Heating with an Antique Coal Cookstove

[400lbsonacubseatspring]

We've been heating our house with an antique coal "range" since 2002. It does a respectable job, in most cases. There are some curiousities, however.

As I mentioned in previous posts, interior chimneys have been illegal in our area for quite some time. I have a clay-lined block chimney that goes up the outside of the house. As opposed to interior chimneys, the draft is somewhat lacking, and with burning coal, particularly anthracite, the risk of CO is always a winter worry. Heating with antiques poses the additional problem of not being even remotely airtight or gasketed, so there are many places hot gasses can escape from, if no better pathway is provided.

To "optimize" the transfer of heat from a cooking appliance, one must leave the oven door open. Sometimes, this cools the exhaust too much, creating even more of a problem with draft. Also, for those of you who never lived in a house with a coal or wood fired range, the contorted path that the exhaust gasses take to exit the stove is somewhat unique.

The gasses from the firebox (left hand side) pass over the oven box, then down through a thin passage on the right side of the oven to an even thinner passage beneath the oven, then into a funnelled casting in the rear that heats the backside of the oven, before entering the exhaust piping. Essentially, the gasflow goes around 5 sides of the six-sided cube.

As you can imagine, the velocity of the gasses, which do all this in their quest to exit upward, run out of velocity rather quickly.

In the days of interior chimneys, by the time you had the woodfire hot enough to put on some coal, the chimney was plenty warm enough to create a powerful suction. This is hardly the case with exterior chimneys, especially on cold nights.

The solution to all of this, I have found, is a draft inducer. These are little "paddlewheel" fans with the motor offset, out of the extreme heat. They were designed primarily to increase woodburning stoves' efficiency, but I figured, if they can handle the extremely hot gasses of wood, they should be able to handle the moderately hot hasses of anthracite coal. This has eliminated the problem to a large extent. It has the added effect of "pulling" air through the firebox, and making the coal burn hotter, which is usually required on the nights when draft is a particular problem.

Why do I think wood gasses are hotter? Because I can get my oven temperature to 600 degrees F with wood, but it is difficult to get it above 400 with coal. Results with soft coal may vary, as I've never used it.

The point of this post is to recommend these draft inducers for anyone having any sort of draft problems with their heating apparatus. They are relatively inexpensive, but the rewards provided are many.

You may wonder why even bother with all of this, and isn't there an inherent danger?

Yes, but it is an inexpensive way to heat, it is relatively clean, although far from environmentally sound, and the stove is always ready to cook something (which is nice), heat a kettle, or perk a pot of coffee.

Ultimately, I guess, the two biggest reasons for doing it are:
First, that the radiant heat from a coal fire "feels" good, all the way down to your bones and (more importantly) joints. This is something I really missed as a young adult, living without one.

Second, I grew up in a house that had one, and it just feels more like home. My grandfather spent most of his days in winter sitting next to the firebox of the stove, legs crossed, smoking Parodi's (those little black cigars), never saying much, but in retrospect, I know now he was daydreaming of being a cowboy, or crossing the yukon on a dogsled.

I'd come in from playing outside (children should go outside, no matter how cold it was), and thaw out sitting on the kitchen floor in front of him, and although we seldom spoke, I know he did as much pretending that day as I probably did, because, if I got sick, REALLY sick, I mean, ever as a child, be it flu, chickenpox, measels, whatever, he had a little trick.

He'd sit me on his lap, next to the stove, and in my ear, so quietly that no one else could hear, he'd sing to me, and in his songs were all the adventures and dreams that he spent those long hours thinking out. No one ever heard them but me, and I always felt so much better. I imagine he did too.

He was born in the 1890's and had seen the world come of age. He was on the giving and the receiving end of ethnic violence, in his day. He drove steam locomotives, and painted houses. He took apart every gift he ever got, just to see how it worked. He had many secrets. He only told them to sick little boys, to make them feel better.

His place was next to the coal stove.

[Virginia Mike]

Could you frame around and insulate your chimney? Why are interior chimneys illeagle.
Best,
Mike
Who also grew up with a coal stove. As I stood in front of it each morning and read "Warm Morning" on the front, I thought ; "Lier!"

[Lurker Carl]

Who also grew up with a coal stove. As I stood in front of it each morning and read "Warm Morning" on the front, I thought ; "Lier!"

Your comment had me laughing. Our new (new to us) coal stove was a "Warm Morning", the old one was a "Torrid Aire". Those names only rang true when the temperature outside was nice, because inside we were roasting because you never let a coal fire die until the end of the heating season. The Warm Morning was about 50% bigger than the Torrid Aire and really felt good after a cold day outside.

[ljw]

400'er, I enjoyed reading your story about your grandfather. My dad never talked too much, other than to tell me to "be careful" while working outside, and to chastise me when I wouldn't listen. I lived through it anyway. When I was growing up we had a gravity coal furnace in the basement that looked like an octopus with all the heating ducts going to the rooms. Later he converted it to natural gas, but still no blower. Many's the morning when I'd stand on the living room register directly above the furnace to keep warm. Pops came of age during the depression and never forgot how terrible life could be, at times. So I considered him very "frugal" with the gas, electric, and water. I have an old stove that I was wanting to fix up. That's on my "to do" list. One issue, though. You can tell me to mind my own beeswax if you want, I've been told that before. But I would replace that stove right away. It sounds too borderline for unattended use. And that includes while sleeping. Come on over to southwest Ohio and I'll give you a good stove that you don't have to worry about. It's like me. old, but durable. Larry

[Bigdog]

We used to have a wood / coal cookstove in our kitchen. It was a replica rather than an original but worked the same way.
We used it during the daytime only as the firebox was too small to bank overnight anyway. We had the same issues with drafting as it was connected to an outside chimney. I used to open the oven bypass damper and take a rolled newspaper, light it and stick it into the open damper to warm the flue. Once a little warm air started exiting the flue it was OK to light the fire. Otherwise, the smoke exited every joint or gap it could find. It was great for warming the kitchen but the boss found that the small firebox was too bothersome for serious cooking. It did produce some pretty tasty pots of soup though.....m-m-m-m-m-m-m! I'm hungry!

