[Public-List] Solid fuel stove - What to burn?

[mainstay at csolve.net]

Hello gents -

We have a Dickinson wood stove in SURPRISE.   I've tried several fuels  
in it, here are our observations:

Wood - easy to burn but burns too hot and too fast.  This is partly  
because the Dickinson is quite leaky with regard to air...you can't  
really shut it down.  We also noticed that burning wood lets a lot of  
soot/sparks up on deck - not good!

Coal - 'acorn coal' if you can find it is great.  It's tough to light  
but once it's going it is evenly hot and burns a long time.  I've been  
warned not to leave the ash in the stove long because the sulfer in it  
makes acid with humidity and can rot out the steel in the stove.

Wood charcoal - easy to find, easy to light, nice even heat.  Down  
sides are that it's dirty, and in an average bag we tend to prefer the  
big pieces in order to avoid handling the smaller bits...which means  
we only find about 1/3 of a bag is usefull.  On the other hand, it's  
cheap!

Charcoal briquetts - cheap, easy to find, easy to light, not so sooty  
as wood charcoal, burn slowly and not too hot.   Downside... makes a  
huge amount of ash.

last - make sure ventillation is good!

Gord #426 SURRPISE


Quoting "Daniel Sternglass" <dans at stmktg.com>:

>
>> Jim... What do you mean by solid fuel? Isobar came with a good sized 'pot
>> bellied stove' sorta, which I've never used and has been stored in my
>> garage attic. It has an ingenious design to fit in a fiddle on the port
>> settee with a charlie noble stack through a removable scuttle in the cabin
>> top. It even has a cooktop. I've sometimes thought of trying it out, but
>> I'm a fair weather sailor; winter sailing is not my dish. Besides, I'm not
>> sure what to burn in it. It was probably made before the days of packaged
>> wood chips, which might work well. Otherwise ,I can't see keeping a stock
>> of cordwood in the forepeak. A bag of coal is probably the most efficient
>> but tough to find at your local marina. Can a wood stove burn coal
>> efficiently or vice versa?
>>
>> Bob Kirk
>> Isobar #181
>
> Jim, Bob,
>
> I have a similar "Fasco" heat stove in my 1966 A-30. I learned from  
> the previous owner that (in 1986) that the thing to burn in those  
> stoves at that time was the sheets of charcoal briquettes that you  
> can buy that are made up with compressed cardboard. In my case, I  
> only needed 2 or 3 of those little "Brix" to generate quite a bit of  
> heat. Haven't run it in 10-15 years, but those worked very well,  
> also easy to light.
>
> "Brix" don't seem to be made any more, though I thought I had seen  
> something like that fairly recently. A Google search for 'self  
> lighting charcoal' shows some options.
>
> --Dan Sternglass
> Watcher of the Skies, #201, 1966, Cayuga Lake, Ithaca, NY
>
> dans at stmktg.com
> mobile: +1607-592-8012
>
> Strategic Marketing Associates
> 403 Highgate Road
> Ithaca, NY 14850
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