Ah yeah COAL...thats what i burn. Nut coal. I use only 2 ton a season to heat my 2000 ft sq home. A hand fed stove to boot. Load it in the AM shake it down after work let her burn down some and good and hot until 9 pm or so and load her up again. Cant beat the heat! ,Larry
I agree! I just bought a half-ton of chestnut here in RI, and it cost about $75. I pick it up in my pickup truck as needed at the coal yard. I have sometimes had it delivered in 3-ton loads.
I have a Jotul coal stove (it is tall and about 12 inches square). They do not import them anymore, unfortunately.
It is a great stove. I have it between my kitchen and living room and it has burned as long as two weeks at a time without going out.
I can still buy parts for it from my Jotul dealer. I have replaced the grate several times, as well as the baffle at the top of the stove which tends to burn out because of the high heat the coal delivers.
You are correct - I fill mine about every 12 hours and - except in the coldest weather - it pretty much heats the whole house.
When I looked at my post, I said my Jotul coalstove has burned for 2 weeks without going out. I don't mean it will burn that long on one fill of coal! What I mean is that the "clinkers" build up so much after a week or so that I have to let it go out, clean it out thoroughly and start all over again.
I have seen it burn as long as 14 hours or so on one fill, but only that long if the drafts are closed way down and not much heat is being put out. Did you ever have the coal gas blow after you have put in a fresh load? Boy, that will get your attention!
I live in pine country and I always burn lots of dry Ponderosa pine. It won't hold a fire overnight, I use oak or other species for that. But I always make kindling out of pine and then burn pine hot for the first few hours of fire. Nothing warms your house up quicker than pine. Then I throw some overnight wood on the coals, let it get burning well, then bank the fire for the night. I have never had a creosote problem by burning wood in this way. But I have a modern, high performance Lopi stove. These modern technology stoves burn so hot that chimney pitch build-up is seldom a problem, like the old low temp. burning wood stoves. I clean my chimney twice yearly out of habit, but I really have never needed to with the high temp. stove.