Buying coke for Parkray room heater/fire

[Deleted User]

I currently buy from my local coal merchant a smokeless fuel called 'Supercoke' as it is the cheapest per 50kg sack for my Parkray room heater / closed fire.

I want to know if this coke is the most efficient or not?

Would it be worth spending more money for a different named coke if it burns longer / gives off more heat.

Any solid fuel experts here?

Thanks

catford

I've got one of these and they are very hard to master,its taken me 10yrs to really get the hang of it.I find that phurnacite burns the hottest for the longest time-but its ***expensive. I tried small bags of various others but it burnt away too soon. The most successful dodge I found was to put a firebrick about the size of a housebrick(which I started with) in the front of the fire b4 you light it. It cut down the size of the fire and kept the rads and water hot but used less fuel.
At the end of the day though you only get what you pay for!! I even burn logs on mine-they're quite good and I collect odd branches when I see them,not attached though.
Good luck this winter:beer:
PS. going to try some anthracite large nuts soon so i'll keep you posted if its any good.

Mikeyorks

There's a pdf on solid fuel types here (3rd section down) that might be mildly useful?

http://www.solidfuel.co.uk/pdfs/index.htm

But it does tend to concentrate on 'asking your coalman'! We used to have a couple of multi-fuel stove and ours specialised in delivering Polish rubbish that had more stone in than the local dry stone walls. After having to re-bag a ton of it twice, you'd think he would have learned.

Eventually (non smokeless) burnt cheap housecoal with seasoned hardwood logs applied once the smoke had burnt off the coal. That gave off around 12kw of heat when opened up a bit. And would burn around 3 hours at that sort of output. Problem was re-fuelling it - as couldn't budge the dog off the hearth rug on Winter nights.

[Deleted User]

Thanks for the advice. Just had the Parkray installed in May of this year so it's still very new and easy to work/light!

I did checkout the Solid Fuel website but it doesn't really say which is best.

I may go and get some small bags of different named cokes and try them out.

:cool:

Stevelxls

We are shortly to move to a house with a Parkray G series heater and boiler.
As I am not in a smoke control area, does anyone know if std housecoal, wood or even peat can be used on this?
The Parkray site put this down as a smokeless heater, but as they also do similar looking multifuel heaters (also with glass fronts) does anybody know what the main operational/construction difference is (if any?) between a smokeless heater and a coal heater, as it would be cheaper to run it on non-smokeless.

Many thanks.

stevejd58

Had one of these years ago and made the mistake of moving to propane some years ago. No gas locally. result, big bills nowdays (39.5p/lt) and condensation probs, a thing you don't get with solid fuel
Used to use a mix of anthracite nuts and phurnacite type fuels. House coal is no good really as the cheaper fuels cause clinker build up and that eventually causes your fire bars to sag, ckeap enough to replace but a pain tho.
Going back to parkray or a charnwood once this winters over and the tank empty.

auntyjuju

Hi, my daughter has just moved into a house with a parkray, confusing or what? It doesnt run the boiler its just a fire with a glass front and a dial on the side. Please tell me, can we burn logs on this? it has a chimney, I got some coke and kindling to start it up, it worked ok but it will be expensive, we can get plenty of wood for free so that would be good. Any more advice would be great,

auntyjuju

Hi, my daughter has just moved into a house with a parkray, confusing or what? It doesnt run the boiler its just a fire with a glass front and a dial on the side. Please tell me, can we burn logs on this? it has a chimney, I got some coke and kindling to start it up, it worked ok but it will be expensive, we can get plenty of wood for free so that would be good. Any more advice would be great,

[Deleted User]

auntyjuju wrote: »

Hi, my daughter has just moved into a house with a parkray, confusing or what? It doesnt run the boiler its just a fire with a glass front and a dial on the side. Please tell me, can we burn logs on this? it has a chimney, I got some coke and kindling to start it up, it worked ok but it will be expensive, we can get plenty of wood for free so that would be good. Any more advice would be great,

Hi, did you get it going? it should be filled with water around the back and sides which then goes to heat up your water and rads?

milner57

Hi, I thought I would post here for the first time as i am a coalmerchant and can hopefully give some advice,
I would recomment phurnacite, but it is about the best fuel you can get for roomheaters (term used for fires with glass doors but not to be confused with multifuels boilers) and a bag/sack should cost roughly £20 - £21, that is for 50kg, there are cheaper fuels available,
taybrite aprox £17.00-£18.50
maxibrite aprox £19.00 - £20.00
these are manfactured fuels and will be the same quality where ever you buy them from,
anthracite either large (stovenuts) or small (stovesse) aprox £15.00-£20.00
there is a big difference in price for anthracite as it comes straight out of the ground on to your fire and there are many different places it comes from in the world, with many difference of quality, personally i would not bother with cheap ones as i have found them to sometimes be worse than the bag they came in.
MOST FUELS WILL BE CHEAPER FROM A COALMERCHANT THAN FROM THE LOCAL GARAGE OR GOD FORBID DIY STORES OR GARDEN CENTRES
LOGS should NOT be used on roomheaters, however kindling is fine for starting a fire
I have noticed a few people are giving the price they pay, but without giving an amount i.e 25kg or 50kg is doesn't mean much, i always try to quote prices for 50kg as this is the most common size sold by coalmerchants.
also if you buy half a tonne (10 x 50kg) discount usually start to come in to play, but if you want them in 25kg plastic bags some merchants (but not ME) charge a small amount on top as there is considerable more work with them
Please remember to always empty your ashes regularly as a build up can cause the grate/bars to burn out as the cold air comng up from underneath cools them
and most of all ALWAYS BUY YOUR FUEL FROM A MERCHANT THAT IS IN
"THE APPROVED COALMERCHANTS SCHEME"

A._Badger

Just a gentle vote for Maxibrite from me. In my last place I had a Little Wenlock multifuel stove and having tried a lot of alternative fuels, I came to the conclusion that Maxibrite was the best value for that stove. It burns wonderfully hot!

Also, a word of support for milner75. A lot of younger people simply don't know there are such people as coal merchants - so they buy from garage forecourts, hardware stores or even (just as he says) ludicrously priced DIY stores. In my experience, a proper, old-fashioned coal merchant is almost always a better source, not just in terms of price, but because of the advice they can offer. Certainly, the local chap I use is a mine of information! Sorry about the pun (it is true, though!)