Coalpail.com Forum

ummagumma84 wrote:One thing to consider that has not yet been mentioned is how you plan to vent it.

Excellent point! To my knowledge, you cannot direct vent any hand fired. You must have a chimney.

I like the freedom from electricity, but you trade that for a tether to the stove for shaking and loading.. the exception, or at least the lengthening of the tether is with a hopper fed stove like a Hitzer.. You can load more coal than the firebox holds, prolonging the burn time..

If you are home all the time, or someone is, then a handfeed is a good stove.. if you live an irregular schedule, where one day you are away 10 hrs and the next day 18 hours.. then a stoker or a hopper fed stove is better.

UPS systems [backup power supply] will allow a stoker to run for hours or days if the electric grid is down. So power interuptions can be less of an issue.

Greg L

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Hand Fired in my opinion, like everyone has stated more universal. This is especially so in my neck of the woods this year, it is 2200 hrs and the outside temp is 59 deg F, if I had a coal fire all the windows would be open, we didn't have any kind of fire today We usually burn about a cord of wood a year, early fall and late spring and the rest of the time is coal; nut and stove size what ever is available. I made a screen for my coal stove so we can burn it and have a open fire. (Yes I know EPA says coal only).

duck wrote:it is 2200 hrs and the outside temp is 59 deg F, if I had a coal fire all the windows would be open, we didn't have any kind of fire today

Same temp here but going down. I can keep my TLC idling pretty low (about 130*) & it's fine in the house. Supposed to cool off tomorrow night I think. Burning very little coal so it's costing me about $3.00/day to keep it running.
(just too lazy to relight it)

I have had sixety degree temps here this week and I did not let the Jotul go out. I agree with devil505 when he said too lazy to relight. I didn't want to relight the darn thing, besides the temp was dropping to fourty five and thirty degrees at night. I just throttled it back to idling.

the snowman.

I just ordered a SuperVent SS Chimmey from Lowes for an outside the wall install. The chimmey length is about 35ft. and ran me about $1,100. And works well. Far cry from the $2500 quoted just for the parts from stove shops..

Had to leave for a few days right after I posted the hand fired questions, so I didn't get a chance to say thanks to all that responded. The general theme of the responses really reinforced my thinking, and brought out some points I hadn't thought of.
Thanks again,
Al

I found that the costs between the 2 are small if you have to purchase a chimney for the handfired. I decided on the handfired due to numerous power outages we experience and if we aren't here, Well, I made my choice. The Harman DVC 500 I was looking at was a nice untit but then you would need the battery back up or a generator. I have a generator but at the time gas was 4 bucks a gallon and I get 2hrs off 2 gal. of gas. I actually had a down payment on the DVC 500 but the same week I lost power twice. I thought that it must be an omen or sign telling me to buy the hand fired unit.

well first of all,us hand fired junkies are a barbaric bunch.
we tend to do things ourselves to save a buck, we try to be as independent as we can,if the elctric bill goes up 10$ we complain because we could use that money for beer,bullets and fish hooks!
all joking aside, this area of maine,10 yrs ago,was subject to an ice storm that left many people with out power for 3 weeks,so for me to have a stoker,i also would have had to go buy a generator,i would prefer to spend that on beer,bullets,fish hooks!
I work 12 hour shifts, an hour from my house,at times I come home very tired and don't feel like comming home and messing with the stove,but being a former wood burner I was used to messing with the stove or wood furnace every 4-6 hrs,so this every 12-15 hrs with a hand fired is actually a peice of cake! I actually kinda like fiddeling with it...plus like others have said....with a hand fed,you can use different types of coal...my supply of nut is a mile from the house....the supply of rice,the only supply of rice,is 10-12 miles away and alot more expensive!

To Al: @Carbonunit

I feel like the odd coalburner out -- we have two Hitzer stoves one is straight hand fire, the other is a Gravity Stoker
when the air is reduced dramatically we have had it burn for 40 hrs. without going out. Hear what the others say and add the extra capacity of the "stoker" and you get quite a good compromise! Bald Eagle

Why not one of each??

We have been proud owners of a Harman Mark III for a year and we was going to xchoose the stocker but the clearance room was alot more and the family room isn't huge and liked the feature of able to burn wood if not so cold. WE like it and we also had the shaker handle broke up but I was able to weld it backon and it isn't coming off again.

Power went off for about 1/2 hour yesterday. Not a major pain in the butt, but we were in the middle of making lunch for our kids. Luckily enough we had the stove going and opted to make grill cheese sandwiches on the stove top. Ahh, life is good! Dan