1970's Franklin by Atlanta Stove Works

StokerDon wrote: ↑

Mon. Dec. 24, 2018 11:19 am

Take your time, do a little research. Do like Sunny Boy says. If you do it right, you will be amazed how little work it is to tend one of these stoves. Do it wrong, and it will just be a pain in the butt.

-Don

jdode wrote: ↑

Mon. Dec. 24, 2018 11:50 am

Thanks for all the suggestions. They are greatly appreciated! Part of my desire to use wood and coal in the same stove is due to the year or two supply of wood on the cottage property, that I'd like to burn until it's gone. Plus, my plan is to move from there in two years and I could leave the wood burner with the house, as no one here burns coal, because they don't know how great a fuel is anthracite coal. Most have heard stories about the messy, stinky (bit) coal that the great grandparents used at the turn of the century.

Right now, i'm living in my 118 year old, 2.5 story brick Victorian. It has a coal fireplace in the living room, and I suspect it had lots of parlor stoves throughout it in it's heyday, due to the number of covered flues I've found throughout the house. The plan is to sell this BIG house in the spring and complete the move to the cottage. At the cottage, I want to burn off the excess small timber in a wood stove that could, also, use coal at night. Then, 2 years later, sell the cottage, leaving behind the wood stove.

It sounds as though I won't be able to alternate wood and coal use in one unit, so I should focus on the wood stove first and buy a coal burner after I sell the cottage, two years from now.

Yesterday, I started a new thread, strictly about my search for a coal stove. I might be able to have a wood burner in the living room and a coal burner in the side porch, or vice versa. So sorry for all the confusion.

Sunny Boy wrote: ↑

Mon. Dec. 24, 2018 1:00 pm

There are some stoves that will burn wood and coal well. But you'll be putting wood in a lot more often than you'll need to put coal in. If you don't want to wake up and have to relight the stove every morning in a cold house, sell the wood and use the money to buy coal.

If you have to use both fuels, I just posted one of the best wood/coal stoves ever made. The Glenwood 116 with a back pipe and it's very reasonably priced for what it's condition looks like. Post by Sunny Boy - Glenwood 116 Modern Oak These stoves were built at the height of coal use, but also at a time when many rural areas of the country couldn't get coal. They had to be good at both to sell, and Glenwood sold a lot of them, as did their competition.

Trying to make a wood stove use coal is not going to work. Many have tried. And, trying to make some coal stoves use wood is almost as bad. Been there, as have many others on this site.

That's why I don't bother with wood even though it's cheap around here.You'll be throwing wood in it every few hours, or relighting it when you wake up and again when you get home, each time to a cold house. In the same size firebox a load of coal will easily burn twice as long as wood, more often three times as long.

And I don't burn any windfall wood, or any that I cut down here on my property. Doesn't last long enough and I don't care to be shutting down stoves and cleaning chimneys throughout the winter, or cleaning stove windows every day only to have them soot up within a few minutes again. That wood only gets used when we go camping.

When just using coal, I only have to vacuum out the pipes once a year and never have to worry about a chimney fire.

Paul

jdode wrote: ↑

Mon. Dec. 24, 2018 1:38 pm

Buy a coal stove and forget about the multi use wood/coal idea.

StokerDon wrote: ↑

Mon. Dec. 24, 2018 7:35 pm

Wow, someone that actually listens.

Merry Christmas to you,

-Don