Union Stove Works Invader 2 Parlour Coal Stove

CNB: What would you say to this:

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I am the worlds worst bargainer. Pay the full price if you have to and don't even blink it's sooo cheap. Although there are alternatives and perhaps some are better looking but this fills the bill well now and winters next notch down comes in a week. My guess he will be happy to get that c rap off his lawn at any price but you need to calculate what it is worth to you. Look at the leaves inside the stove, it's been parked outside for years so it's not very important to him. You now know what you can do with that stove and knowledge is power my friend. The power of coal and once that beauty is shone up and rolling and the temperature dives you (and the wife) will be hooked. To me it's a great coal neophyte stove and our application is perfect.

and this one:

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Am I mis-using our forum now?

I don't know about misusing but I have never heard of this stove perhaps others will opine. Anthracite works best as a deep bed stay the course. This banter at 1AM is best as PMs now I think but I really need to get some sleep.

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and this one last one for this evening. I think I can sleep now.

Good night.

Yep, Penn and the Chubby are good but I would prefer the latter. So start another thread as the Invader seems to be a passing fancy for now.

How do I start a new thread?

In the hand fired forum just click on New Topic at the top of the page.

coalnewbie:
dcrane:
franco b
What would you say to my going for my lungs and get a NEW Hitzer 50-93 complete with blower? I am talking myself into setting up proper for my family even thought I would have to figure out how to finance the thing. What are fathers for? Pop would like to be happy too before that date that we all have scheduled with time unknow arrives. I know you have this model. Can you sell me on it? Any tricks to installing it? You have pictures on this board of my set up with the Invader 2. Is it as simple as swapping out? I know I need to splice in the barometric damper.

What say you or any others that would be kind enough to contribute?

I do believe having a hopper and thermostat on the stove is a real advantage. Easier, faster tending. Users of the stove all seem to like it. Because of the thermostat any damper then becomes optional and unless you have very high draft I would not bother.

I have a Hitzer and I will be using it this winter, so far the test firings have gone well. It's completely different from your Invader choice but if you wish to stay warm you can't do better.

Who recommended Tomahawk Foundry to cast a new fire pit? How come a company way out in Wisconsin?

No complaint. I am in contact with them and they seem right.

Franco, this is the weekend for the test firing. Tomorrow night. Should be nice and cold out. Hoping for warm within.

I think you made a good choice. Start in morning so you have all day to check on it.

I took your advice and waited until 6:00 a.m. Saturday morning. I was not able to sleep Friday night anticipating the following days test firing so I got up and slowly began the process. I used match light charcoal to start the fire which worked pretty well. You will all recall the large bulges in my fire pot due to the overfiring in a prior life. I used LARGE pieces of stove coal to block these areas and set the charcoal contained within them to start the fire. Upon good charcoal involvement I added two scoops of stove coal on top of the orange briquettes. Patiently I waited and sure enough, the coal came to life. Upon active ignition I added two more scoops of coal and allowed that to ignite, then a third. With the three applications of coal now well involved I 1/2 load the magazine with stove coal. The draft did not seem to be real strong during my testing however the fire did build and begin to warm the basement. The best I could get the thermometer attached to the front of the stove to read was about 300 degrees. This could be varied to some degree by cutting back on the air intact below the fire. Control was not real good and I think that is due to the fact that the body of the stove has some air leaks running vertically in its corners where the panels come together to form the main body. Certainly this can be remedied when the stove is disassembled to get the fire pot out. I do not know how to do that yet but that is jumping ahead. When I became reasonable confident that the fire was going to continue I filled the magazine to the top with NUT coal to see if it would continue to burn and discover how much of the NUT coal would find its way out the sides of the fire pot without burning. The NUT coal seemed to continue to burn although I had trouble maintaining a hot fire. Thermometer dropped to 200- 225 and did not matter what I did to try to fire it harder. The damper was closed at all times once the fire was established.The fire once involved and at its peak burn looked really nice through all the isinglass windows on three sides of the stove.
I shook the bed down three times during the day at about 5 hour intervals. Before I went to bed at 10:00 Saturday night I filled the magazine to the top and adjusted the air intact to about 1/2. When I got up this morning at 7:30, the fire was still going at a low level and the temperature in the basement had dropped off noticeably. Side note: when I started the fire the temperature outside was 26 and rose to about 50 during the day, settling back to about 42 over night.
Although I was excited that the old girl stayed fired the entire day, I was disappointed in the level of heat she put out. Yesterday was a mild day. I do not think that she can handle the winter for my space, at least to the level that I was desiring. But what do I know. This is only my third attempt at a coal fire. Returned to NJ at 8:00 a.m. Thanks for reading. What say any of you? Pictures to follow.