Coalpail.com Forum

anyone using stove size these days. how is it burning in your unit? does it last well throughout the cold nights? could someone post a pic of a stove size piece and a nut size piece sitting next to eachother? thanks.

I didn't know they made anything else. works fine for me. Some pieces are 2" to 3" on there longest dimention. but most of the ones are smaller.

yeah stove sizes are bigger than nut. isnt that great. someone said they burn realy well especialy at night during the realy cold bitter nights. I heard mixing the two together.. stove and nut is called range coal. maybe cause it ranges in size. my guess is that the pieces are about as big as baseballs or tennis balls. a decent sized rock. not crushed up as small as the nut size. but not big enough to handle with two hands. gotta find some.. need to find some.... total coal freak.

I tried a couple bags of stove coal. The pieces were about the size of a bar of soap. It didn't do especially well in my stove, but that doesn't mean your stove would be the same. As with the question of pea vs. nut size, every stove and chimney combination seems to be different. The only way you will know is to buy a few bags and try it in YOUR stove. Some people mix nut and pea, so maybe you will want to try a stove and nut mixture also.

hey thanks for the info. a bar of soap... ok I can start to get a pic. thats interesting. pea size works in my stove I tried it last year I burnt 80 lbs of it at the end of the season. just to see how the shaking would be with the small pieces. its all good. I like the nut size in my stove and most likely will like the stove size as well. he he.

I am mixing Stove and Nut when it gets cold like the upcoming forecasted Arctic Blast
I find the Stove lets the coal burn a lot hotter if I add more air to the mix.
I also find if I just add Stove it takes off pretty fast and burns really well.
I have a large firebox.
One observation I did make was I still had large pieces of Stove burning nicely 2 or 3 days latter when I would stir up and agitate my fire from top to bottom to make the fine ashes drop so I could get rid of them.
As to the size of stove coal just go look into a bag of regular potatoes and thats about the size of them. Some bigger some a little smaller.

bigchunk wrote:yeah stove sizes are bigger than nut. isnt that great. someone said they burn realy well especialy at night during the realy cold bitter nights. I heard mixing the two together.. stove and nut is called range coal. maybe cause it ranges in size. my guess is that the pieces are about as big as baseballs or tennis balls. a decent sized rock. not crushed up as small as the nut size. but not big enough to handle with two hands. gotta find some.. need to find some.... total coal freak.

Pea & NUt Mixes together is called Range coal in some Parts of the Coal Country area.Here are the standard size
Anthracite coal sizes . Note any size over the stove size is called Egg size and any size over that would be canal coal and then lump coal .

http://www.readinganthracite.com/mining_sizes.html

**Broken Link(s) Removed**

I will chime in here that my stove is "rated" for nut size coal, but I've got a good supply of free salvaged coal which I screen to remove the fines...which I discard. The majority is what you guys refer to as coal size as it is the size of medium potatoes, 3-4" long in some cases.

I'm still real new at burning any coal, but I will let you know after I get some burn time under my belt!

Mountainman37

got a USSC hotblast. the firebox size is roughly 12 by 26 inches. I ve been burning the stove size cause as mentioned before, it burns a lot hotter, but you will go through a tad bit more stove than nut or pea. my furnace calls for nut, but burns the stove great. when its warmer I ll burn the nut size, and if it gets really warm in my house and I cant crank the air intake dowm anymore I ll just throw on a few scoops of nut to dampen it down that way. when it gets too warm to burn coal altogether I can burn wood in my furnace too

i hear lots of good things about those hotblast furnaces.

ha ha, I don't know if you are being serious or joking with me. a lot of people have gotten very fustrated with these units. I did at first, but I think it was just getting to know how to burn coal and not so much the unit. I love the hotblast and it heats my house beautifully, 23 outside and 74 inside

Stove size:

I have two tons of stove coal and 5 tons of nut. I generally burn nut but on colder days 'range' with a bottom layer of nut and top of stove. I find that the stove coal burns hotter and lasts just as long as the nut. I know people say it burns faster but I haven't noticed a difference in burn time. I have a Harman Mark I and when I shake down I add a layer of nut and then add stove . By the time the stove coal reaches the bottom to be shaked out it has pretty well burned up. Don't start with stove coal and then add nut because when you go to shake down the ash the bigger stove coal may not 'break up' because of not being burned enough. The bottom layer of nut makes for easier shake downs.

I'm still learning. I got all sizes in my basement coal acquisitions. I love it, all in my greedy little hands....Blue coal, red coal, peacock coal. I like to burn the big chunks, but I am going to have to burn some of the smaller stuff as time goes on. Just the act of getting the coal and then shovelling it into the bin seems to make the big chunks end up on top of the pile. A significant percentage of fines in with it all. The big chunks seem to allow more air up through and can really get a hot fire going, especially a fresh fire. I have burned some of the finer stuff, it seems to temper the fire and not accellerate into a too hot fire as much. Amazing all the variables that come into play. I left my ash door open too long the other night and realized it when I smelled the adhesive burning off the black pipe where the bar code labels were! I think it was Fred that said you better start a kitchen timer if you're going to leave your ash door open! My stack temp was under 300* so I caught it in time; and it gave me a chance to see how to dampen the fire, I closed my ash door spinner all the way for a few minutes and the fire calmed down nicely.

Cato wrote:I have a Harman Mark I and when I shake down I add a layer of nut and then add stove

Good pictures, guys. Cato, I also have a Harman Mk I so I am going to buy a few bags of stove size and add it on top of the nut as you suggest. We have had quite a stretch of cold here lately, so this will be a good time to test the hotter fires.

Cato wrote:Stove size:

I have two tons of stove coal and 5 tons of nut. I generally burn nut but on colder days 'range' with a bottom layer of nut and top of stove. I find that the stove coal burns hotter and lasts just as long as the nut. I know people say it burns faster but I haven't noticed a difference in burn time. I have a Harman Mark I and when I shake down I add a layer of nut and then add stove . By the time the stove coal reaches the bottom to be shaked out it has pretty well burned up. Don't start with stove coal and then add nut because when you go to shake down the ash the bigger stove coal may not 'break up' because of not being burned enough. The bottom layer of nut makes for easier shake downs.

If you would burn staight Stove Then burn Straight Nut you will feel and see the differents in the burn time .Stove will burn hotter but faster. Nut will burn slower but not with the same amount of heat as stove has . You are putting Nut first then you are putting on stove. The nut is slowing down the burn of the stove Just like when you burn Pea & then Put Nut
coal on. The pea will slow down the nut from burning fast . Anytime you put on the smaller coal first it will slow down the bigger coal from burning up faster then if you burned it straight. Also when you put nut on first and then put pea on to slowdown and hold the fire overnight . that is called dampening the fire . Goes back to when everyone used coal fired kitchen stove and potbelly stove heat troller . you would dampen the fire down by ptting on smaller size coal or coal ashes over the top of the fire only a little ash that would slowdown the fire untill morning came when you would shake and add coal .