Slowly but Surely Getting Ready to Switch From Wood to Coal

By special request some coal comes oiled to keep the dust down. Most coal is simply washed with water.

grumpy wrote:

The cost of restoring the craigslist bargain will end up about the same as buying one that is professionally restored.

RIGHT !! don't do it,, What Will said is true, I know..

X 2, I also KNOW. Have a restored stove you don't need to re-restore by yourself

Can someone post the links to wsherricks videos ,that is not something I've learned yet,but those videos are awesome info.Pancho,you have to watch them,mandatory

Pancho

WELCOME TO NEPA!!

A good Baseheater would look fantastic in your Log home. They are very efficient units and I am a proud owner and user of one thanks to this forum. You can't hardly go wrong with a Glenwood 6 or 8 or Crawford 2 or a 40. These are powefull units and can also be run at very low temps. 225 f. Perhaps lower. If a Base Burner is not in the cards for you for whatever reason you might consider looking at a Chubby. You can find them here http://www.chubbystove.com.

You can often find them for sale on craigslist sometimes as well. Parts are readily available should you need them. I also have a Chubby and it is a wonderful coal stove. Great burn times (easy 14 hours) and right around 70,000 BTU's They can pump out the heat. I can honestly say through the recent cold weather we have had the Chubby heated our home with ease.

Whatever road you choose to take coal stove wise, be prepared for long, stable and hot burn times that eliminate the need to stoke the woodstove in the middle of the night. No more bugs and a heck of a lot less mess in the house. Not to mention the cutting, splitting and stacking. I keep saying to myself "Why didn't I do this 20 years ago?" I have a strong feeling once you make the move to the "dark side" you will say the same thing.

Please keep us posted!

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.

Pancho wrote:

Photog200 wrote:I have one of the antique baseburner stoves that has been restored. The base burners are extremely efficient, they were manufactured in the coal burning hey - day. Mine has a suspended fire pot and the exhaust is pulled down around the fire pot keeping it hot. That causes a more efficient burn of the coal because it is keeping the fire pot hot. Then the gases are pulled down under the ash pan and around a chamber in the base (thus, baseburner) then the gases go out the exhaust. When it goes out the chimney, the temps are quite low because they were efficiently distributed throughout the stove. It is my opinion that these old stoves are just as efficient as the new stoves of today. Don't take this the wrong way, I am not knocking the new stoves in any way. I just like the classic designs of the old stoves and I am extremely happy with mine.
Randy

Thanks Randy. This is encouraging. Do they have a hopper on them??. Are they fairly easy to operate once you get it going?.

My wife works at home so she would be the one tending to it (if required) during the day. She can run the wood stove with no issues.

My particular stove does not have a hopper on it, however, I have never had the need for one. Even in the cold spell we just went through, I only tended my stove every 12 hours. I still had more than sufficient coal left in it to stoke the coal for the next 12 hours. When I have the stove turned down for the "shoulder" months, I have gotten 48 hour burn times out of this stove. There are antique stove out there that do have hoppers in them and I am sure you will see many of them out there. Unless you are unable to attend the stove in 12 hour intervals, I am sure your wife would be able to tend the stove...they are easy once you get the hang of it. I saw that you were on Bryant Stove shop's website...that is where I bought my stove. They have an awesome facility with a fantastic museum.
Randy

....video....>AWESOME<.
I will watch them in the morning (the wife is watching a movie and I can't turn up the volume without scorn).

I am geeked. Thanks for all the posts, links and information.

Photog200 wrote:
My particular stove does not have a hopper on it, however, I have never had the need for one. Even in the cold spell we just went through, I only tended my stove every 12 hours. I still had more than sufficient coal left in it to stoke the coal for the next 12 hours. When I have the stove turned down for the "shoulder" months, I have gotten 48 hour burn times out of this stove. There are antique stove out there that do have hoppers in them and I am sure you will see many of them out there. Unless you are unable to attend the stove in 12 hour intervals, I am sure your wife would be able to tend the stove...they are easy once you get the hang of it. I saw that you were on Bryant Stove shop's website...that is where I bought my stove. They have an awesome facility with a fantastic museum.
Randy

I don't require a hopper....If it will go 12hrs without a hopper, that more than works for me. Most newer stoves I have seen have a hopper so I thought that was standard stuff.

LOTS of information to soak up.
Thanks

Pancho wrote:

Photog200 wrote:
My particular stove does not have a hopper on it, however, I have never had the need for one. Even in the cold spell we just went through, I only tended my stove every 12 hours. I still had more than sufficient coal left in it to stoke the coal for the next 12 hours. When I have the stove turned down for the "shoulder" months, I have gotten 48 hour burn times out of this stove. There are antique stove out there that do have hoppers in them and I am sure you will see many of them out there. Unless you are unable to attend the stove in 12 hour intervals, I am sure your wife would be able to tend the stove...they are easy once you get the hang of it. I saw that you were on Bryant Stove shop's website...that is where I bought my stove. They have an awesome facility with a fantastic museum.
Randy

I don't require a hopper....If it will go 12hrs without a hopper, that more than works for me. Most newer stoves I have seen have a hopper so I thought that was standard stuff.

