burning coal in a wood stove

Hounds51 wrote: ↑

Thu. Jan. 12, 2023 11:29 am

Sounds like you got a system. It is very unusual to burn coal in a wood stove, cause they really ain't designed for it. By rule of thumb, You can always burn wood in a coal stove, but not coal in a wood stove.
Sounds like you got that one figured out.

But I want to melt my wood stove.

One on every board lol. My stove circulating fireplace is 1/4 plate full brick lined 36 inch firebox rated at 100K with secondary air full baffle and 8 inch SS Metalbestos Stack. You can burn compressed garbage in this thing, it's a beast so no worries.

Ran it all day today with about 15 lb of stove coal and a few 1/8 splits of ash still have 10lb of coal kept the place at a steady 68 degrees.

At night the coal gives me a better overnight burn with 2 full logs and air shut down last night I had 65 degrees this AM and no problem popping the ash pan to get a nice fire going before adding a few more scoops of stove coal.

I think burning stove coal in a wood stove is a lot better than burning wood in a coal stove from an efficiency standpoint.

Mine is/was a converted wood box stove. Full grate bottom, about the same size as a Hitzer 55. Pobably made in the late 60s, local builder. I made it into a slicer grate system, added over fire air, small mica window, baffle, the whole setup. I really didnt have any trouble going back and forth with fuel. Wood, ant, bit. And like I mentioned already, slicing the grate the coal stayed in the stove if it wasnt ash so not really much waste. I could and can burn anything in it. I got sick of slicing grates as that sucks after a while. It has a 2 peice grate and both are cracked. Somehow it worked a few years that way until I switched stoves. Ive measured and a Hitzer 254 grate and holder could be put into it but I just use my Riteway for coal now and the one mentioned for wood with a plate covering most of the grate now. Ive had it over 20 years.

I never really brought it up much cuz people seem to think it cant be done switching fuels all the time but it can work under the right circumstances, like Tman figured out. He does it a little different than I did but made it work. And I keep my house 7-10 degrees warmer, lol Not ideal but it works ok. I switched fuels a lot with it. 1 match all winter.

Penn State had a plastic to fuel project that you can replicate by running cardboard, plastic bottles and house hold paper and plastic waste through a shredder than into a garbage compactor. Once it is compressed it burns like wood logs. Tried it a few times but if you don't get the air fuel mix right or if you burn heavy plastics it' produces too much soot. '


https://www.collegian.psu.edu/archives/psu-team-t ... dd816.html

Going on day 3 on same 45 pounds of stove coal in my wood burning fireplace and it has cut my wood consumption by 50% and improved my overnight burn to the point where I can carry a fire on two splits with enough hot coals to just pop the ash pan door poke and add two more sticks. So better than I expected.