Coalpail.com Forum

One roaring fire or two medium size fires?

depends on your heat requirements. I only run one until it can't keep up, then I light my other one. I haven't lit the other side as of yet, it hasn't even been close to cold enough yet.

Theoretically it seems that the more slowly the coal moves down the grate the longer air will get forced through it and you would have a more complete burn.

I would think as long as there is ash at the end of the grate then the coal energy is spent since the air runs to the end of the grate. I would think 2 smaller fires would balance the heat being applied to the stove body, rather than having one side being exposed to higher heat and the other side getting residual heat. Just an opinion.

at idle you are using twice the coal. that is the only reason that I run just 1 side.

morrisfamily3098 wrote:at idle you are using twice the coal. that is the only reason that I run just 1 side.

Clearly at idle it makes no sense to run two for the reason you suggest.

Question is, to maintain a stove surface temp of say 500F, will you burn more coal running one burner with a big fire or two burners with smaller fires?

I have the coal-trol so I set it and forget it. Alot of the time, especially at the begining and end of the season, I am running at idle. so I really have no control over when it idles. I have never burned 2. this will be my 2nd year and my house stayed right at 70 - 71 last year.

ErikLaurence wrote:Question is, to maintain a stove surface temp of say 500F, will you burn more coal running one burner with a big fire or two burners with smaller fires?

Theoretically it should work out to the same for the BTU output but I think in the real world there is a sweet spot. Where that is has a bunch of variables, it may even be difficult to accurately determine because of the difficulty measuring the heat/coal use over time. Before anyone gets caught up in this experiment, remember that you are already saving a ton of money.

With 1 burner, I Just hit FR = 78 and it was only 66 in here, its 14 outside (Brrr), so I lit the other burner, brought the stove up to 500+ degrees!! Wahoo! It brought it up to 68-70+ in about and hour or so.....thats better!! Wife is happy!