LOTS of information to soak up.
Thanks

It looks like you have a larger home than I have...I would recommend a Glenwood 6 or 8 if you could find one. (like the stove William has in his video). I think some of the smaller stoves like mine and the Crawford's might be a little small during the peak times, especially in your area. There are some beautiful mica baseburner stoves that would also do an awesome job for you, but you then are climbing into a much higher price tag of stoves. Enjoy the hunt, you will have an awesome time!
Randy

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?

You asked a question earlier about why if the base heater / base burner stoves are so efficient, why aren't all stoves made that way ?
Well it's mostly economics. It is a lot less expensive to make a steel box stove, and make it simple to operate, by someone with a serious lack of mechanical skill, common sense and good judgement. The steel box stoves don't have a lot of passageways that can get clogged with ash, so if someone doesn't clean the stove every month or two, it won't really matter.
There is also the problem with lawyers.. A stove sold today must meet the above mentioned criterion. or the stove manufacturer will get sued by the lawyer for the person with the lack of skill, sense and judgement.
So the steel box stove is incredibley strong, pretty easy to operate reasonably well, and pretty hard to mess up when operating it enough to get hurt.
However each stove and instalation has it's quirks and differences.

The Base heaters and Base burners are a fairly complicated design, that once learned are simple and easy to operate. But they DO HAVE more levers, vents, doors, gizmos etc than the simple box stove..

AND here is a big caveat : The antique stoves are made from cast iron, which is a very good material to make stove firepots from, but a pretty lousy material to make a stove body, doors, legs etc from. The problem is that cast iron is sort of like glass, it's incredibly strong in certain ways, but very fragile in others.

I'll use an extreme example: If you and a buddy go to remove a steel box stove out of the back of your pickup truck, and it gets away from you, your feet hopefully are out of the way, !! The driveway, yard, patio whatever the stove lands on will suffer some damage.. the stove will likely not have anything but scratches I the paint.. maybe a bent door latch or possilby a broken glass in the door, but the doors are usually removed to lighten the load before moving.

NOW, with the same scenario: if you and your buddy drop a base heater, or base burner, there will be pieces of stove all over the place, major damage and cast iron is not easy to properly repair, and the old stoves don't have spare parts on shelves in stove stores.
The cast iron stoves must be taken at least partway apart before being transported, and usually a very well made support structure is recommended for a stove before it is turned over to the average trucking company.

And cast iron stove are made from usually dozens of separate parts. I'll do a quick example: the base is 4 legs with 4 spreaders to make a square base with legs, and usually four bolts and nuts for each leg, then the heater base, if it's a base heater, it has a bottom an internal divider [usually part of the bottom piece], a top surround to make the enclosed heat box. On top of the heated base-box/duct is the stove body, which is usually an intricate set of doors and latches with hinges, some kind of posts for the doors to attach to, swing on and form the shape of the front of the stove, then the back ductwork, is another box with two or three exhaust passageways, each made from a few pieces of thin cast iron.. OKAY, my fingers are getting sore. and I'm at about the 1/2 or 2/3 point on describing the parts of the stove. They are a cast iron chinese puzzle.
AND THE MUST be properly sealed when assembled or you can get exhaust leaks. the iron doors are supposed to fit with a metal to metal almost airtight matching surfaces..

What has to be done is the stove must be properly taken apart, and inspected then reassembled with care and all the joints of the pieces sealed with stove/furnace cement. Once the stove is properly reassembled, preferably in place in your home, it will be trouble free for many years. If the stove is moved they really need to be closely looked at to make sure the sealing furnace cement has not cracked or pieces have gone missing.

With a steel box stove there are the pieces of the grate mechanism, the parts count will be similar to the grate system in an antique stove. Then the welded one piece steel box. one door with a latch, hinge and usually a glass panel in the door. .. I think that's about it. maybe a dozen or two pieces total.
The antique stove has probably 3 x as many parts and pieces.

So that is the 'long version' of why modern stoves are not base heaters or base burners.

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

Im surprised nobody mentioned the Chubby or Crane 404 when you requested a non-box coal stove.
I will say that 2,500 sq' would be hard to heat solely with a 60k BTU stove unless its well insulated with perfect placement and layout, but I mention these 2 stoves because your currently using a 50k BTU stove and satisfied (both these units should outpreform that VC all day long). either can be bought by searching CL from $200-$400 (depending on condition and such)... A huge benefit for Chubby is you can obtain spare parts easy and quick for reasonable pricing if you ever needed! If you have the money and like the look of an antique type coal parlor stove (approx $2000-$5000 depending on type & condition) I suggest you search some threads and start learning BEFORE you make the purchase.

here is what a 404 looks like Here is a Chubby Link to a great model available in NE (id offer $250-$300 all day on this blower model with the larger mica top door, its the same as the reconditioned one photo above... **Broken Link(S) Removed**

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?