancho !! you done pushing and stacking snow yet ??

Greg L

windyhill4.2 wrote:Thank you ,grumpy,i had to watch a video again,they are awesome. ONEDOLLAR, is a 70K chubby big enough for his house ? I think some of the stoves that william talks about have more output than that. Michigan & 24' cathedral ceiling & desire to be warm will demand a capable stove.

I think it could but there are lots of variables that could impact any stove from heating any area. Big high ceilings being one of them. His current stove (wood) has a 55000 BTU rating and that is mostly(90%)getting the job done for him so a Chubby Sr should be up to the job.

Not sure what a Glenwood 6 has for a BTU rating and to be honest I am not sure what the BTU rating is for my Crawford. I can tell you it can pump out the heat but getting that heat to move can sometimes be a challange for some people. Each home and install has its own quirks.

I'd like to see Pancho get a Crawford 50, he certainly has the space in that room (24ft ceiling) to run one.

I'll be honest...I'd just like to see one running full throttle, what a spectacle that must be!

I think Crawford 50's are VERY rare

I believe Will said even he's never seen one (if memory serves).

A Glenwood No. 8 base heater would be very cool.

Chris

grumpy wrote:

.....he said in the vid that the stove 'cruises along' at 350 degrees. I assume that's because he had it dampened down. When you have one of those crankin'...what's the stove surface temp?.

At 350 I'd freeze my arse off.

LsFarm wrote:Hi Pancho, With a 24' cathedral ceiling, you will need a fairly good sized stove..
Are there any upstairs rooms that will benefit from the hot air up against the ceiling? A balcony overlooking the
main room that will get heated as well?

Yes, there are two bedrooms, a bathroom and a loft area.

Operating a base heater / base burner also requires a bit more thought and understanding of what the stove is doing, how draft works, what levers and vents need to be manipulated and when and why.
Once an owner operates a stove just a few times, it is really simple.. but don't try to get your neighbor to tend the stove for you if they only can turn on their gas fireplace or make a fire in a fireplace.. it's more involved than that.. or it CAN be more involved than that.. if a person feeds the stove on time and doesn't mess with anything, it's just feed it, and change it's diaper, er, empty the ashpan. close the doors and forget it for another 12 hours.

You will be doing a LOT of reading for the next few days..

But I too can see a nice antique stove in your future, or a nice 'rustic' looking modern stove.. depends on what look you want to have,

Greg L

That's a fact.
Thanks for all the information. There's a lot to get my head around here.

titleist1 wrote:Welcome to the forum Pancho. I didn't see it mentioned earlier but are you planning on burning bituminous or anthracite coal? Do you have a couple sources for coal locally or were you going to have a bulk load trucked in?

Bulk anthracite is the plan.....just how that happens....I don't have that pinned down yet.

chrisbuick wrote:Hi Pancho and welcome to the forum. I've learned an incredible amount of extremely valuable coal heating info here, thanks to the help of so many kind members.

I'm currently using a Smith & Anthony parlor stove I just had restored by Emery at the Stove Hospital. It's a circulator with indirect back pipe, which brings cold air up from below the stove by convection.

It's a fantastic stove, but has not proven to be as easy to run as I thought initially. I'm finding that I have to keep the ash relatively low, to keep from loosing the fire. it's been very frustrating, but I think I'm getting it (thanks to Oros35 for his valuable input). My point is that base heaters have a learning curve - allow yourself time early in the season to test fire and get acquainted with what ever you buy. I didn't get my finished Smith Anthony from Emery until the end of December. I guess the plating took a long time.

I early on decided that I would concentrate on New England made cast iron stoves, based on Emery's recommendations (Glenwood,.Crawford, Smith & Anthony, Herald, etc.) One thing I quickly learned is that all these antique stoves kicking around are NOT equal. There are tons of inferior stoves around - it takes a lot of study to be able to recognize the gems.

I have managed to find a lot of wonderful stoves - mostly on Craigslist (I got the Smith & Anthony on eBay). I traded a bunch of stoves I'd accumulated to Emery and Brandon, including a Glenwood Oak 40 I had. It's a POWERFUL heater, and would be a perfect match for your needs - but it's a very high quality Oak which can burn wood as well as coal - not a base heater. I made a few mistakes, but I'm very happy with my little collection as it stands now.

