Outdoor Burner

Good morning,
A good friend of mine that helps me out with all kinds of things around the farm has an outdoor wood burner that is quite nice but burns wood. He is not in a pine box yet but is getting up there and really should not be splitting cords and cords of wood at this age and so I told him I would look into an outdoor coal burner for him. His setup now is an outdoor wood fired boiler that heats his domestic hot water and hot-water baseboard heat in a 200+ year old farm house that is very drafty. I am not sure of how many BTU's the furnace is but he goes through about two wheel barrow loads a day if not a little more when the temps go below 10 F. I burn all anthracite but it looks like he might be able to save money if he went with a bit burner. Since it is out side and on a farm smell and soot is not an issue and storing a large triaxle of coal is not a problem ether. What do you guys recommend? He is of course retired so loading a couple times a day is not an issue but a stoker type stove would be an option as well.

Thanks again,
Glenn

I would talk to Greg L..

He could either put an underfeed stoker from wil-burt into his current boiler or, for more efficiency, sell what he has and build a small shed and install an underfeed stoker into any boiler with a large enough firebox; the bigger keystokers, EFM's, Burnhams, some large "indoor" wood boilers and even some old cast iron sectional boilers will fit the bill. He ought to be able to find good bituminous stoker for around 70/ton in western PA (to give him an idea of operating costs).

Berlin,
Thanks for the reply. What would he be looking at cost wise for the will-burt? Also is there anyway he could use his current wood one as a "hand fed"?

Thanks,
Glenn

Get your friend to check if there are coal grates made for his wood boiler. My brother inlaw has a heat-mor outdoor boiler and after finding out I was using coal as a heat source he found out that heat-mor makes coal grates. He said when he gets tired of all the fuss of cutting and splitting he'll probably change to coal.

[quote="grobinson2"]What would he be looking at cost wise for the will-burt?[/quote

Here's a link to the Will-Burt site.
**Broken Link(s) Removed**Terry

If his OWB is setup with grates and any kind of an ashpan/underfire air he will be able to use coal in it "as-is". However, using coal dierecly in an outdoor boiler will produce smoke, it will be relatively inefficient (i've seen flames three feet high from their stacks when burning coal and the fan kicks on) and he'll still have to do a lot of shoveling. There's something I forgot to mention in my last post- the ideal thing would be for him to sell his boiler and install the "coal-man" outdoor stoker boiler- it's a package unit that's simple to operate and is very, very nice. there's a member: outdoorcoalboilersofky that sells them, he may be able to offer you a price. The only caveat with his boilers is that unlike a traditional underfeed stoker, his are self-ashing w/ a rotating ring and require a low coke-button coal, in Western pa this means paying around $80-$90/ton to find a coal w/ 4 cokebutton or less.

Thank you guys. He is not a coal forum reader/nut like I am so I have sent him the link to this discussion and will have to see what he wants to do. He is very stubborn at times and enjoys self punishment so there is a good chance he may just stick with the back breaking work of burning tons of wood. We shall see.

Thanks again,
Glenn

Had an old farmer friend up the road in his 80's--he had a wood furnace---twice a day he took his circa 1800's wheelbarrow(metal wheel) out to his wood pile (50 yds from house)load it up & stoke his furnace--one year we suggested that we could at least get the wood in his basement--he declined,said it kept his heart thumping--he made it into his 90's--he's now in the VA home--his mind started to go,but,he was still like a bull--it ain't easy being a fixer,especially when nothings broke