How hot does your wood stove get?

[Hermio]

I use a masonry heat storage fireplace by Tulikivi. Surface temperature never gets above 200F. The 9000# of soapstone store heat but do not get that hot. That allows the fire to burn hot and fast rather than smolder, resulting in higher efficiency, lower pollution and no creosote. And it looks great, too. The drawback? Expensive!!!

 

[OM617YOTA]

9000lbs of soapstone would require me to make some structural changes to my house, too.

I've thought about adding thermal mass to my stove as well, but don't want to bother with the structural side of it.

 

[user 122190]

Should only be used in stoves designed for coal. Will warp and/or crack others.

As I said a little bit added in might be OK.

Yeah, I know in WWII England most stoves were burning coal, and as the war progressed, people began switched to wood (furniture) as coal became scarce, and bombed burnables became available. I had been curious about going to opposite direction.

 

[user 122190]

I use a masonry heat storage fireplace by Tulikivi. Surface temperature never gets above 200F. The 9000# of soapstone store heat but do not get that hot. That allows the fire to burn hot and fast rather than smolder, resulting in higher efficiency, lower pollution and no creosote. And it looks great, too. The drawback? Expensive!!!

My stove is iron and soapstone. A big difference in the two's temperature. When I laser scan for the temp, I record the highest. Most of my neighbors have all iron stoves and those really pump out the heat, and heat up real fast. Course they cool down very quickly also

 

[Catfish044]

Burn em both but my stove is set up for coal , but has secondary air and air wash for burning wood

 

[moresnow]

Any chance you have a thread on your experience with this somewhere? TLC 2000? I'd like to hear how it has worked out. New thread perhaps?

 

[sean donato]

You need different draft controls for burning coal. My furnace is technically duel fuel. But it doesn't burn coal well enough for me to switch over. Nor does it have shaker grates anymore. Not that they are nessisary, but certainly make life easier. Only difference between my model and the wood only model is I have under fire draft control as well as the standard draft control..

 

[Smitty Smithsonite]

How expensive is coal up there? And readily available?

Right now it has gone through the roof - nearly DOUBLED in price this year alone. I had a 12-ton stockpile, thank God, from 2020. I paid $284 and change per ton after delivery fees. Now it's at $500 a ton BEFORE delivery fees, which have also gone WAY up. Oil would have to be $3.64 a gallon to compete with coal, even at $500 a ton. Oil just dropped considerably over the past month down to $4.12 a gallon, but coal is still cheaper.



What I'm burning is anthracite coal. Different animal from bituminous, which can light easily, but smoke and burn with low BTUs. (however there are some rare forms of bituminous that have a higher BTU output than anthracite). Anthracite is hard, very shiny, and difficult to ignite, but once lit burns for HOURS. My handfired stoves would go 24 hours without being touched. It's like when a wood fire is at it's peak - all red hot coals - but for 24 hours straight. VERY hot, yet stack temps never got above 350° as an extreme high end. Normally it was 250° when the stove itself was at 650° or so. Roughly 13,000 BTUs per pound. Better than the best wood pellets, and you can store them anywhere and not worry about flooding, or field mice, since it's been in the ground for a million years or so.

If you try to light a few pieces of anthracite, it won't burn. It only burns good when piled up deep, with adequate airflow from the bottom. You can poke a fire and extinguish it in seconds in the right conditions. It's a BIG learning curve from wood! That's why there's an entire forum dedicated to coal burning called Coalpail.com . I've been on there since '05, in my super heavy drinking days. I've got some interesting posts in there from then. Anyway, anthracite burns HOT from end to end, front to back - it's ALL hot, not just in spots. Best way to heat your home on the planet. Nobody can tell you're burning it. ZERO smoke, ZERO steam out the chimney, even well below zero. Not even a hint of anything, except heat ripples. It also REMOVES creosote as an added bonus. You can burn coal in a lined masonry chimney for decades and never clean it without issue. The flyash will stick to the sides, that's about it. No sparks to worry about, and temps are low, so fire danger is zero.

It isn't coal that's acidic, but the ash, ONLY when mixed with high humidity or water. It will eat right through a 304 stainless chimney pipe in just a couple months. Black pipe, forget about it. In that same timeframe, there will be nothing left. For most people this will never be an issue, but if you have a basement like mine, you've got to clean out your until EVERY spring and CANNOT wait, or, you'll need to keep the unit warm all summer. It even ate up a pair of stainless hot water coils I left uncleaned all summer. ONE summer!

I've got pictures of my learning curve with my wet basement ...









2 months in my basement cold, uncleaned:


Same conditions except 304 stainless (covered in pinholes):

 

[sean donato]

Yikes, never even seen issues like that with a coal stove.

 

[Smitty Smithsonite]

Yeah, not many people have basements as wet and as humid as mine. Never got below 50% down there, even with a Harman Mark III running flat out!

 

[Catfish044]

That’s a wet basement

 

[Catfish044]

Any chance you have a thread on your experience with this somewhere? TLC 2000? I'd like to hear how it has worked out. New thread perhaps?

I don’t but I could , we love the stove

 

[Smitty Smithsonite]

That’s a wet basement

Indeed! It's all ledge around here. Water sits just 4' below the surface, or less.

 

[moresnow]

Uffda, that is waaay to much h20 for me. No wonder you drank hard

 

[Bill G]

I was referencing an old book/movie Fahrenheit 451, wasn’t trying to be exact.

Great book. A staple in US high school reading and relevant to today.....4 screens.....what do have now?

 

[woodchuckcanuck]

We use an Auburn thermometer for our wood stoves. The one in the house I have set for 680ºF. In the workshop its set for 480ºF (smaller stove). The high pitch alarm rings when it triggered. it can be set for a high temp and a low temp. Also has an option to plug in a red light as a visual aid for those hearing imparied. Something I will need in the near future. Been using it for years now.

 

[Patrick1903]

Indeed! It's all ledge around here. Water sits just 4' below the surface, or less.

Wow! Are there any options to resolve that, ie sump pump, French drain for waterproofing, etc?

 

[woodchuckcanuck]

Here's what that digital thermostat sounds like when the alarm rings.

 

[Smitty Smithsonite]

Wow! Are there any options to resolve that, ie sump pump, French drain for waterproofing, etc?

Yeah, and they all involve HUGE sums of money I'll probably never have.

When I built my shop, we put a French drain in from the house to the drain pipe, right at the corner of the house where a majority of the water comes in. The equipment and stone was already there, I figured I'd better do it or it'll never get done. Had to put French drains all around my shop, since that was the wettest part of the whole property. That one drain from the house to the pipe made a HUGE difference. Now there's only flowing water down there when it rains. As soon as the rain stops, the flow stops, and things begin drying out. This NEVER happened before.

What this place really needs is a French drain all the way along 3 sides of the house, aiming towards the corner of the house that already has one. That would take care of the roof runoff that ends up down there.

This is what it looks like right now after 1" of rain since yesterday with an already maxed out water table. There's actually dry spots all around down there. That NEVER used to happen before I put in that one French drain. Used to be 100% soaked down there:

 

[Hermio]

9000lbs of soapstone would require me to make some structural changes to my house, too.

I've thought about adding thermal mass to my stove as well, but don't want to bother with the structural side of it.

We planned for it in the house design. The fireplace is supported on a masonry block foundation that sits atop a footer that is two feet deep. I burn about 6 cords per year. I estimate that covers about 50% of our heating needs. It can keep the central area of our house warm, but our wings do not get much heat from it, as there is no air circulation system.