In closing, I would strongly recommend you buy a restored New England made cast iron stove - either an Oak or a Base Heater - from Emery/Brandon at the Stove Hospital in Little Compton RI. They won't steer you wrong, and they will crate/ship the restored stove to you, for a modest extra fee.

Good luck - Chris

Thanks for the information Chris.....I am going to need a spreadsheet to keep track of all this.

I think when I pull the trigger...my wood burning days will be done. More and more people are supplementing or heating with wood now. It's just getting harder to get. I think we have just a few years left and all the ash trees that are worth splitting will all be gone.

I will miss it but it'd be nice having the wood harvest time freed up for other things.

Pancho wrote: he said in the vid that the stove 'cruises along' at 350 degrees. I assume that's because he had it dampened down. When you have one of those crankin'...what's the stove surface temp?.
At 350 I'd freeze my arse off.

HaHaHa - you and me both! I'm typically running my stove in the 450 to 650 range. In the real cold I'll push it up to the 750 to 850 region. But it's a trick to get them to run consistently above 700 for 24 hour time periods or longer. 350 for me is throttled back. I'm rarely below 400 unless I'm trying to run cool.... Now, I've also run my stove on up past 900 and have been known to drop the magnetic thermometers off onto the floor, but not for long sustained times, maybe only a couple hours or so up at those temps... Now I 'm probably going to hear the "OMG you're over-firing your stove" comments - but bear in mind, I've been running this stove since I first owned it back in the 1960's and it shows no signs of any problems... Back 4 or 5 years ago, I took it to Emery at the stove hospital to have him restore it, and he commented on how he'd rarely seen a fire box in as good shape as mine...

dj

dlj wrote:I own a baseburner, have for many years. Now, I like the stove a whole lot, but just thinking about living in Michigan, the availability of wood compared to anthracite, and thinking about the long range - I'd invest in an Oak rather than a baseburner or one of the more sophisticated coal specific stoves. The Oaks will burn wood well (not as well as a modern wood stove) and they will burn coal well. Not quite as efficiently as one of the more sophisticated coal specific stoves, but you'll be hard pressed to really notice the difference. You will notice their much better ability to burn wood on the other hand. Years ago when I was burning wood only, I almost sold my baseburner to get a good Oak because they worked so much better burning wood. I didn't because someone lent me a good Oak to use at the time so the "need" disappeared, so to speak. Now that I burn exclusively anthracite, I'm glad I have my baseburner, but I'm also sure if I'd sold it and bought a good Oak way back when, I'd be just as happy. The up-front cost of an Oak from one the restorers, is probably going to be less than a baseburner. It will give you more flexibility in fuel choice at the same time costing less. The performance drop using coal will be hardly noticeable, the performance increase using wood will be very noticeable. You can still burn coal exclusively if you wish, but in years down the road if the cost of coal drastically changes, you can always just switch back to wood and keep on heating...

Just another point of view for you to ponder...

dj

That is a concern for me. A big concern. IF....if I can get a solid supplier of bulk....I 'shouldn't' run out.
As I mentioned before, wood isn't as easy to come by as it has been in years past. Next year will be brutal for wood in this area (with all the snow, there is no frost in the ground...nobody can get out to their woodlots).

I won't be pulling the trigger until I have all the details worked out....which will take some time.

LsFarm wrote:Very good point dj, And if pancho has enough room, and has some exposed flue pipe, the pipe will radiate a lot of heat anyway.

I'm concerned about the size and height of the room.. you could have a huge stove of any type, flavor or design, and still have a cold room on the floor level. I'd assume he has ceiling fans.. but ?? We need more information.

I may be looking at this wrong....but my Jotul (50k BTU) keeps the first floor at 75 degrees easily (and that's 50ft from the stove). An 80k -100k BTU heater would only be better (I'll be able to make beef jerky in my living room )

And yes, I have a ceiling fan almost over the hearth and one on the other end of the house.

Hey Pancho !! you done pushing and stacking snow yet ??

Greg L

4 hours....nearly froze to death.....and I think my driveway is all of 4" wider now.
When I bought my property I thought "a driveway that is a quarter mile long is KICKASS!!!!".......what a putz.