Wonderwood to Wondercoal

Hello folks! A newb here. Wondering if anyone has tried converting a Wonderwood to a Wondercoal, or at least augment the wood with coal. My stove is an unfired early 1980's flea market find. Looking at owner's manuals I downloaded for both, they appear to be almost exactly the same stove...with a few differences. Appears as though I could replace the wood loader door with the coal loader door that has the adjustable afterburn vent, & send the existing grates out to get ceramic coated to take the heat. I found I can manually shake the grates back and forth by poker underneath while the ash pan is still in place. Any ideas/advice on this would be appreciated.

I did a search for make and model of stove since I had never heard of it. However, I couldn't find any owners manuals to download.

If the wood to coal conversion parts are available and the cost is something you can live with, then I'd say give it a try. But...

Have you used the stove as a wood stove yet?? Good hardwood is pretty easy to find in Michigan, lots of dead ash and elms. Plenty of hard maple and Oak too. Coal however is very difficult to find and expensive in Michigan, depending on where in Michigan you are located.

And wood fires are not very finicky to start or keep going, coal can be fussy, just read some of the threads on this forum.

If your current version [wood] uses combustion air through the door and not from under the grate, then you would have to do a conversion to get coal to burn. If the combustion air comes up from under the grate, then you may be able to find and try a bag or two of coal first before you decide to spend the cash to convert.

I wish I could see a line drawing of the stove, combustion chamber and ash pan/box. The I could tell you if it could burn coal as is. Most grates to my knowledge are not ceramic coated, if they are cast iron they will last a long time.

I use an old MBW wood/coal boiler located in an outbuilding and pipe the hot water into the house. The boiler uses a combustion blower in the ash pan box to blow air up through the grates from underneath. Works good for both wood and coal. My grates are not ceramic coated.

But finding good coal is VERY difficult, wood is easy. If you know a good source for coal in Michigan, let us know.

Where in Michigan are you?? can you post a link to the manuals so we can look at them?

Hope this helps LsFarm

LsFarm wrote:
And wood fires are not very finicky to start or keep going, coal can be fussy, just read some of the threads on this forum.

I'll have to disagree with that, coal may be a little harder to get going for some at first. With a little experience you should be able to get it going quite quickly, I can have our stoker shooting blue flames 2 feet in 15 minutes. Additionally you get a lot longer burn time on anthracite. 12 hours is plenty, I don't burn wood but from my understanding you can expect about 4 or 5 hours.

But you are THE coal guy, your boiler better burn right!!

I agree though that it is usually a learning process to figure
out how to get your own stove to start and burn right, then
they are no problem to feed and keep going.

That photo you posted of your boiler still has me jealous..

Too bad you don't bag and ship your coal, I'd buy some.

Wood in my stove will burn almost as long as my coal, but
I burn only dry oak and ash. When I burn elm it doesn't last
as long. My coal burns a little longer than Oak.

I can't wait till I get my new boiler done and installed, then I
should be able to have a 12+ hour burn on coal or wood.

LsFarm

I appreciate the quick replies.

WonderCoal:

Wonderwood:

Found two coal sources in the Detroit area so far:

Was thinking about just going with the wood, if I could just get it free from tree services and such, maybe early in the year so it can dry out. But just had it in my head coal would be less hassle as a running concern and cleaner once it was started? And from what I heard wood is completely sold out in this area at this time even if you did want to buy it. Whereas coal if I ran low and had to buy more I could just order it and burn it, no drying.

KC, you are right, there is less hassle with coal . It burns cleaner, doesn't creosote coat the chimney [jsut fly-ash]. Having your fuel in 50# bags is a nice thing too. Not lugging dirty bug infested wood is a plus too.

Did you get my PM?

Take care. LsFarm

OOOPs!!! Dang it !! I knew that, Sorry about naming the coal souces. Just wasn't Thinkin!!! LsFarm, Yes I did-just answered...

LsFarm, mail din't work..."Sorry, I couldn't find a mail exchanger or IP address. (#5.4.4)" ???

KC wrote:LsFarm, mail din't work..."Sorry, I couldn't find a mail

He's probably referring to the internal PM service.