How to operate
A Coal Stove
Heating With Coal. How to Start a Coal Fire
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today I'm going to show you how to use
coal to heat your house hey everybody
welcome back to the homestead this is
come in with living traditions homestead
and the weather outside is terrible it
is cold as well see you down into the
single digits tonight we could even get
below zero with the windchill which for
Missouri is pretty cold and it's
supposed to stay that way for several
days so I thought that this would be the
perfect opportunity to show you guys how
to make a fire in your stove with coal
and how to keep that going on these
really cold days most of the time we
burn wood in our stove mostly because
it's free we can harvest it ourselves
and it does a really good job but during
really long stretches of cold weather we
actually like to burn coal sometimes now
I'll tell you this stove is designed to
burn both wood and coal not all stoves
are so if you have a stove make sure
that your stove is capable and designed
to burn coal otherwise you could wreck
your stove our stove is a D stove it is
the comfort max 75 and for our house
which is about 1400 square feet it does
a really really good job to heat our
entire house the type of coal that we're
going to be using is anthracite coal
this is not to be confused with charcoal
that you would use for your grill
charcoal is a man-made material used by
burning wood without oxygen to create
charcoal this is anthracite coal which
is a natural mineral a fossil fuels you
know millions of years old and needs to
be you know mined in order to get it out
of the ground one of the reasons that we
really like to burn coal during these
cold stretches is that once you get it
going it burns for
very long time at a very consistent
temperature and you really don't have to
do much with it unlike wood that burns
you know fairly fast like on this once
we get a good fire going you know we add
what about every four or five hours
we'll add a few more logs but with coal
once you get it going it's really like
every 12 hours maybe even a little
longer and you don't have to do anything
with it in between there so it works
really really well when you have a good
long cold stretch or when you want to
really keep the fire going really warm
all night long so it's a pretty easy
process of course you need coal we buy
it in bags that's the only way that I
know of at least here in the United
States that you can get it at least in
this part of the country so we buy it in
these bags we were actually given a
thousand pounds of coal free when we
bought our stove and we're still working
on that so we don't use it real often
but we do really like it when we use it
so the first thing I'm going to do is
get a good wood fire going in the stove
now in our stove the bottom is like a
metal grate now normally when you're
burning just wood there's a plate that
goes in there they kind of restrict some
of the air flow and it just makes it
burn more consistently for wood when
you're doing a coal fire you want to
make sure you take that plate out so
it's more of a you know open grate in
the bottom and you get better airflow
from the bottom up so I've already done
that I've taken that plate out and I'm
going to get a good wood fire started in
the stove I still have some coals left
from last night's fire that I'm going to
use to get this going and the way that I
like to get a fire going is what's
called a top-down fire our stove is what
they consider an east-west stove which
means the logs run this way and there's
also north so
stoves which are longer front to back
and you would put your logs in this way
so on our stove they go in east and west
so I'll put two or three big logs you
know in the bottom of the stove put my
old coals on top and then a little bit
of kindling to get a fire going on top
of those logs and that will burn down
it'll make a nice better wood coals on
the bottom of the stove once I get that
going I'll show it to you and I'll show
you the next step after that which will
be starting to add the coal to the fire
okay so you can see I have my logs in I
have my fire started on top of the logs
and we're gonna let this burn now for
probably a good hour hour and a half
before we start adding any coal we want
this wood to burn down into a nice bed
of coals before we start adding our
actual coal so you want to make sure you
have all of your baffles open so you
have good airflow and again we're just
gonna let this burn down for you know
anywhere from an hour to two hours
depending on how quickly the wood is a
that you have so I'm gonna shut the door
and we're gonna let this get started as
a fire and I'll come back and show you
the next step when we get ready to add
some coal
okay so my wood fire is going really
well there's already a pretty good bed
of coals down the bottom I can see on my
temperature gauge that it's already into
the green which means it's you know had
a good temperature so what I'm gonna do
now is just kind of smooth out the coals
from the wood and then we're going to
