Good Morning From Another Newbie...!

Hello.....my name is George and I'm brand new on this forum. After poking (lurking) around for a couple of days, I decided the folks on here are my kind of people! Although I'm in the worst place possible for using coal.....the politically correct west coast....I'm in a rural area and seriously considering coal heat for my 18' x 24' shop. I have a original cannon heater from a caboose stored away that must weigh close to 300 lbs. and I swear, the walls on that thing must be close to an inch thick! The shaker grate is in good shape, in fact the only real defect is a couple of holes that were drilled through the rear for the installation of a water coil. Those were filled with ceramic stove putty and I used wood in the stove for one season. Although it heated, the firebox was FAR too small to hold enough fuel for long periods. No, this critter was designed to burn coal.

Since discovering this website, I did some looking around and found that TSC supplies bagged "Kimmel" anthracite and I see that it's been discussed on here several times. The closest store that has it is in Reno, Nevada about 180 miles from me, so my trailer will be necessary for a decent load.

Judging by some comparisons I've seen, wood heat vs. coal is almost a wash cost wise so it would seem to be silly to use coal. There's another aspect though and that's storage/burn times. The same amount of BTU's for wood translates to a large storage area compared to a pallet of bags. As for burn times, I have to toss wood in my current shop stove several times during an eight hour period and I suspect this cannon heater will hold enough coal to reduce that considerably.

Anyway, howdy to everyone and I look forward to picking up useful information from everyone! I'll try to ask intelligent questions.....

Welcome to the forum 3006guns ... that's a lot of guns LOL.

Welcome! Do a search on refractory liners here. That will increase your burn times and is not expensive or hard to do. Also various other words, potbelly being one of them. You would need to seal that stove up better and will find info on that here too. They are not ideal stoves but will get the job done. I used a small potbelly over one winter before I got my Chubby.

Theres no comparison between wood and coal except for both create heat.

Thanks for the welcome guys!

I never thought about a refractory liner in this stove simply because it never had one originally, so I'll start researching that. I already determined that this stove is big enough to heat my shop, but using the "wrong" fuel is cumbersome......requires very short lengths of wood and lots of them over time.

A Chubby is something I'll be aiming for in the future. I read everything I could find on them and it seems to be a VERY popular little stove. I know I'd get socked with a monstrous freight bill to get one shipped out here, but that's okay! Any expense like that gets absorbed over a useful life of providing heat.

Oh, about my username........one of my other hobbies is collecting and shooting antique rifles. The "3006" refers to the 30-06 caliber, not the number of guns. Since all the really "cool" usernames dealing with coal were taken, I just reused my username from another website. Hope I didn't startle anyone!

Welcome 3006.

I used a potbelly smaller than a cannon heater to heat my basement wood shop of about that same size. Using scrap hardwood it was almost non-stop feeding. I switched to nut coal and only had to feed it about three times a day. You should have plenty of heat and not need to run it hard to do so. Then you might get by with only having to feed and shake ash twice a day.

Make sure to empty the ashes out each day. If they pile up enough to get near the grate it can easily be damaged by overheating.

Paul

Shipping a full sized Chubby would cost more than a JR like I have, but it may surprise you how cheaply it could be done. Im sure Larry would give you a quote if you called him at Chubby. Nothing wrong with getting your feet wet with your present stove first.

I think it was a 7" or 8" wide firepot on my potbelly and 6-7 hrs on a load of coal. wood was every hr or 2. it varies on many things how long it will burn. You need a controllable fire in that beast before you try it on coal which means sealing it well.

keep reading and asking. Almost everything is here if you search for keywords.

The caboose stoves were generally of higher quality and workmanship. The very thick wall;s would lessen any advantage of a liner. The important part to seal well is the ash door which has the primary air inlet.

Compared to wood you will carry about half the weight and bulk to the stove for equivalent heat, and storage space far less as well. Wood is also problematic in getting well seasoned cords. Failing that, much of the heat is not produced and creosote is a problem. Burning wood you should get a more efficient EPA approved stove.

Welcome to the forum.

Thanks again everyone....

You're right about firewood. In this neck of the woods we have only juniper, pine and some cedar. All softwoods that serve well, but I've dreamed of living close to a good supply of oak like back east and down south!

Quality wise, this potbelly is far superior to anything modern I've seen. Very heavy and designed for rough service. It has no legs, as it was bolted directly to the wooden floor. In order to provide air circulation under it, there are gaps around the base although I will probably place it on bricks to raise it up just for peace of mind. The feed door is beautifully built and is a close fit to the body without any gasketing and has an air draft. The lower draft is the typical sliding affair and it may be possible to gasket that.......we'll see when the time comes. No ash pan came with it, but I do my own machine work and gunsmithing so making a simple soldered sheet metal box should be easy.

I have a question about dampers though.....about how far above the top of the stove should it be? I usually put them at around 2 1/2 feet or so for my wood stoves, which allows good control and keeps the heat inside where it belongs. Is that about right for coal? (Edit: I just realized that I should be asking such questions in the hand fired stove section, so I'll do that from now on.)

Hello George, 180 miles for coal!? I guess in a big state like Calif. that might be a hop skip and a jump. But around here, you'll have driven through 3 states. I think if it were me, I'ld rather cut down 15 pines trees with a hack saw blade, than make that drive, but that's just me. Maybe you could high jack a coal ship heading to China. Or find some other willing participants, and share the shipping costs.
I've never heated with wood, only coal...for a short time. But depending on the the appliance you use to burn it, it can be very entertaining and rewarding. 'Specially if you have to heat with liquids that cost 4 bucks a gallon. I like the sound of your pot-belly. It will be exciting to see the pictures of it glowing red hot, which I'm told they're known to do.
As for your MPD, I think you're location preference sounds about right. People will tell you it would also be helpful to get a manometer so you can fine tune it better when up and running.
Another Welcome, and don't forget the pics.

find an old parlor coal round stove, newer coal burner(hitzer).. rebuild it, get the coal.. and live life large on good heat management.

Judging from some of the comments,it would seem as tho some folks think this stove is 1 of those Vogelzang sheet metal potbelly stoves from TSC or Northern Tool . There is a vast difference between the Vogelzang & this Cannon Caboose heater stove. Hopefully someone with experience with this stove will enlighten us all.

Welcome.

Hi George,

since you know about TSC selling bagged coal and they have some in Reno, 180 mls. away have you talked to the manager of a closer store and see if you can induce them to have some shipped in with the rest of their stock ?

personally I would try to get them to handle that even if I had to pay half of what it would cost in my productive time and fuel to go after it myself as an added fee.

how often and for how long do you normally have to heat the garage ?

steve

Did you ever get some coal for your cannon? I spent some time in Sierra City and Reno was @ an hour away. You could buy all of the things not legal to buy in CA and drive right across the border, lol. You & some friends might be able to make a large order to split shipping cost.