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Can I Burn Wood in My Coal Stove?

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  • Can I Burn Wood in My Coal Stove?

    I recently inherited a small coal, pot bellied stove from the estate of a dear friend of mine. His family was originally from Pennsylvania and it had been in his family for generations. This is relevant because my pride in ownership of this stove means I am not going to dispose of it even if I cant use it.

    Coal is not very easy to come by in Texas. In a PAW situation it would be more trouble than its worth. I would like to use this for heat in my Garage/Workshop. If I use wood I'm going to have to special cut it to fit through the door.

    Any of you have any experience with wood in these stoves? I would hate to go to all of the trouble of installing it to find out it's not going to work for me?

  • #2
    My understanding is that you can burn wood in a coal stove but not the other way a round. Coal stoves are thicker steel (or cast iron) coal burns hotter, so the wood should not be a problem in the coal stove.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by eeyore View Post
      My understanding is that you can burn wood in a coal stove but not the other way a round. Coal stoves are thicker steel (or cast iron) coal burns hotter, so the wood should not be a problem in the coal stove.
      I honestly never thought about a coal stove being thicker, but that makes sense. Thank you for that awesome information!

      I guess what I am trying to find out now is: with having to cut and feed this coal stove smaller chunks of wood because of the size of the door, will it be a practical heat source? Or will I be feeding this thing all the time and not get efficient heat vs. fuel output?

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      • #4
        Wood is just fine to burn in a coal stove. Coal cannot be burned in a wood stove as it burns too hot. Usually wood in a coal stove is less efficient than wood in a wood stove. Be careful of gum build up in your flu pipe with green wood(especially pine) as it can start a chimney fire.

        Doug

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        • #5
          Originally posted by eeyore View Post
          My understanding is that you can burn wood in a coal stove but not the other way a round. Coal stoves are thicker steel (or cast iron) coal burns hotter, so the wood should not be a problem in the coal stove.
          This is the way I understand it also. No actual experience with coal however, all our stoves are wood. I have trouble finding smithing coal around here, awesome regular coal would be hard to find also. Wood is 10 feet away and renewable ;)
          www.homesteadingandsurvival.com

          www.survivalreportpodcast.com

          "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed..."

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          • #6
            Thank yall for the great replies! I think Im going to go ahead with it. I will get back to ya after I try it out.

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            • #7
              Don't know the dimensions of the door or how "deep" the firebox is, but hopefully you can reasoanbly long pieces of wood (18"?) into it longwise if you split its width down to fit through the door.

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              • #8
                We burned alot of wood in the Army in those pot bellied stoves, just makes sure the pipes dont get clogged and clean them from time to time.
                Knowledge is Power, Practiced Knowledge is Strength, Tested Knowledge is Confidence

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by All Talk View Post
                  Don't know the dimensions of the door or how "deep" the firebox is, but hopefully you can reasoanbly long pieces of wood (18"?) into it longwise if you split its width down to fit through the door.
                  The stove is higher than it is wide. The door is pretty small. It just occurred to me this morning that i could potentially drop longer pieces in the removable top cap instead of using the door.

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                  • #10
                    On allot of potbellied stoves, you started the fire from the ft. door, then you can feed it at the top with somewhat longer pieces of wood. The average size will only take 12" or so long, but you can drop via a top hole/cover an 18" pieces. This hole/cover normally will take a specially fitted teapot also IF you can find one. Nice gift and wish I had the one my Dad had.
                    harrya

                    "I (did, on several occasions) swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, against ALL enemies, foreign AND domestic, and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same." And when I left, they never asked me to recant.

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                    • #11
                      my grandpa had a coal burner and a coal box in his garage...built his shop and he got a gas furnace but had the coal stove in the garage. Unless you have one of those high efficiency wood burning stove/inserts that uses either a catalytic converter or the non-catalytic converter you won't get that much efficiency out of them...I would assume that they could make one for coal but not sure that they do.

                      https://www.blazeking.com/EN/wood-inserts.html fireplace insert

                      https://www.blazeking.com/EN/wood-stoves.html free standing wood stove

                      I saw Mike Holmes talk about this brand on his show....they leave hardly any ash, high efficiency (burns the fumes just like a catalytic converter does in a car or via high temperature), hardly any soot (less than 10 gr./hr of particulate).
                      "It's a trap!!!!" -- Admiral Ackbar

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                      • #12
                        Very informative. Thank you!

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by harrya View Post
                          On allot of potbellied stoves, you started the fire from the ft. door, then you can feed it at the top with somewhat longer pieces of wood. The average size will only take 12" or so long, but you can drop via a top hole/cover an 18" pieces. This hole/cover normally will take a specially fitted teapot also IF you can find one. Nice gift and wish I had the one my Dad had.
                          Ahh! I have seen those before in pics. I will keep an eye out for one and thanks for the heads up!

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by eeyore View Post
                            My understanding is that you can burn wood in a coal stove but not the other way a round. Coal stoves are thicker steel (or cast iron) coal burns hotter, so the wood should not be a problem in the coal stove.
                            coal stoves also have a grate and a smaller firebox, back in the 40s-early 50s, we had coal stoves, we burnt wood in them during the day time and banked them up with coal at night.

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