Need Some Advice in Choosing a Stoker for Garage

Good morning all,
I need some advice.....
I have a Harman MK II in my house. LOVE IT. Nut/Pea mix from Harmony works like a champ. Now I'd like to put a stoker in my garage. 22x36 with 12' ceilings and a 25' chimney...... I am kinda new to burning coal, so if all you salty dogs could chime in here, it would be GREAT !!!. I'd like to find a small stoker that will run unattended for at least a 24 hrs...and would surely consider an "old favorite"...
...........THANKS !!!!...............

Any of the brands should work fine for a garage. Most stokers can run min. 24 hrs without re-filling the hopper, of course it depending on how warm you want to keep it, insulation, etc... Probably around a 90K BTU (or less) unit would be plenty.

Keystoker
Leisure Line
Alaska
Harmon
Reading
etc...

Many of us use them in the house, why wouldn't they work for a garage. Do a search on Ebay, Craigslist, etc..for coal stoves, always ones available at a decent price.

Clutch47,

Exactly what Dave said. Almost any model would work fine. I have an old Alaska Stoker II in my garage at home and burn a Hyfire II here at work.

However 1 word of caution You will be having an open flame in the garage 24/7. If you store your lawnmower, snowblower, leaf blower, etc in the garage, you must be very, very careful of any fuel leak. Stokers sit on the floor and gas fumes are heavier than air so they sink to the lowest point. Any fuel leak or spill can have serious consequences.

Earlier this fall, in the morning I walked in to my garage at home to discover that the fuel line to the generator had sprung a leak. There already was a puddle under the generator and I could smell the gas fumes as soon as I had opened the door. Had I not gone in to check that morning, there would have been a very loud noise coming from the garage.

Rick

Gents,
I appreciate the advice. I suppose I was not quite specific enough on my request... Because the garage is not really large (792 sf) I am looking for a "smallish" stoker. The ones I see in the paper, craigslist etc.. are all old HUGE house units. If you fellas have a favorite model or ideas on ANYTHING that could help me to not over do it..I'd appreciate it. I don't want to burn 3 tons in the garage if I don't have to... HAH !!!!
I would surely put a hand fired unit out there, but I sometimes work long shifts and really don't want to ask my lovely wife to shake and load the garage stove as well.....
Thanks again.

The smallest ones are probably the 70-90K units. Older Keystoker, Reading, etc...makes small ones.

Even if it's a larger one, most are not that big in footprint, they all take up about the same amount of space, some are just taller then others with higher BTU outputs. Then, you just idle the stove and it would keep it warm.

I have a Keystoker 90K in my 1 car attached and plumbed upstairs above it, it mostly idles and keeps it 65-68 most of the time.

don't forget many "large" unit can throttle down to 5000 BTUs. So you're not going to use more BTU's b/c the stoker is "large". It all depends on how you run it.

If you don't have a chimney the Harman DVC-500 is a nice unit. On low you will probably get 24 hours, but if it's stoking hot, you may have to empty the ash pan twice a day and fill the hopper once a day.

a better system would be install a keystoker boiler in your basement, heat your whole house and install hot water baseboard in the garage with a wall thermostat.

I have one of these and throttle it back in the warmer weather. At 5,000 BTUs it'll run for days. Since it can run with a thermostat, and it's in a garage, you can leave it on idle when not really needed, then kick up the heat when you need it. Better yet, if you use the garage at specific times or on specific days, you could install a programmable thermostat that will do this for you.

Yea, what Horace Said!