Burning Non Coal Fuels in Your Coal Appliance, Harmful?

How many of you have been siting in front of the coal stove with a beer in hand and a pile of peanut shells or pistachio shells in front of you and suddenly you get a great idea and toss the shells onto the fire for some free BTUs? I used to throw them in the hopper all the time when had a hand fired stove. Now that I have a furnace I have to be more cautious and toss them on top of the burning coals sparingly and a handful at a time. I've also been known to throw in the occasional paper towel too.

Any thoughts on this?>can it be harmful to the stove/furnace?

Just threw some pistachio shells in the handfed today. I don't see how it would hurt anything if you're just putting a handful on the fire. Wouldn't run shells through any kind of coal stoker though.

Wlape has juts solved the world energy problems, just buy $50,000 worth of pistachios each year.

rockwood wrote:Wouldn't run shells through any kind of coal stoker though.

Shouldn't be problem but I wouldn't be putting any walnut shells in there.

Now you got me thinking because we have sizable wood shop in the basement and we generate a lot of sawdust and scrap wood. Never really thought about it but I'd imagine mixing the saw dust in their wouldn't be such a big deal. The only problem I can think of is they are so small and light the forced air might be an issue. Another thought is soaking them with old cooking oil/ bacon fat.

Richard S. wrote:bacon fat

Imagine the house smelling like bacon all the time. I'd never leave the house. I alway's figured it would be bacon that kills me.

Jeff

Empty food boxes, sales circulars, junk mail all finds a home in the Harman or the Fisher. The coal fire in the Harman will completely incinerate just about anything except Gumby.

It's funny that you mention throwing pistachio shells, I just through a bunch into my Clayton hand fired furnace a few days ago. Well they aren't there anymore, all burnt up. I once got a great deal on a 50 lb sack of potatoes, well it ended up to be not such a great deal because they went bad in a week. So, I got the great idea of tossing the entire sack into the Clayton hand fire furnace. To my surprise, it burned all day and the BTU's were satisfactory for a 30 degree day. The whole neighborhood smelled like baked potatoes.

I've thrown leftovers from dinner, pizza boxes, junk mail, just sorting out all of the shiny paper and the plastic stuff to the trash, corn on the cob, and even rotten apples from my apple tree. The apples didn't give that much heat but it sure smelled good outside.

Use the corn on cob in the fire, that's what a lot of smoke houses

use to smoke meat with especially fish.

BigBarney

I used to throw everything in my stove ... but that caused hard, thick buildup on the coils that was impossible to clean while the stove was lit. Now it all goes outdoors.

I think my snakes are gone or hibernating. Been catching a few mice here and there. I put then on top of the coal fire.

Not wanting to muck up the feeder on my new Keystoker 90 I put the pistachio nut shells on top op the coal burning on the flat plate. A few BTU's that otherwise would be tossed. I do miss the inferno of the old Buderus hand fed from time to time

no actual mice were harmed during the writing of this thread (just in case p.e.t.a is reading)

Any concerserns about salt on the shells ?

Short Bus wrote:Any concerserns about salt on the shells ?

No. Never had a problem with my hand fed.