start putting the actual call on top so
this is this is what the coal looks like
again this is anthracite coal it's a
hard call it burns very very clean and
but it does take a little you know it's
not super easy to get licked but once
it's lit it does a really good job so
what I'm going to do again is smooth out
the coals on top and then we're going to
shovel on probably three or four
decent-sized these little shovel loads
of the coal under the top of those
let those start to catch and we'll add
more call about every 20 to 30 minutes
until we have a good bed of coal in the
stove okay so you can see there's a good
bed of coals here on top and my lot my
bigger logs are really starting to be
catch so that's good now again I'm just
going to smooth those out on top
and then I'm going to take several of
these
[Music]
that's about good I don't want to put so
much it then it gets smothered out so
I'm going to put that in for now that's
three shoulder load and we're just going
to shout it up and we're gonna let that
start to catch now you'll notice when it
starts to catch you'll start to see like
a real blue kind of flame and that's
exactly what you want once we see that
going good we'll add more and then we'll
just keep adding more and more until the
entire wood stove is filled up on the
bottom with a good bed of probably I
don't know five to six inches of coal on
the bottom and that will keep us going
for a good 12 hours it'll probably take
in total about 240 pound bags to get
that initial bed of coals going on the
bottom okay so it's been about 30
minutes and the initial coal that I put
in has caught and it's it's burning
pretty good so I'm going to put more
coal in now I'm going to spread out
what's in there I'm gonna put more coal
on top this time I'm going to put quite
a bit more in I'm going to cover up you
know quite a bit of the bottom with with
a good layer of coal and we're gonna get
that going and then again in about 30
minutes if that is caught we will do
this all over again so this time I'm
gonna try shaking a little bit in here
and put a pretty good layer down in the
bottom now you can see the fire kind of
coming up through the coal that's
exactly what you want we're just going
to shut this and again we'll leave it
Karl about a half hour and then we'll
add more coal again and this next time
we'll even be able to add more okay so
it's been about another 30 minutes or so
and you can see that the bed of coals is
really going well now so now I'm going
to add the rest of this bucket of coal
to the top and that will give us a nice
bed of coals and I'm just going to keep
doing this every time I see that it's
going really well I'm going to add more
until we have this completely filled to
the top of the firebox and now one thing
that I did mention is that when you do
this what you want to do is just one
corner I don't think it really matters
what corner but one corner you want to
always leave that open like not not put
nuke all in one corner and that will
allow the heat from the other coal to
kind of spread better
I'm not remember I don't remember where
I learned that but it was on a video
that I watched and that's what they said
to do and I can tell you it works really
well it helps the new call family catch
quicker so that's what I'm going to do
I'm going to put this in and I'll leave
the back corner kind of open and then
we'll come back in about another 30
minutes okay so you can see I have the
nuke bed of coals on top that'll get
started and you see I've just left that
back corner open that again will allow
the new coal to light a little easier
will also allow some of the gases that
off of the new call to have a place to
kind of burn off and I just burn more
efficiently all right it's been about
four hours since the time that we
started getting our fire going and now
we have a beautiful coal fire I Sarah's
gonna zoom in here so you guys can see
just how beautiful those coals are but
now that this is going again I won't
have to do anything with this until
tomorrow morning about every 12 hours
you just take your handle over here on
the side and you just shake the coal a
little bit so you let some of the fine
particles drop through and then I'll
just add a little more coal on top and
really it's it's as easy as that once
you get a coal fire going you really
don't have to mess with it at all I just
went look at the thermostat in the house
and it's currently 75 degrees in our
house which honestly is a little on the
warm side but overnight like I said it's
supposed to get down below zero and this
will keep the house beautiful all night
long so you guys I hope that this was
helpful to you if you're debating about
you know what type of stove to get for
your homestead you know I would highly
consider getting one that can burn both
the wood and coal again ours is a d/s
stove it's called the Comfort max 75 and
we've been very very happy with it you
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so much for coming back and until next
time thanks for stopping by the
homestead and God bless
