Wood and Coal Stove Advisory

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What About Coal Stoves?

Since smoke generated by Midwestern coal-fired utilities has been accused of causing acid rain down-wind to the East, you may be surprised to learn that the EPA does not regulate emissions from coal-burning stoves. A few jolly wags in the wood-heat business have suggested that Washington just may realize that there are more votes in the coal bins than in the wood boxes of America. But the reasons given by the regulators are persuasive.

First, the fuel used in ranges and parlor heaters is hard coal: low-sulphur/high-energy anthracite from Appalachian shaft mines rather than the soft, high-sulphur coal that is strip-mined for electric utilities. To those of us who love the fragrance of wood smoke, the fumes from burning anthracite do have a sulphuric, industrial smell. But coal produces few micro-particulates and only a fraction of the other toxins and pollutants of even a hot, oxygen-rich wood fire. Coal smoke may stink, but it stinks clean by EPA standards.

Second: you couldn't burn coal in an airtight, oxygen-starved, and smoky mode if you tried. Coal burns much hotter than wood, and so needs a firebox with a heat-retaining and burnout-resistent firebrick liner. Coal must rest on an open grate permitting a constant oxygen flow through the bed from below, or the fire will go out. Air must also be introduced to the top of the coal bed so combustibles in the smoke will burn. You can't close the draft of a properly designed coal stove. You can't improve its efficiency much either—60 percent is about tops.

So, you can buy a brand new coal stove for a fraction of the cost of a catalytic wood-burner. But, do you want to?

Our primary heating stove is a ten-year-old Russo 1900 C/W—a welded-steel stove that was designed to burn wood or coal. It has a firebrick-lined firebox and coal-type reciprocating roller grates above a large steel ash tray. The glass-windowed door has secondary oxygen-supply air holes at the top that can't be closed (for coal); however, the bottom draft beneath the roller grates can be closed completely (for wood). The EPA has ruled that such combination-fuel stoves can no longer be made or sold, as they burn neither fuel efficiently. I will disagree, having used both fuels successfully. To burn wood, I put magnets over the holes in the door and regulate draft from below. For coal, I remove the magnets so secondary-combustion air will flow over the coal bed to burn smoke, and I adjust the bottom draft as needed.

But coal is for people who thrive on schedules. Once started on a bed of red-glowing hardwood coals and built up layer by layer over an hour or so, a coal fire can be kept going all winter long. However, the coal bed must be shaken to remove ash from the bottom and recharged on top with a fresh shovel or two of fuel on a strict time schedule.

Now, I abandoned strict time schedules over 20 years ago at the same time I gave up Brooks Brothers suits, three-martini lunches, and business trips to Cleveland. And, I simply kept forgetting to tend the coal fire on time, and it would die. Or, I would open the draft doors too far to coax the normally dull red coal bed to give out a bright and cheery wood-like glow—and the stove would overheat and nearly drive us from the house. Or, I'd close the draft doors as for an airtight wood fire of an evening, and the next morning would find a bed of half-burned clinkers. You can't toss in a few sticks of pine to get a dead coal fire going again. The coal has to go cold enough to be pulled out and the whole thing restarted from scratch.

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