So I think I want a base heater...please help!

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St.Jake
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Location: Freeport, IL
Baseburners & Antiques: Weso 125

Post by St.Jake » Mon. Nov. 13, 2017 3:43 pm

Hello everyone. I've enjoyed reading on this forum for some time but haven't had a reason to register or post anything. It looks like I'm moving to an old country house in the next couple months. It has been insulated and will have mostly new windows by the time I'm heating it. Roughly 1500 sq ft, although I don't care as much about heating the upstairs bedrooms since I'll be the only one there for now in one bedroom on the first floor, and I prefer cooler sleeping areas anyway. The current stove pipe location is about as close to middle of the rooms as it gets and isn't far from the door leading upstairs. I'm looking to heat mainly with coal for the first time. There is a propain furnace already in the place that I'd use for a backup or when I'm gone. I have access to anthracite and high quality bituminous within about 1.5-2 hour radius and can haul it myself. Tractor Supply about 40 minutes away and further out a few small suppliers. I would also like the ability to burn wood if I want/need to since there's tons of it right here for the gas and sweat of getting it. I'm not sure I can depend on these few affordable coal supply lines staying open. I've never heard of anyone heating with coal around here anytime in the last couple decades and don't want to be stuck with a coal only or one certain coal size only stove.

Because this isn't exactly in the middle of modern coal country I don't have a lot to choose from for used stoves. I love the idea of an old base burner/base heater. I'd appreciate any advice or help people here can offer in finding something in good shape or other affordable, good sources of coal. I'll likely have to travel at least several hours one way for whatever stove I settle on. I'd like to avoid 10 hour trips out east though. Since this forces me to shop around online and eastern stoves most popular on here are not common near me I'm having a hard time discerning from ad pictures which are the really efficient multi-fuel ones and which are less efficient "oak" models. I can't afford to buy a fully restored stove from one of the popular restorers, but I'm great at finding deals if I can figure out what exactly I'm looking for. I can spend hundreds not thousands. I'd try to find one in good restored shape that just isn't in high demand here. I don't really mind having to do some refurbishing myself but would obviously try to keep it to a minimum. I want long burn times and max efficiency with a minimum of tending and also minimum cost. I realize this is a rare sweet spot, but if I can figure out how to tell the difference I think it's only a matter of time and searching until I find one that matches up.

If this is too tall of an order in this area I'm wondering if settling for a ready to burn 100K BTU $500 D&S Circulator 6 hours away on Craigslist would be the quickest and easiest way to get a pretty efficient multi-fuel setup.
Round Oaks are common, but I don't know how to know which are base heaters or multi-fuel. Are they quite a bit more rare and confined to ones with a bunch of mica windows? This Round Oak I'm guessing isn't a base heating model. Let me know if I'm wrong. https://lansing.craigslist.org/atq/d/wood-burning ... 80150.html
This one is confusing because I would guess it is a base heater by looks, but I've heard possibly that "Hot Blast" meant it wasn't? https://toledo.craigslist.org/atq/d/antique-parlo ... 51585.html
This one is much closer and my partly educated guessing would say it could be a base heater but maybe wouldn't hold a big enough load for longer burn times. https://wausau.craigslist.org/atq/d/pot-belly-sto ... 03271.html
I also saw something on a stove restorer's site about avoiding midwestern stoves because they used inferior sheet metal as opposed to cast and are much more complex to restore? Not from what I have seen, but maybe I just don't know enough. Good luck finding a Glenwood around here, especially one that's a great deal.

Advice if I'm wrong on the size of these stoves being right for the size place I'm looking at heating would be appreciated as well. I'm looking forward to the responses. You guys are so much more knowledgeable than I have been able to make myself by spending hours scouring posts on here. I've seen posts on base burners vs parlor stoves and didn't understand it to help me definitively nail down how to tell for sure without peering inside. Links to posts with info I haven't found would also be welcome.

Thank you in advance,
Jake

 
KingCoal
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Location: Elkhart county, IN.
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Post by KingCoal » Mon. Nov. 13, 2017 7:38 pm

well firstly, welcome to coalpail and the mid west problem of sourcing good base heaters / base burners.

i'm in Elkhart county Indiana and my experience in trying to land anything in that arena here has been real work.

if you don't come up with what you want i have a Herald Model Home oak style stove with 18" fire pot over here looking for an assignment. pictures and history available by PM or email. i could also send you home with about as many tons of Lehigh nut size coal as you are likely to be able to haul back.

there are stoves that meet your interest 10 hrs east of me, further for you.

steve

PS do you know how old the DS circ. is ? is it the 1500 or 1600 ? do you have good well lit pics of the internals, esp. grates. you'll want to be certain that it hasn't been over fired and warped before you make that kind of trip.

 
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warminmn
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Coal Size/Type: nut and stove anthracite, lignite
Other Heating: Wood and wear a wool shirt

Post by warminmn » Mon. Nov. 13, 2017 9:20 pm

Your source of coal will not dry up, at least not anthracite. You may have to travel a little but its there. If you have Amish anywhere near they may have it or know where to get it. Plus TSC as you've mentioned but I wouldnt rely on them to have it in years to come. You may even be able to have a semi-load delivered if you have the cash and storage space, bagged or bulk.

I'll leave the old stove discussion for others.


 
franco b
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Post by franco b » Mon. Nov. 13, 2017 9:53 pm

That Florence looks good.

The hotblast means it is intended for bit coal. you have to make sure it is complete though with gas ring above the fire pot.

Member Grumpy has restored them and could give advice.

 
St.Jake
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Joined: Mon. Nov. 13, 2017 1:52 pm
Location: Freeport, IL
Baseburners & Antiques: Weso 125

Post by St.Jake » Sat. Nov. 18, 2017 10:24 pm

Thanks a lot guys! Very helpful. My timeline on buying anything has been delayed a bit.
Steve - Your PM info was especially helpful. Nice to know I have a good stove shop that close to me. Now I can go up there sometime and sharpen my ability to know what I'm seeing in ad pictures even if don't buy something there. Sounds like a lot of fun to see a huge amount of stoves and talk in person with an expert. Also thanks for your offers to help out. I'll keep that in mind in weighting options later when the time comes to buy. I ruled out traveling that far for the DS since I'm finding more base heater options closer to me.

Warm - Don't know why I didn't connect in my mind that I could find out coal sources from the Amish. I don't have any really close but maybe 40 minutes or so. I bet they don't travel far to get theirs. Thanks

Franco - Thanks for the specific info on the Hotblast. Good to know. Sounds like a good stove. I can get high quality bit here within 2 hrs that is quite a bit cheaper. We'll see what I end up with.

Can't wait to hook one up and learn the ropes of heating with coal.

Today I found a bunch of pieces of coal laying around outside the basement of an old row house that's coming down soon. I have permission to salvage anything I want out of the place. A couple friends and I took out a big old safe. Too bad there weren't any base burners or coal piles left inside from years ago.

 
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Sunny Boy
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Location: Central NY
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Anthracite Industrial, domestic hot water heater
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Coal Size/Type: Nuts !
Other Heating: Oil &electric plenum furnace

Post by Sunny Boy » Sun. Nov. 19, 2017 9:10 am

Took me about a year of almost daily looking on sites like Craig's list and the classifieds on this site, to find the Glenwood #6 I have.

They do turn up, but if your not vigilant in looking they become someone else's base heater fairly quickly ! ;)

Good hunting !

Paul

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