Coal insert - Hitzer 983
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On WHAT? A hand fed or a hopper fed? Are you saying not to even shake it down for 24 hours? Let it completely alone for 24 hours? Impossible. Not even Hitzer says that in their video. 'On maximum heat, shake it down up to 4 times'. You have a stoker, which is a completely different animal.
alternativeheat
Minister of Fire
I burned coal for years in a hand fed Harman Mark I. The trick is starting the fire, wood pellets help with that or starter/kindling wood, when and how much to shake the grate, (I usually did mine morning, late afternoon, and at night before stoking the fire for overnight burn),,.. when to add more coal, how much coal to add. Be aware coal produces more ash than wood or pellets. Do not dump ashes in garden..You need a good draft in your chimney.. I hope for the best for you in this....
ABSOLUTELY!!
Hitzer hopper handfed
On low I can let that thing go "EASILY" 24+ hrs without even looking at it. On high i could go 24 hours but heat output would deminish, but no way would it go out!! Today ive had it simmering at a constant 450degs going on 18 hrs now. Going to tend in an hour or two. Last year end of season it took 3 days to go out.
alternativeheat
Minister of Fire
Instead of opening the door and shoveling in scoops of coal, you fill from the top. Small door in top. The hopper is kinda like a funnel over the fire area. You fill the hopper to the top. Usually holds approx 50 lbs of coal. As the fire burn and ash settles, the coal feeds itself by gravity. When yoou tend the stove and shake, more coal comes down. Then just dump more coal in the top.
You beat me to it, alt! Hopper, hand fed, and stoker are three COMPLETELY different stoves. Perhaps, you need to change your 'signature' 6268 to include that hybrid you have.
You must have really found some super low ash coal to go 24 hours without shaking.
I had a Franco Belge hopper fed, so I know how they work. So you DO shake it down during the day. Change of story now.
alternativeheat
Minister of Fire
No change of story. Never said I didnt shake it during the day. If home and burning hard I try to shake every 12 hrs. Never any sooner unless I know I wont be there I will shake early strictly for convenience. When burning less hard I will let it go 24-36 hrs as stated "EASILY"!
No change of story. Apparently the problem is 2 people dont know how to read!
Not auto, gravity fed.
And yes it is considered a hand fed. And anyone with even limited knowlege of coal stoves, knows you can over fill/pile up coal in non hopper stoves and get almost the same effects as a hopper.
alternativeheat
Minister of Fire
What controls the drop feed/ amount of coal ? How is it gauged in other words. I know that the fire bed drops the coal is fed through the hopper system but what in the system allows X amount of new coal to drop, maintaining a proper level ?
You guys want to live in denial about pellet vs coal? Go for it!
Less demand for coal means cheaper prices for us. You can pay your $350.00 or more a ton when oil Is cheaper. Go ahead. While you are on your hands and knees doing your "deep cleanings" and using your "leaf blowers on your stoves instead of leaves, im sitting with my Honey nice and warm sipping on a beer. Enjoy!
Less demand for coal means cheaper prices for us. You can pay your $350.00 or more a ton when oil Is cheaper. Go ahead. While you are on your hands and knees doing your "deep cleanings" and using your "leaf blowers on your stoves instead of leaves, im sitting with my Honey nice and warm sipping on a beer. Enjoy!
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alternativeheat
Minister of Fire
over filling never accomplished anything in my coal stove. Always was best to fill to the top of the fire brick. To fill more than that was just good for a nice ash bind up about 12 hours into the burn cycle or there abouts. I'd end up raking with a poker. That's all over filling ever got me in 35+ years of burning coal. Course my stove was not a Coal King that was built to be over filled.
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The hopper is only a few inches above the main coal bed. It only lets in what has been displaced by burning/settling.
Its like if you filled a soda bottle with sand and flipped it upside down and held about an inch fron the table top. Only so much sand would come out till some gets moved/displaced.
If you ever get back into coal (im assuming you not right now) try a hopper stove. Makes it that much easier. You'd like it I think.
alternativeheat
Minister of Fire
Or even better for some- a stoker. I had one for years and liked it. Sold with our old home and decided on the handfired due to more frequent power outages in this area.
Does that hopper stove have a blower, and if so, it still throws out heat during an outage? Nice that it works in a power outage.
You can get with or without blower. We got the blower. The stove throws a ton of radiant heat even with it off. We us the blower most of the time in the colder months.
It sounds like it works a lot better than those pellet stoves that don't use power we've seen lately.
alternativeheat
Minister of Fire
The whole original concept of a coal stove was to have no power ( think of the old spired parlor stoves much like the Chubby looked). They work silently heating with tons of radiant heat. To add a blower obviously enhances heat distribution.. Kind of like a wood stove with no blower but a much much slower heating curve with coal, so you get long duration heat. What I like about coal is my wife and I both have allergies, much of which is dust or pollen related. Pellets are dusty and it's wood dust so resins and pollen has to be there to some degree. What I don't care for about coal stoves is the large quantity of ash, as in a daily dump of the ash bin. Useless ash, it has no good use in your yard where wood ash is fairly neutral in that regard and much less of it. But anthracite coal is not particularly dusty and what there is doesn't bother us physically. And at that you can wet coal , it then leaves no dust at all. Water and snow have no ill effect on coal what so ever.
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