[400lbsonacubseatspring]

"Warm Morning" Stoves...I guess, technically, a parlour stove, but up here, we called them "Heaterolas" or "Heatrolas", were a popular brand in the east during the depression, and WWII. Many designs had a somewhat advanced system of 4 passages (one in each corner), which conducted the coal gasses up to the top, where they were burnt off. They were the most efficient parlour stoves of their day. They also manufactured stoves for Sears. I had one once, and it did do a respectable job of heating, and, if you let it burn down somewhat (they had very deep fireboxes), and added your charge of coal right before bedtime, you could, in effect, have a "warm morning". Sometimes, even a "hot morning".

I preferred the more conventional "heaterolas" of the pre-depression era, which did not have such deep fireboxes, but were more responsive, in that, if you had them banked and damped overnight, in the morning, a good shake, and a little more coal, along with opening the dampers would have the house plenty warm in an hour or so.

My most unpleasant "experiment" with antique heating technology was with the coal fired hot water heaters. Up here we called them "Jackstoves" or "Johnny stoves", but in other areas, I understand they were also called "bucket-a-day" stoves. Until I was 10, we had one in my grandparent's home, and when you had hot water, you had an endless supply, but, about half of the time, when you went to run the shower, you'd find that the stove had gone out. Half an hour to light the stove, and another hour to get the water up to "warm enough" and you were back to your shower. Somewhere in the 30 years in between, I forgot just how unpleasant this was, and at the same time I installed my cookstove, I installed my antique coal burning water heater.

I think the "record" for keeping it lit was 1 week, continuously. Sometimes, even with checking it during the middle of the night, I'd find the fire out. They seemed to have a mind of their own, and would either rage out of control, or grow cold inexplicably. The fireboxes were only about one and a half gallons in capacity, and I think that is the reason for the less-than-predictable results. Once you had it glowing red to the top, all dampers were closed tight, in hopes of controlling the rage. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not. The side effect of this, was that if I could keep it running, it used as much coal as the kitchen stove, just to heat a 70 gallon tank. The stove pipe had a long run, though, and the basement and upstairs floor was always warm, which, I suppose, was a good thing. If I would have insulated the tank (I tried once), I would have made a boiler out of it, when the fire got too hot, and we would have had hot water spewing from the blowoff valves.

I only did this for 1 year, and then installed an electric water heater, but left the coal-fired one in place "just in case", because I can generate enough electricity to run the well pump with my little generator, but not to run the water heater. We had gone through a 14 day blackout a few years ago, after hurricane Ivan, and the prospect of not having hot water again for 14 days was not a pleasant idea.

On a related note, we have not had a blackout lasting more than 4 hours since I bought my generator. This is due to a phenomenon I refer to as "Talismanic Effect" -- You know what I'm talking about.....It only rains when you don't bring your umbrella, but if you have it firmly in your hand, the sun is sure to come out.

[400lbsonacubseatspring]

Could you frame around and insulate your chimney? Why are interior chimneys illeagle.
Best,
Mike
Who also grew up with a coal stove. As I stood in front of it each morning and read "Warm Morning" on the front, I thought ; "Lier!"

Mike, the premise is, that in the event of a chimney fire, an exterior chimney is less likely to cause structural damage. The reality of it, however, is that since exterior chimneys must pass through the "eves" of the house, they are just as likely to cause damage at the roof line as any other sort of chimney.

Additionally, exterior chimneys accumulate much more tar, pitch, soot, and carbon than interior ones, making them much more likely candidates for chimney fires.

It is an old fire code law, that we have inherited from the 1950's, here, but is unlikely to change. This is a county comprised of entire blocks of "row homes" built from 1880-1930, by the coal companies for the miners, for the most part. They all have, out of necessity, antique, unlined interior chimneys. The fact that if one house has a serious chimney fire, the entire block burns, has biased people into believing that it is the fault of the chimneys being "interior", rather than the truth of the matter that the chimneys have failing mortar joints, and should be lined. The people who install boilers have taken it upon themselves to insist that new installations have their chimneys lined, as there is no law which supports this. Block fires, from heritage systems inherited by younger people who do not understand the necessity of maintaining their older chimneys continue to persist in this area, frequently.

It is easier, then, to continue being ignorant of reality, than educate people.

[jim turner]

I grew up here in Mo witha Rex Globe heating stove and a Sears cookstove had two interior chimneys I remember a chimney fire when i was about 12 years old scared me to death that thing roared like a tornado.

[Jackman]

Mr 400,

Good post, I have often thought about getting a coal boiler for my house. I have no experiance with coal but years back I did lots of oil boiler installs, and remember that for good draft you need a warm ,tall and unobstucted chimney. For those draft problem chimneys we installed either a draft inducer at the base or a Turbine cap. A draft inducer is just a small electric blower that mounted to the smoke pipe at the base to assist the draft they work but the constant fan noise is annoying to some. The turbine cap mounts at the top of the chimney and spins with either the outside breeze or the warmth of the coal fire below, the spinning turbine creats the draft. I would think that the turbine cap would solve the low draft problem, the turbine cap is inexspensive and an easy install.....